Hi, > How important are FOSS certifications when it comes to the job > market?
Here are couple of my thoughts in this regard (and please be kind on my typos and possible grammatical errors): Certifications are useful in the field on Systems and Network Administration in general. In relation of FOSS, there are numerous certification programs provided and supported by companies and their partnered vendors. For instance, there's RedHat Certified Engineer (a.k.a RHCE) program by RedHat Inc (and there are many more similar certifications by RedHat), Ubuntu Certified Professional by Canonical Software, Novell Certified Linux Engineer (NCLE) by Novell Inc., LPI series of certifications from Linux Professional Institute. Most of the above certifications cater to administrators. This makes sense because, administrators are employed in companies that span beyond IT domain (banks, hospitals, schools for instance). However, it might be a little difficult for recruiters from non-IT organizations to evaluate or gauge the skill-sets and technology competency of candidates that they might be recruiting as administrators; especially in current times where FOSS technology awareness among non-IT sectors are still low. Certifications from a reputed institute or a company would go a long way in boosting the recruiter's confidence on the candidate's skills. IMHO, it makes no sense in getting certified as a developer or a programmer. Certifications that cover programming languages and application/web development frameworks are merely an eye-wash. Most candidates who get recruited in these domain are generally interviewed and evaluated by a technically competent personnel (preferably a tech-lead or a hired technical consultant) in at-least one of the evaluation spins. Certifications might not necessarily help in improving the employability of the candidate in this regard. Programmers and developers are best evaluated based on their track-record and their problem analysis and problem-solving skills. Having said that, developer/programming certification if taken seriously by the candidates would help them in learning the technology well, though it might not guarantee their employability. Regards, Chandrashekar. -- Chandrashekar Babu., Experienced FOSS Technologist and Corporate Trainer., http://www.chandrashekar.info/ _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
