Zend Certification for Drupal Professionals

We encourage users to post events happening in the community to the community events group on https://www.drupal.org.
dbashaw's picture

Hi Ontario Drupalers;

I'm considering studying up and taking the Zend PHP (ZCE) Certification courses and writing the exam, both as a way to learn PHP at a more serious level, and as a useful certification to have for career purposes. (See: http://www.zend.com/services/certification/)

What do you think of Zend Certification? Is it a good ticket to have punched for people wanting to work with Drupal as developers and web maintainers? If you are certified yourself, has it been an asset in finding and getting professional work with Drupal? Are there other credentials you consider more important than a ZCE?

Lemme know what you think!

Cheers - Dan

Comments

Worth doing, but nut for Drupal specifically

mandclu's picture

Hi Dan,

I got Zend certified a few years back. I definitely think it was worth doing, for me anyway. Studying for the exam did fill in a few gaps in my knowledge of PHP.

I don't know that it has helped me get a Drupal work specifically, though I have heard from a couple of people who saw my profile on the Zend site.

I'd suggest that if you're looking for better Drupal credentials, there are lots of ways to be involved in the community that will act as credentials and also help you to be better connected. If you can use your existing knowledge of PHP to write and submit patches and even just documentation, you can definitely make a name for yourself in those ways. Also, active participation in local user groups and conferences is a great way to give back to the community and get some visibility at the same time.

Andrew Berry gave a presentation not long ago at the Waterloo DUG about how to be active in the community:
http://www.abdevelopment.ca/blog/waterloo-region-dug-contributing-drupal

Cheers,

Martin

The Pros and Cons of Zend Certification

dbashaw's picture

Hi Martin --

I'd noticed that you were Zend certified from your LinkedIn profile, so I hoped you'd chip in!

I also see participating in the Drupal community as a way to give back to the project, which I definitely want to do.

I had not really thought about it from a connection and networking perspective before, but that also makes sense. Now that I think of it, whenever I sub-contract work to Drupal coders, I do pay attention to whether they have contributed modules or patches, and are active participants on drupal.org and elsewhere. So far it has been a very good indicator of their skill level, since the active contributors have all been very skilled, and the non-contributors have not been as good.

Here is what another (non-Drupal) developer had to say about certification when I asked him:

----------- quote ------------

Regarding certification:

  1. Does your job required it? Likely not, but in some cases yes (e.g. consulting I had to get certified)
  2. Do projects seem to require it and/or does it seem like other bidders are promoting their certification and/or does the buyer request/prefer it?
  3. Will it help you study and practice?

Often #1/#2 are no. Buyers don't typically care about certification. They care more about what you know and what you've done. This generally applies to interviewers as well. It can't hurt, but I think time is better spent learning and practicing and building a portfolio.

For some people #3 is the reason why they get certified. They like the structure and the validation they get along the way.

---------End of Quote ------------

His advice and yours dovetails nicely.

Cheers and thanks -- Dan

Toronto

Group notifications

This group offers an RSS feed. Or subscribe to these personalized, sitewide feeds:

Hot content this week