Is Sun Java Certification all that?
# 2003-09-09 16:16:12 -0400 | Java | 14 CommentsI replied to a post on the CJUG mailing list today. Ching was asking whether he should be bothered to get any of the Sun Java certifications. My comments:
> As a recent graduate, I was wondering what industry/employers think > about Sun's Java certification?I work for a small Java/J2EE software development company, and I’m involved in our recruitment process. So here is my $0.02 (which may not reflect the views of Cortex):
We almost exclusively ignore any of those “certified java programmer” credentials on someone’s resume. To be more specific:
a) If we see an extremely LOW score, then that is telling us something useful.
b) If we see an extremely HIGH score, then we still interview the person and give them a good grilling on Java… we have met people that get a high score but don’t have the high skills we might expect.
c) If we see someone who is not “Java Certified”, then we still interview the person and give them a good grilling on Java… we know lots of great Java coders that aren’t certified (ie; half our company!).
So that’s the view from a small software development company. But that is certainly not the only view. And to be cynical for a moment (and probably more cynical than I am entiled to be), government-type organisations and recruitment firms find it easy to give a resume a “tick” if it has “Java Certification”; which may mean the difference between getting an interview and not when you are up against a pile of hundreds of resumes.
> Would getting Sun certified be good professional development or would > other options (eg: masters study) be more relevant/useful? I would like > to think that I will move on to architecture/design but would like to > maintain some programming expertise.
If you have the opportunity to pick up some certification, esp if your company is paying for it, then go for it. It does no harm — unless you fail ;-)
Has anyone had an experience where they know that having such certification has helped someone actually get a job? I find it hard to believe that not having Java certification would count negatively against someone. But I certainly have narrow view of the whole Java job market, so I’d be interested in any comments.
Some people might say that part of the value of Java certification is that it allows an employer to quickly determine whether a candidate is worth considering. But that has to be crap. Say even 80% of Java developers have such certification. I would be in that 20% of uncertified developers, and you would probably want to employ me. :D
Some people might say that part of the value of Java certification is that it could be part of a coder’s career self-development activities. But that must be crap, too. Do you really learn anything by doing the exam. Well, I suppose you could; you may well be exposed to APIs that you might not have had experience with yet (Swing, etc.).
Anyhoo, if you have an interesting story, do tell.
One of the benefits not mentioned, is that you’ll probably study for such an exam, and therefor learn…
It may not be beneficial for someone with a comp sci degree under their belt anyway, but revision is not a bad thing :)
The Java certifications are excellent. If you can do a Java exam without studying you would have to be extremely well read and very experienced. You would certainly have to have a lot more than just a computer science degree. I thought I knew JSP until I did the study for the Web Component Developer exam. This forced me to look at alternate and better ways of doing things that I had been doing before. It also forced me to really understand how JSP worked and what was happening beneath the servlet engine covers.
If you think you do know a lot about Java then it certainly would not hurt to do the exam. It is quite cheap at only $250 + GST. Quite a few other certifications force you to do one or two weeks training first, which cost about $5,000 per week. These are just excuses for the certifying company to make money. To their great credit, Sun doesn’t work like that.
Another good thing about certification is that it shows you are committed to that particular technology, not just passing through hoping to get a job. When I hire people, certification is definitely near the top of the list of prerequisites. To my mind, any person employed in IT not undertaking certification, or some other form of formal study, is not a computing professional. All professionals undertake ongoing education, those who don’t are swept into their own little technology backwater and are soon left well behind.
Bill, fair enough. Good points.
I work for a government contracting company, and certifications seem to be important in that sector. It seems there are some contracts that require certified programmers. Though I’m not sure how high a level of certification. I’ve taken the first one (certified programmer for 1.4) and I realize that anybody could pass it by just studying a bit. If you’ve been a java developer for any amount of time, you should pass it without studying. IMHO, the questions only measure if you know the constructs and a few key concepts, not if you’re a "good" programmer. Most of the "tricky" questions are really just horribly written code that hopefully nobody would write. I think the second test (certified developer) is more in that direction — you have to actually write code.
ok in my point of view ,certification can help you for 50% in jobs. The main goal in passing
certification is to find the errors, and performance problem in your application programs.
as my pal told that there are many good java developers in his concern ,that are not java certified.
yes, can be good in writing tons and tons of code with good logic .but when an error or bugs occurs
they will search like a pencil in sea.they are not good in spotting out in errors.(what is causing the problem).
if ask Sun certified he willl clearly spot out.coz he knows what will be a
(default value,or accesing null values) causing an error etcc.
