Comment by NikolaNovak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NikolaNovak | Hacker News Reader

I love reading cert prep and taking exams. It tokenizes the effort and provides gratification. I build my badges and feel good about them. I'll take a good cert prep book on vacation with my family because it relaxes and energizes me (my current actual work is 90% managerial and problems are far tougher and less certain/rewarding than technical ones... To me at least; so this both unwind and keeps me somewhat current). Basically I'm an addict - I have certs in things I'm unlikely ever to use.

But... I fully realize I'm doing this for fun. I wouldn't claim to anybody it actually makes me good at doing any of the things I'm "certified" in. So while I'm confident the author's approach is efficient and effective if your sole goal is "pass exam, obtain cert" - if there's any practical goal after that (e.g. "get employed and be good at doing this stuff"), I doubt this is a good approach. Maybe a good starter, maybe even not.

I'd be curious what's HN perspective?

Certs exist because companies realized they could make further fortunes by acting as the gatekeepers of their consulting ecosystems (and by up-selling enterprise deals with mass certification of the purchasing company). They lock otherwise talented and competent people out of jobs until they pay to take an "exam" for the $CORP approved check mark which gets their resume passed the round of filtering. Sometimes you even have to re-pay for the exam every few years to certify you're "up to date" with the software.

I'm less cynical about certs offered by neutral third parties, or if they are offered free of charge. (If quality versions of those exist?)

"Certs exist because companies realized they could make further fortunes by acting as the gatekeepers of their consulting ecosystems"

I am trying to fit this message on a tshirt. Any input would be greatly appreciated!!!

I reckon I could do it in two words but I'm not quite sure what gets you a ban around here. :)

Have cert? Will cloud!

"I goat certified!"

If you as a job seeker aren’t given a chance to show your knowledge of a platform even though you have no cert then that’s not a company you should work for.

One of the best Java books ever written is 'Java 2 Exam Cram' which replaces all the hand-wavy Java discussion prevalent in other Java books (of the time at least) with precise details on Java language specifics. I would expect other certification resources to be similar in quality since they have to be concise and correct, and that makes them superior to a lot of other learning material.

I would agree with that - I find a lot of Cert books are condensed, ordered, organized, and give me great information to become familiar with a topic. This is why I'm addicted to them :)

You still need experience, practice and hands-on / real-world experience though, to be actually good at it I feel.

I like to think of certificates as a way to show that the person will know the terminology to communicate effectively. Management taking those course is also a great way to have better awareness of the underlying field/tech.

It's a signal among other equally valid signals and while it doesn't replace actual experience, it's still a nice plus.

Certificates are useful to you when you are the one selling them (or selling training programs for them).

I rather like to do things and to do that you need money and they help you get more of it. That’s about the only attachment I have.

Idealistically the knowledge is so transient that it’s probably only worth googling on the fly. I’d rather fill my head with mathematics or something instead if I had the choice.

This I learned without certification that were more valuable: C, Go, Linux shell and admin, HTML, CSS, networking, various reusable computer science bits.

Certs make for good bonus fodder. The boss wants some sort of quantifiable achievement to pay out the MBO, certs are an easy way to go about it. The act of prepping for the test has value - even if the certificate themselves do not.

The new 'cyber security' ones crack me up.

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