Drupal Certification and Requirements
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Drupal Certification and Requirements
by johnrosswvsu
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Hi Everyone!
Is there any existing official Drupal examination that is conducted for examinees to get a certification? If so, what are the requirements (such as testing fees, etc)? Where could be the testing centers? and any additional information about it.... John Ross |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by paola.dimaio@gmail.com
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sounds like an excellent business idea
no such thing yet afaik pdm On Dec 19, 2007 10:05 AM, johnrosswvsu <john_rosswvsu@...> wrote: > > Hi Everyone! > > Is there any existing official Drupal examination that is conducted for > examinees to get a certification? If so, what are the requirements (such as > testing fees, etc)? Where could be the testing centers? and any additional > information about it.... > > John Ross > > -- > View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Drupal-Certification-and-Requirements-tp14370112p14370112.html > Sent from the Drupal - Consulting mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > _______________________________________________ > consulting mailing list > consulting@... > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting > -- Paola Di Maio School of IT www.mfu.ac.th ********************************************* _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Evan Leibovitch
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paola.dimaio@... wrote:
> sounds like an excellent business idea > Actually, it's not. The cost of developing a respected exam, as well as the logistics of accessible delivery, makes the business proposition very very difficult. Compounding the problem are a number of Drupal-specific obstacles. Just some of the issues involve: - What should a certification test? Forms? PHP programming? Views? categories? Non-standard modules? Look-and-feel issues? - Usually people get certified as a way to help them get employed. Right now demand for Drupal developers appears to exceed supply, so people don't need certifications to help them get work and the actual numbers of people willing to pay to be certified will be fairly small. - There's no obvious corporate backers to sponsor such an effort, in the way Sun sponsors Java certification or Zend sponsors the PHP one. - Is the certification for developers or administrators? If it's for developers, how do you test the creative component of programming? - Drupal is still evolving, and backwards compatibility is not a priority. That means that the "life" of any specific Drupal certification exam could be very short before the things it tests are obsolete. By the time you're ready to deliver an exam, the APIs it tests will probably not be in use anymore. - Also consider that by some industry analysis, the demand for IT certification in general is dropping I helped create the LPI certification for Linux. Each of the three skill levels it tests cost more than $400,000 to develop properly. Less ambitious, more community-driven efforts such as the BSD certification, can be many years in the making before a single exam is delivered -- and STILL be without a usable business model. It's probably best to -- at least for now -- avoid a specific Drupal certification. If someone is looking to prove approriate skills, they should consider the existing Zend certification for PHP. http://www.zend.com/en/services/certification/ - Evan _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Jerad Bitner
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You can always check out a Lullabot workshop (http://lullabot.com). They hand out a piece of paper that looks pretty good at the end ;) But the important things is, that if there is a company looking for a Drupal developer and you say you've been to a Lullabot workshop on such and such a topic (and if the company knows anything about the community) you stand a waaaay better chance at getting hired. So it doesn't count for nothing ;)
Come to think of it I'm not sure what it takes to give out 'official' certifications. Would that be something the Drupal Association would be in charge of deciding or at least endorsing? ~sirkitree On Dec 18, 2007 11:05 PM, <paola.dimaio@...> wrote: sounds like an excellent business idea _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Gerhard Killesreiter
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1 johnrosswvsu schrieb: > Hi Everyone! > > Is there any existing official Drupal examination that is conducted for > examinees to get a certification? If so, what are the requirements (such as > testing fees, etc)? Where could be the testing centers? and any additional > information about it.... This does not exist yet. Cheers, Gerhard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHaM96fg6TFvELooQRAs13AKCHXJ684WDkcN3lzLM0F3jw7AcwRgCfQ+o5 00yEepRwPpHIw9vooFIZ8rY= =bh2s -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Gerhard Killesreiter
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1 Jerad Bitner schrieb: > You can always check out a Lullabot workshop (http://lullabot.com). They > hand out a piece of paper that looks pretty good at the end ;) But the > important things is, that if there is a company looking for a Drupal > developer and you say you've been to a Lullabot workshop on such and such a > topic (and if the company knows anything about the community) you stand a > waaaay better chance at getting hired. So it doesn't count for nothing ;) > > Come to think of it I'm not sure what it takes to give out 'official' > certifications. Would that be something the Drupal Association would be in > charge of deciding or at least endorsing? Yes. Cheers, Gerhard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHaNpMfg6TFvELooQRAgOYAKCjQq/gwSFkZ5wIgabSopX2CbMNfQCfZ22Q CHPLUpFQsMmeQ7VFLDO82lc= =jjvM -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Wim Mostrey
