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Of What good are these exams??

 
Ranch Hand
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I sometimes tend to think that these exams are merely good on paper!!!
At your office, it is only your performance (and your relation with your
manager that matters .

SCJP 1.4 could be useful for freshers searching for a job, thats all!!!
The most important thing of all is, we never use all that we study from books(EL in JSP for example) in office, so finally are effort goes down the drain!!! Your manager is never really bothered abt your certifications, but it is your day to day work and your way of handling work pressure is what matters the most!!!
I serious feel this is the practical situation!!!
 
arch rival
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I don't know why you append "that is all" to your reference to freshers searching for a job. One of the main benefits of industry certifications is to get passed HR departments. They know little about technology and want some type of objective assessment for a baseline on if you are worth interviewing. When you meet the technical people they will take your certification as a sign that you take your studies seriously and you have a minimal set knowledge. No certificaiton is going to prove you are a good programmer.

With the new JDK 1.5 certification material I have learnt huge amounts of material that would be useful in real-world programming. At the relatively trivial level the new for loop is a very handy new construct and the new Generic Collections are something I would almost certainly use in anything but the most trivial of programming.

When evaluating industry certificaitons it is important to understand both their strengths and limitations. If you have 2 or 5 years commercial Java programming experience adding certifications to your resume now will not add a lot, but it will add a little. If you are new to the market having certification will show you are exploring every avenue and take your subject seriously. If an employer is faced with two approximatly equivalent candidates certification can tip the balance.
 
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In my company, to obtain promotion to another level within the same technical career path, an employee must show that his knowledge is not becoming obsolete. One accepted way of showing this is to become certified or recertified at the latest level of the technology. So one year's experience using Java 5.0 plus a certification at SCJP 5.0 is worth more than just one year's experience in Java 5.0 alone.
 
Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.
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