From OCPJP to OCMJD

[Raghavendra Shockley]

Hi !

I am an OCPJP 1.6. I am thinking of taking the OCMJD 1.6 exam and I have some questions regarding the same.

1- What is its worth in the IT industry/job market ? I know that some employers give preference to OCPJP, while some dont. Is that true for OCMJD too ?
2- Which resources/books would you suggest for the OCMJD exam ?
3- Which version of the exam can I take, 6 or 7 ? Is an OCPJP 1.6 allowed to take the OCMJD 7 exam ?

[Roel De Nijs]

Did you do some research yourself? Based on your questions I don't think so. So I would suggest having a look at Oracle's offcial OCMJD certification page about what you must do to become certified. Books and resources you'll find in ScjdFaq or using the search engine of this forum.

[Anayonkar Shivalkar]

Hi Raghavendra,

Roel has given answer to most of your questions.

Now, about market worth of the certification - that solely depends on employer and there is no generic answer. I've given and conducted technical interviews in Java, and I was asked about my certifications only because I mentioned those in my resume. I've never seen someone being rejected just because he/she is not certified, or someone being selected just because he/she is certified.

For me, certification means: a candidate is willing to set some target on his own, and is capable to fulfilling those. He is someone who can learn on his own, without constant spoon feeding.

The reason is simple: certification like OCJP does not cover topics like network data transfer, and even OCMJD doesn't handle topics like JDBC, XML handling etc. which might be very much important in real life project. So, importance to certification is employer's discretion. The most important thing from job perspective is : competence (e.g., for a project totally based on JDBC, both candidates - one who has not cleared OCJP and one who cleared OCJP with 100% - are same).

Personally, I do give certification for learning purpose. The moment you start thinking about market value of a certification, you start thinking about easiest way to clear the certification (which might help you to pass the certification, but might not provide you adequate knowledge). Just my personal opinion.

All the best.

[Roel De Nijs]

Anayonkar Shivalkar wrote:Personally, I do give certification for learning purpose. The moment you start thinking about market value of a certification, you start thinking about easiest way to clear the certification (which might help you to pass the certification, but might not provide you adequate knowledge). Just my personal opinion.

This definitely deserves a Well said!

[Raghavendra Shockley]

Anayonkar Shivalkar wrote:the moment you start thinking about market value of a certification, you start thinking about easiest way to clear the certification (which might help you to pass the certification, but might not provide you adequate knowledge)
All the best.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences ! I appreaciate it very much. I agree that certs are not everything. Now, my plan is to pick up a cert book anyway
and start learning because I need some kind of structure and list of topics to study. I wont take the exam. The cert does not seem to be of any value.
I learned a lot of good things due to OCPJP, but it also wasted my precious time as I had to learn silly tricks which I feel will not be useful in real world problems.

[Raghavendra Shockley]

Roel De Nijs wrote: Oracle's offcial OCMJD certification page about what you must do to become certified.

I glanced at it and it says that you need to be OCPJP cert. But it also says pay me $$$ for a class that you dont need.

[Anayonkar Shivalkar]

Raghavendra Shockley wrote:I wont take the exam. The cert does not seem to be of any value.

Well, it is not exactly like that. Even though it is employer's choice about how to value certification, in general, a certified candidate is looked upon as a person who is willing to go beyond comfort level, a person who is willing to learn something on his own. So, if anyway you are studying Monkhouse's book, then why not take a certification. One thing is sure - being certified does not have any side effects so, I would recommend you to take the certification.

When I began my career, as a fresher, I did not have choice of technology and I was assigned to C++ project. After few months I developed interest in Java (thanks to 'Core Java' by Horstmann and Cornell). Then I wanted to move to Java, so I cleared SCJP (most importantly : I did not asked reimbursement for this ) and I emphasized same thing in interview (that I've learned it on my own etc. and also admitted that just because I am SCJP doesn't mean that I'm a Java Superman). It worked for me

Now that I've cleared OCMJD (again, with my own expenses), no, I did not get hefty bonus or employee-of-the-year award. But yes, I can see colleagues'/bosses' attitude when they know about this. The certi says - I'm ready to go out and try something new. I'm ready to put extra efforts, extra hours in it. I'm capable of taking whole responsibility of a small project, making design decisions, justifying those decisions to others and most importantly - writing a working code. So, in long term, it definitely pays.

And about mandatory classroom training, yes, requirements have changed after 1st October 2011. You will find details about it on Oracle's page, or make a search on this forum.
All the best.

[Raghavendra Shockley]

Roel De Nijs wrote:Books and resources you'll find in ScjdFaq

Those books use 1.2,1.4 or 1.5. I havent come across one which uses 1.6.

[Roel De Nijs]

Raghavendra Shockley wrote:Those books use 1.2,1.4 or 1.5. I havent come across one which uses 1.6.

And that's a problem why? New JDK versions have just some syntactic sugar or new features (enum, generics,...) but design principles etc stay the same independent of the JDK you use. Furthermore there is not much difference between JDK 1.5 and 1.6, I used the Andrew Monkhouse book for this certification and used JDK 1.6

[Roberto Perillo]

Roel De Nijs wrote:New JDK versions have just some syntactic sugar or new features (enum, generics,...) but design principles etc stay the same independent of the JDK you use.

Perfect.