I just took and passed the SCJP 1.5 exam and my opinion is that without at least a month of study most “experienced” Java programmers would fail.
The exam is very difficult with most questions being related to generics, threads, and obscure “what will the compiler or JVM do” questions. As somebody
who hires Java developers, I will interview anyone with the 1.5 cert and some real world experience. Even before someone with a CS degree. Actually,
many of the CS degree holding people I’ve interviewed in the past few years have been either incompetent morons, or ubercoders who wouldn’t function
well in a corporate environment. That whole slacker genious thing is so 1997. Get certified. It can’t hurt.
I see them as a way to learn the technology. I am that kind of person who wouldn’t go for anything unless I know for sure that I am gonna receive I omeI am gonna receive something after the effort. Anyways, I can tell u that my first java certification helped me get a job at the world’s ;argest enterprise software company.
I could not agree more with your view. I had to choose 4 years ago between getting a certification and learning J2EE and emerging popular frameworks like
Struts etc. I opted for the latter and it worked out very well for me. I believe more in practical knowledge and skills as opposed to academic knowledge.
In my point of view certification has its own worth. Developrs may code bundles of programs, it doesnot mean that
they r worthful, becoz a developer is a good programmer only if he develops a code without bugs & errors.
In such cases certified programmers plays a major role, since they undergo rigourous preperation rathar than writing code they debug the code hence becomes perfect an builds grip on that code or program. Certification should be give maximum importance & weightage.
It even helps us in the interviews also in getting job, there are some clients who specifically looks for certified programmers only.
My request is to take up certification and be the one among worthful guys.
Note: CODING IS NOT IMPORTANT, ITS A PART ONLY. DEBUG IS IMPORTANT, IT COVERS ALL AREAS.
A recent study suggests that 25% software companies in USA were looking for certified candidates. It takes more than a month time to prepare throughly, and get the basics right. If one gets a score of more than 85% it reflects that he/she knows fundas in that topic well.
In my opinion certification is an addon if one is switching a job .
It makes your java knowledge more accurate & gives u an insight on the fundamental behaviour of JVM.
In my opinion, these certifications are a way to ascertain your self about being a good java programmer and nothing else
as these certification programs just check the logical behaviour of the codes and the way in which the JVM would compile these codes. These certifications donot increase your knowledge about java language as a whole.
Thus I would say that if one wants to chage his field of expertise , and of course to be judged better as a programmer, certifications are helpful.
well, i would like to know about how to prepare for the SCJP exam and how much time is required for the same.
certifications are very necessary… as one who doesnt get certified can write a program very well…. but that person won’t ever understand or xplain to others how that program behaves…
getting certified is the main benefit for getting entered in MNC - this certification itself is a prooof of your coding standard….
and any certification = particular standard knowledge…!!!
MNC companies like TCS, L & T infotech, Wipro always prefer certified programmers and this is the fact.. yeah, small companies hire normal programmers as the payscale of certified programmer is higher - hope you’re getting my point…..!
In My opinion the perception that certifications especially the sun certifications help people to find nice jobs is not totally correct. As getting
Sun Certifications with a score above 85 % doesn’t only just put a lable on that person but it also helps him gain the knowledge of things (API’s) of
which he didn’t even had any idea so far in his IT career. So if a company picks up a certified guy than it doesn’t mean that he got through only
because he was certified but also because he is tested very deeply in his knowledge which he gained while preparing for the certification.
After giving a few sun java certifications, i feel that the way one implements the solution to a given problem is more optimized and more
importantly instead of re-writing a logic in our own manner, a sun certified professional knows better if that logic has already been implemented by
sun in any of its API’s.
Hi folks. I’m a Sun Certified java Programmer and a Sun Certified Web component Developer. Both these certifications have not gained me anything in my corporate life in terms of bonus or promotions (Honestly they were a part of my goal sheet). Getting them without going through only dump or questions papers does certainly increase your knowledge in the field. You do really get to know the intricate details and it does help in programming. But on the flip side, certifications alone does not help. You also have to know open source frameworks like Spring, Hibernate and other frameworks which are used in any web based development. As Bill suggested, getting Certifications alone will lead you to be in your own little technology backwater…