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I'm not sure. With Drupal's release cycle you'd have to re-take the exam every
two years at the very least. I'm not sure if people, especially self-employed developers, are willing to pay up whatever it costs take just to get the certificate to "prove" clients they are proficient with Drupal. To support this point I refer to the Drupal Services page [1]: "Note: We only list individuals and companies that have contributed to Drupal. Even though a "contribution" is somewhat subjective and hard to define, it is fairly easy to understand once you see it. See this discussion [2] on the Development list for more definitions of contribution." Your contributions prove you are good at Drupal, not some piece of paper. Wim [1] http://drupal.org/drupal-services [2] http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2006-August/thread.html#18496 Quoting paola.dimaio@...: > sounds like an excellent business idea > no such thing yet afaik > pdm > > On Dec 19, 2007 10:05 AM, johnrosswvsu <john_rosswvsu@...> wrote: >> >> Hi Everyone! >> >> Is there any existing official Drupal examination that is conducted for >> examinees to get a certification? If so, what are the requirements (such as >> testing fees, etc)? Where could be the testing centers? and any additional >> information about it.... >> >> John Ross >> >> -- >> View this message in context: >> http://www.nabble.com/Drupal-Certification-and-Requirements-tp14370112p14370112.html >> Sent from the Drupal - Consulting mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> consulting mailing list >> consulting@... >> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting >> > > > > -- > Paola Di Maio > School of IT > www.mfu.ac.th > ********************************************* > _______________________________________________ > consulting mailing list > consulting@... > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting > _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Brian Vuyk-2
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I agree with Wim.
A Drupal certification can at best show that you are proficient with the hooks, theming, and core modules of Drupal of a certain version. As well all know, those are moving targets, and would need to be retested every major release. That said, a portfolio and list of contributed modules probably speaks far more for your knowledge of the platform than any test you take. Brian Wim Mostrey wrote: > I'm not sure. With Drupal's release cycle you'd have to re-take the exam every > two years at the very least. I'm not sure if people, especially self-employed > developers, are willing to pay up whatever it costs take just to get the > certificate to "prove" clients they are proficient with Drupal. > > To support this point I refer to the Drupal Services page [1]: > > "Note: We only list individuals and companies that have contributed to Drupal. > Even though a "contribution" is somewhat subjective and hard to define, it is > fairly easy to understand once you see it. See this discussion [2] on the > Development list for more definitions of contribution." > > Your contributions prove you are good at Drupal, not some piece of paper. > > Wim > > [1] http://drupal.org/drupal-services > [2] > http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2006-August/thread.html#18496 > Quoting paola.dimaio@...: > > >> sounds like an excellent business idea >> no such thing yet afaik >> pdm >> >> On Dec 19, 2007 10:05 AM, johnrosswvsu <john_rosswvsu@...> wrote: >> >>> Hi Everyone! >>> >>> Is there any existing official Drupal examination that is conducted for >>> examinees to get a certification? If so, what are the requirements (such as >>> testing fees, etc)? Where could be the testing centers? and any additional >>> information about it.... >>> >>> John Ross >>> >>> -- >>> View this message in context: >>> http://www.nabble.com/Drupal-Certification-and-Requirements-tp14370112p14370112.html >>> Sent from the Drupal - Consulting mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> consulting mailing list >>> consulting@... >>> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting >>> >>> >> >> -- >> Paola Di Maio >> School of IT >> www.mfu.ac.th >> ********************************************* >> _______________________________________________ >> consulting mailing list >> consulting@... >> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting >> >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > consulting mailing list > consulting@... > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting > > consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Eric Goldhagen-2
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At 7:05 PM -0800 12/18/07, johnrosswvsu wrote:
>Hi Everyone! > >Is there any existing official Drupal examination that is conducted for >examinees to get a certification? If so, what are the requirements (such as >testing fees, etc)? Where could be the testing centers? and any additional >information about it.... > >John Ross > >-- In 20 years of professional computer-related work and consulting, I've found formal certifications to be relatively useless as a way of judging a job candidate's skill and knowledge. While I'm sure it would generate income for the certifier, I'm not sure if this would really be of value to the community. --Eric -- ------------------------------------------------ | Openflows Community Technology Lab, Inc. | | Members of: the Mayfirst/Peoplelink Network | Local 1180, Communications Workers of America | | http://openflows.com | People are intelligent. Machines are tools. ------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Karoly Negyesi
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> Your contributions prove you are good at Drupal, not some piece of paper.
