Value of OOAD certifications

[gaurav singhal]

Hello,

From sometime I am thinking that why the OOAD certification are not much taken/valued/popular as compared to other certifications.

Few reason I can think about is

There is no single body governing OOAD certification. It is offered by IBM,Rational and OMG.

No much awareness about these. No single point to find out information about these certification.

Many of us confuse between the UML and OOAD certification.

One of the reason could also be IBM 486 well known OOAD certification which will be withdrawn coming June.Rational OOAD uml certification course on Rational site is very breif...no standard material available.

I dont know also how much ceritification will be valued by the prospective employer.But i will say this is much needed skill....and definately certification will facilitate learning of it.

I like to know how much I am correct in my opinion. I think this certification should gain popularity and acceptance.

Regards
Gaurav

[Peter Cook]

The OMG OCUP track is NOT OOAD. It is does not cover "practical" material that would neccessarily be used on an every day basis. In fact, you could be an expert UML practitioner and not pass the OCUP exams I would suggest.

The IBM 486 exam is being retired as you know and is out of date with respect to the UML version. However, it probably does have some degree of educational and practical value. When I was in a position as an employer I encouraged some of my team to learn for 486. Whether they took the exam or not was irrelevant, it was the education that mattered. Those with recent (less than 5 years old) reputable computer science degrees etc. did not need this extra education I might add.

I have never once seen a job advert looking for any of these certifications. Most employers will probably never have heard of them. The financial value of these certifications is close to zero. These are certifications are mostly taken by certification junkeeees and those residing in countries where the length of your certification list is used to make up for lack of practical experience.

2 cents.

Don't ask me why I'm taking the OCUP fundamental certification

[gaurav singhal]

To some extent I agree with peter but still think certiification will add value or give you a point to prove that you are aware of OOAD concepts. Most of the employer does not ask for it but if you apply for architect or designer psition having cerification will add value....Similarily I have not seen any employer specificaly asking for SCJP or SCBCD certification but having them will add value to profile not specifically to have a long list.

[Nicholas Cheung]

Similarily I have not seen any employer specificaly asking for SCJP or SCBCD certification but having them will add value to profile not specifically to have a long list.

Certification itself does not create any value added, bascailly, what an employer/boss expect is to have a staff who can learn new system fast, and how to apply existing technologies (I mean technologies that are currently in use by the firm) in a combination to solve problems/develop systems.

You may have SCBCD 5.0 but you never work for any EJB 3.0 systems, when you are asked to develop for 1, you may not be able (or hard) to do so. Thus, the learning process plus the experiences will then generate the value of the certification.

Long list is really of less importance.

Nick

[Theodore Casser]

Well, to offer a counterpoint to Nicholas' comments, it depends entirely on who the client is when you present a long list. (We've found that, working for the government, they do actually put some value on the length of a certification list simply for the listing... and that's just odd to me.) But by and large, I'm inclined to agree that a long list alone isn't worth very much.

That having been said, personally, any certification has value. It's a question of how easily you can apply what you learned or how closely it actually corresponds to the real-life tasks that it's designed to be certifying. A hard exam that bears no resemblance to the knowledge required for a given job-task is inherently worth less than an easier test that reasonably requires the same knowledge as the job for which it's designed.

[peter cooke]

gaurav
economics of certs: I think it has to do with the best bang for the buck. If you are looking to hiring a java programmer, and they passed one of the java certs, you have a higher confidence that they can actually code. Since UML and OOAD certs provide less proof of being able to work, they have therefore have less value to the employer thus less demand by devleopers to pass.

In reality my certs have only served 4 purposes for me:
1) eye candy to HR and manager filter agents.
2) tie breakers for candidates of nearly equal experience.
3) a definite quantity of knowledge on some topic. I can set milestones and measure success.
4) if necessary, independant third party verification of my knowledge.

[gaurav singhal]

Peter,
Agreed and OOAD will of great educational value.....OOAD is a different ball game all together as compared to other technical certification. OOAD experience as well as knowledge will play a greater role as compared to other certification like SCJP where knowledge can be easily transformed into code. Whereas creating a good design & architecture of a system with OOAD knowledge still need a good amount of experience/exposure.

But still to conclude atleast for learning and to have good skills/knowledge to develop the system of high quality and in less time this certification provide a good value.

Gaurav
[ February 22, 2007: Message edited by: gaurav singhal ]