hi i think certification helps in job hunting, but to a small level. its easy to get the resume shortlisted. some openings are there only for certified people. the other side is that Interviewer may focus mainly on some areas like threads, synchronisation, functions of Collection class, strings etc. And if they didnot answer one more question may come like "who gave you certificate?"
I would never have even been interviewed for the job I have now without certifications. I guess a college degree would be good as well, but without that I would concentrate on certs. They are cheaper anyways and demonstrates to employers that you know something and that you can start/finish a goal.
IMO, the certification probably has a very very small impact on getting you the interview, over someone without a certification. However, the training for the certification, probably have a large impact on you passing the interview. The skills that you learned while getting the cert, is more important than the paper, so keep those skills up.
I agree with Henry. It is not the examination or the certificate which matters most. It is the knowledge you attain by preparing, studying and learning, which is the most important aspect in my opinion.
If we are in an interview and you cannot demonstrate that you have the knowledge (which you should have developed), then the fact that you have a SCJP certificate will not help.
Nachiket Patel
Ranch Hand
Joined: Sep 16, 2007
Posts: 110
posted
0
Hello Guys, I appreciate your views. Thank you. I guess i would have been more clear in my question.
Let me ask you again.
I am Masters(12 + 5) in Computer Science only. And i am working in Java technology since last 1.4 yrs. So i am very confident that i will score very well without preparing also, as i am working in Java. I gave few mock tests. It's not that tough.
My point is, Is there any benefit of giving certification. Is it worth 300$ (it is almost my salary of one month)
If it will help in getting shortlisted for interview then i think it is worth.
I wanted to add my two cents to this seeing that I am currently in the midsts of preparing for the SCJP.
First off, a little about me. I am a graduate student at a university in Chicago and have been using Java for the better part of 8 years now. I currently hold a position as a web developer for a smaller corporation in the Chicago land area and have approximately a year of experience developing Java web applications using Hibernate, Spring, Struts, etc ...
I will say this. My intentions were to get this SCJP and then move on to the Web Component certification that Sun offers. The SCJP is NOT a exam that you should take lightly. Yes, the overall concepts that they teach you are very basic and are familiar, but you should take some time going over the minute details in which are covered through various training sources.
I cannot speak from experience as I have not taken the exam, but I am finding that as I am going through the training, there are a lot of low level details that I once ignored because I didn't see them as significant (or my professors skipped over them). The point is that the SCJP seems to be extremely thorough in regards to the level of detail provided, so make sure you do prepare a little bit at the least.
Jimmy Clark
Ranch Hand
Joined: Apr 16, 2008
Posts: 2187
posted
0
If it will help in getting shortlisted for interview then i think it is worth.
In India more than in the U.S.A.
Brian Legg
Ranch Hand
Joined: Nov 07, 2008
Posts: 488
posted
0
I agree with most of the people on here saying that the experience is the important part, etc. What I was trying to say was that a certification can get your foot in the door faster than if you don't have one.
Yes, they will still interview you and if you don't know your stuff then it doesn't matter. But if they are looking at your resume and someone elses with similar skills but you have the certification its more likely they will get you in for an interview.
Finally, in my opinion, it is worth the $300. Of course if I didn't feel that way I probably wouldn't be working towards it.
To put my 2 cents of thought. I have almost 8 yrs of experience working on green screens. (I mean Mainframe). And it is like a big elephant. Nothing new to experiment. I thought why shouldn't I try my hands on Java and do little experiments with the language. I started off going thru Java and believe it or not it is so very interesting to do examples when compared to the greenscreen programs.
I questioned myself as to how can I judge that I am getting the concepts right. And to that SCJP is the answer. Yes, I am learning Java with an intention of taking SCJP 6.0 exam. I doubt SCJP will fetch you a job offer, but it might defintely give you an oppurtunity for you to prove that you can do something in Java. Later it will be in our hands to take it forward.
I belive in "Judge your Java concepts by taking SCJP exam". <br /> <br />Happy preparation for SCJP 6.0
0