I agree. Would you ask Earl Miles or me some piece of paper? Your code speaks better than a piece of paper... _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Evan Leibovitch
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Karoly Negyesi wrote:
> I agree. Would you ask Earl Miles or me some piece of paper? Your code > speaks better than a piece of paper... > That theory works only so long as Drupal remains niche rather than mainstream. If/when Drupal people need to get hired by large organizations, the initial job for finding employees is made by human resources staff. These people wouldn't know the name "Richard Stallman", let alone "Earl Miles"; today they need a programmer, tomorrow they will be hiring for the warehouse. Their role is to perform the first level of determining qualifications; it is at this initial stage where certifications, rather than peer respect, are useful. One is always welcome to assert that they'd never work for companies with such awful hiring practices. Again, so long as demand outstrips supply this is a non-issue. - Evan _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Kevin Reynen
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Karoly,
Isn't that a bit like saying modules don't need documentation? If someone wants to know what a module does, can't they just read the code? I've had several MSDN certifications over the years and I agree that they are essentially meaningless, but asking a potential employer to take a look at a job candidate's commits stopped being realistic when Drupal related jobs started popping up at places other than shops run by key Drupal developers. The great work you, Earl, and many other contributors done over the years have led to Drupal's adoption outside these initial developer run shops. Believe it or not, there are people out there who are smart enough to recognize Drupal's strengths, but aren't a developer and can't evaluate the quality of a candidate's commits. Not everyone is a developer... and that's a good thing. - Kevin Reynen On Dec 19, 2007 7:24 AM, Karoly Negyesi <karoly@...> wrote: > > Your contributions prove you are good at Drupal, not some piece of paper. > > I agree. Would you ask Earl Miles or me some piece of paper? Your code > speaks better than a piece of paper... > > _______________________________________________ > consulting mailing list > consulting@... > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting > consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by George D. DeMet
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I do think that a Drupal certification at some point would be helpful, and would help a lot of people better understand the "Drupal Way". On the other hand, I also agree that Drupal at present may be too much of a moving target for a full-fledged certification program to be really useful. As Drupal continues to mature and the time between major releases becomes longer, an Association-recognized certification program is definitely something the community should look at; fortunately in the meantime we have folks like those at Lullabot already doing a great job of educating people about it. -- George D. DeMet Palantir.net 1601 Simpson Street Evanston IL 60201 p 847.328.7150 x306 f 847.328.2211 demet@... Kevin Reynen wrote: Karoly, Isn't that a bit like saying modules don't need documentation? If someone wants to know what a module does, can't they just read the code? I've had several MSDN certifications over the years and I agree that they are essentially meaningless, but asking a potential employer to take a look at a job candidate's commits stopped being realistic when Drupal related jobs started popping up at places other than shops run by key Drupal developers. The great work you, Earl, and many other contributors done over the years have led to Drupal's adoption outside these initial developer run shops. Believe it or not, there are people out there who are smart enough to recognize Drupal's strengths, but aren't a developer and can't evaluate the quality of a candidate's commits. Not everyone is a developer... and that's a good thing. - Kevin Reynen On Dec 19, 2007 7:24 AM, Karoly Negyesi karoly@... wrote: _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Karoly Negyesi
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Sure, but unless you want to hire your lead developer, your lead
developer can do the technical evaluation... at least that's what we do. So, not everyone is a developer but they surely employ already one :D _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Bill Fitzgerald
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Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> initial job for finding employees is made by human resources staff. > These people wouldn't know the name "Richard Stallman", let alone "Earl > Miles"; today they need a programmer, tomorrow they will be hiring for > the warehouse. Their role is to perform the first level of determining > qualifications; it is at this initial stage where certifications, rather > than peer respect, are useful. This is a moot point, as it is true for hiring for any skillset. The people actively using that skillset are usually the best people to determine an applicant's competence and fit for the job. The role of HR is generally to weed out the obviously unqualified. This is just as true for Drupal talent as it is for MS Windows Server admins as it is for window washers. A certification tells me more about a person's approach to learning and how they view their role in the marketplace than anything else. I've interviewed/met plenty of people who had the certificate for skill X, yet when asked to apply the skills they supposedly learned during certification, they were unable to do so. Cerifications are used to weed out people, but that should not be confused with a certificate actually meaning anything when it comes down to getting real work done. Cheers, Bill > _______________________________________________ > consulting mailing list > consulting@... > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting > > > If/when Drupal people need to get hired by large organizations, the > -- Bill Fitzgerald http://www.funnymonkey.com Tools for Teachers 503.897.7160 _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Jeremy O'Leary-2
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> In 20 years of professional computer-related work and consulting,
> I've found formal certifications to be relatively useless as a way of > judging a job candidate's skill and knowledge. > > While I'm sure it would generate income for the certifier, I'm not > sure if this would really be of value to the community. Although if > the money went to the Drupal Association and was used to fund the > continued development of Drupal that would not be the worst thing to > happen. In my experience they are rather handy in getting past the HR department. The other thing a certification provides is an entry path and shows a bit of commitment when you don't have a bunch of experience to point at/reference. + Jeremy _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by johnrosswvsu
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Everyone... Thanks for the insights!
