I was checking out the W3C Schools site and read about their certification tests you can take. You can take HTML, XML, DHTML and I think a couple more… anyway you pay a fee then youre given a timed test to take online… if you pass you get a certificate that verifies you are up to current W3C standards in what ever you took your test in.
I could easily pass these tests, but is there value in paying for them? Do you think it would actually be a valuable asset to obtain? Basically do you think people would care about something like that?
Unfortunately employers may not feel the same way. Intelligent employers will base their decisions on your merits, less intelligent employers will base their decisions on your credentials.
Most employers hire through HR, or a recruiter, and yes, big badges and such DO look good to people who just dont, know…
But like I said, if you’re good - you’re good, and you’ll get through the HR slash and burn process, and eventually have someone who ACTUALLY knows whats up, look at your resume.
It all depends on how you lube yourself up in the resume. Most HR people don’t know what the heck W3C is in the first place.
…and this is the sad part. Because some guy could go in for an interview right after me. Say he has a w3c credential but my code is 10x cleaner/accessible/etc. So taking the guy just because he has a credential is kind of a 2-way door in a sense. Yeah, he has one, but is the quality of his work up to par with the others?
And personally, if I was an employer looking for a designer/developer, I don’t care what credentials he has, I would have them all take a simple programming problem or something especially if they don’t provide me with a portfolio or some work.
Exactly, I had to build a quick two-page HTML site (they provided me with a design) for the job i’m working at now.
Most cases they have tests to filter out the weak, and real humans with Internet knowledge DO end up making the final say, i’ll be ■■■■■■ if HR (who knows nothing about the internet) had the final say in who gets hired.
The first step for a company in looking for someone to hire is to get HR to post a job posting somewhere, and sift through the crap, weeding out spelling mistakes and other things like that.
Like I said, if you can code, you can code, and the person at the end of the line who makes the decisions will … err… SHOULD know talent when they see it, and not convoluted shiny certifications and gizmos
and you know what REALLY grinds my gears?
W3C offering a pay-for service for something that someone can do on their own through their validator…
the only difference is that W3C is saying, (in a sense) “I would trust this guy to build my website”
:lol: I had to make just the homepage for an HTML site (provided layout) and a logo (provided a sheet with rough sketches/ideas). I thought it was quite fun.
You have to look through the eyes of a recruiter sometimes.
Here’s this guy that’s awesome. The guy knows he’s awesome. The recruiter doesn’t. The guy doesn’t have any certifications and barely any education. He has some cool experiments in his ‘blog’, but that’s really it.
Wage that against a guy that comes in with adobe, w3c and other certifications, with a solid education.
If you’re looking to get hired for a web dev job, where your main task is producing HTML code, and your potential employer doesn’t know enough to actually LOOK at your code, then in my opinion, they aren’t worth your time.
[quote=sekasi;2348432]You have to look through the eyes of a recruiter sometimes.
Here’s this guy that’s guy that’s awesome. The guy knows he’s awesome. The recruiter doesn’t. The guy doesn’t have any certifications and barely any education. He has some cool experiments in his ‘blog’, but that’s really it.
Wage that against a guy that comes in with adobe, w3c and other certifications, with a solid education.
Just saying. Recruiters aren’t psychic.[/quote]
True but at the same time, the guy without the credentials could be 10x better then the guy with them. Which is why, like I stated earlier, they should provide you with some type of simple test.
*Edit: ^ +1 to faster too. Although faster, if they were like me and looked at your CSS code they might freak the way you have it formatted. :lol:
I hear you FTL, but it doesn’t go like that always. I’ve received job offers from good solid companies (Blitz agency is one of them) that hadn’t seen one piece of code from me.
There’s no re-occuring theme… HR departments and recruiters all work very differently.
I don’t think that certificates, merits or pimples on ur buttox matter to any employer in the field of design and development. At least not in the day and age. Today’s employers in our field are sauvy enough to bypass all the fluff and get down to the good ish.
It may apply in other fields, but I have yet to see any design/development studio not look at samples of your work before deciding if they want you or not, this is also reflected through their HR and what not as well. I’ve also never heard anyone in our field get beat out by someone else JUST cause they had a degree or what not. If you get beat outta your job, and you say the reason is cause the guy had a degree, you’re just making excuses, my :2c:
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