John Ross Castano
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Roshan Shah
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Well, in year 2000 I was a Director in Software Company in India as well as a separate full fledged Java Training Institute. Many of our students from the training division eventually cleared the Sun Certification. But despite their getting certifications(72 of them in 10 months), I approached only 5-10% of them extending offers to join my Software Company.
Since last 2 years my Canadian company provides Drupal services with entire development team in India. One service we provide is 24x7 Drupal Infrastructure monitoring services. We get many RedHat Certified Engineers apply for open positions - whom we regularly interview besides other non-certified candidates too. We did not find difference between certified engineers and non-certified candidates at all when all equivalent parameters are compared. Practical experience and ability to answer real world questions is the only way they are getting selected regardless of their being certified or not. Another example - our company also gets lot of interest from local IT students in India for internships and industrial projects as they see our work in Open Source / Drupal, RoR as very challenging. Our Sr. Team regularly gives seminars in colleges on Web 2.0, Drupal, RoR, etc. While we get 100's of calls every day the HR department filters out the candidates based on 60% marks in all semesters as cut off besides checking their English Language skills. This means we only try and interview the top 20% students of any college if they apply for internship or entry level jobs. All these students are good but again we see that usually the top scorers and class rankers don't do well on real projects because they usually have "bookish/theoretical" knowledge but can't apply them practically using common sense. It takes a lot of mentoring by Sr. Tech Leads of our company to make them understand that in real world - what matters is ability to solve a problem by putting thinking hats and that too fast. This again proves that "theoretical" knowledge/ academics cannot be taken as a yard stick to see that candidate can perform. It takes us 3 to 6 months for us to make them productive. (Note: Those who have 2+ years LAMP experience usually pick up Drupal very quickly as they are very well supported by other team members) Having said this, we have definitely encouraged our internal team members to get certified e.g Linux Admins of our infrastructure support division to get Redhat certifications a) because it will plug the gap in their knowledge b) it helps in marketing and positioning our company better and c) With their real world knowledge along with certification they really become valuable asset to the organization and in the industry as a whole. Drupal is a moving target but its no different from any other technology. What is required is different levels of certifications and to move to next level one needs to clear the previous level. Most companies now do this e.g Certified Java Programmer to Certified Architect. As you get higher up on certification ladder, you get more challenged with more focus on practical knowledge and lesser focus on academics. There is certainly huge skills shortage in Drupal world. We are going back to days of 2000 where now we are opening up a separate Training Company in April 2008 to provide Drupal/RoR Training to IT/Non-IT professionals as we are already unable to meet the needs of current customers and new business coming our way despite our ongoing recruitment drive through online advertisements, college seminars and word-of-mouth referrals. We do get thousands of resumes but we are looking for quality. Investing in someone with no knowledge of Drupal is draining lot of our resources and having separate training center where students can pay to learn drupal and get to work on real projects is another approach we are taking. I certainly think Drupal Certification today will bring tremendous value and in fact will Drupal get even much more interest from industry, IT professionals and Students since they will see that the product has now matured to a certain level. Many many more Drupal Shops, Drupal Sites and Drupal developers will join us all if certifications are offered. -- -- Roshan Shah http://www.bpocanada.com Toll Free : 1-888-378-7259 x 521 Direct : 1-604-630-4292 *************************************************************** This email may contain confidential information, and is intended only for the named recipient and may be privileged. Distribution or copying of this email by anyone other than the named recipient is prohibited. If you are not the named recipient, please notify us immediately and permanently destroy this email and all copies of it. *************************************************************** _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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Re: Drupal Certification and Requirements
by Kieran Lal
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Wow! What a great email. Thanks so much for sharing your 8 years of experience and insight. I wish I had half the insight into the challenges and strategies other Drupal shops are undertaking.
I agree that certification trainings are helpful in filling gaps. I agree that the marketplace needs certifications. Drupal administration training is very different than innovative Drupal framework development. With over 40 events and 2000 attendees to learning events in 2007, it's obvious that this training demand is not being filled, and it's a real problem. It should probably not be the Drupal association with only volunteer staff who fills this need. As mentioned in this thread, it will probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain and run a certification program and the associated businesses. Good luck with your business! Cheers, Kieran On Dec 19, 2007 5:12 PM, Roshan Shah <roshan.shah@...> wrote:
Well, in year 2000 I was a Director in Software Company in India as well as a separate full fledged Java Training Institute. Many of our students from the training division eventually cleared the Sun Certification. But despite their getting certifications(72 of them in 10 months), I approached only 5-10% of them extending offers to join my Software Company. -- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. _______________________________________________ consulting mailing list consulting@... http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting |
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