If you needed an accountant to do your taxes, wouldn't you want one who passed the CPA exam? If you needed a lawyer to represent you, wouldn't you want one who passed the bar exam? If you needed a doctor to perform surgery on you, wouldn't you want one who passed the medical exam? I would. These are only a few examples of other professions that use certification to provide evidence of expertise.

Should midrange professionals become certified? I believe so. Just as in other occupations, certification strongly indicates that people are trained and qualified in their professions.

There are many certification programs in our industry. Many of them are tied to a particular vendor or product. While these types of certification are certainly worth pursuing, they only provide evidence of expertise in a segment of our industry. The Certified Computing Professional (CCP) designation from the Institute of Certification for Computing Professionals (ICCP) gives you broader recognition.

Let's look at some facts about the CCP. To qualify, a participant must have a combined total of four years of educational and/or professional experience. To pass the exam, a participant needs to have a wide variety of skills in areas such as hardware, software, business management, mathematics, and statistics. These skills are not related to any particular vendor or product. The tests are constantly updated to keep pace with changing technology. Mandatory recertification every three years ensures that certificate holders continue their education.

A CCP designation doesn't necessarily prove that a person has the knowledge to do every job in our industry. It does, however, provide evidence that the person has made a long-standing commitment to the profession, and that he can be trained to perform technical tasks. I believe that's what employers in our industry look for.

So if you needed to hire a midrange professional to write and maintain the software that runs your business, wouldn't you prefer one who has both the qualifications you're looking for and a professional certification? I would.

-Robin Klima, CCP

I've listened to the arguments for certification over the last ten years, and I still disagree strongly. I don't believe midrange certification, in its present form, provides the benefits that you attribute to it.

First of all, the category of Certified Computer Professional is too broad. Second, there's no one standing behind it. Third, the certificate bears no relevance to the forces of change in the real world of computing.

In our technology?which is primarily market driven?a general certificate identifying a computer professional is too watered down to have meaning. It's like buying a license to click a mouse.

By comparison, vendor certification places the burden of education back onto the provider of the product. For instance, a poorly trained Certified NetWare Engineer makes Novell look bad. Novell controls the certification process, so they have a stake in the quality of their graduates.

But who controls the quality of a certified midrange professional? What recourse does either the employer or the certified professional have if the training is insufficient?

Finally, the market is flooded with new product releases every six months and our work place is reinvented and turned over. Recertification every three years?without specific educational and career tracking?makes a mockery of the relevance of a general certificate.

A recent study conducted jointly by IBM and HP concluded that?at present?certification brings neither better service nor better salaries. Companies that use certification just seem to be winnowing out resumes.

In the meantime?until midrange certification has real value?we're better off looking for hands-on opportunities to work in specific technologies. Codifying our past successes won't translate into a certificate for future success.

Certification is coming, to be sure, but it's not here yet. Too much is changing too quickly. The midrange certification process?unfortunately?is not.

?Thomas M. Stockwell

Yes, I think certification is a good idea and, as an MIS manager looking at resumes, I would certainly count certification as a plus. I would not go as far as thinking that certification meant the person was "...trained and qualified in their profession," but if two job candidates had similar education and job experience, I would rank a certified job candidate higher than an uncertified one.

Regarding Tom's comment that "...the certificate bears no relevance to the forces of change in the real world of computing," consider that the current ICCP rules require certificate holders to recertify every three years. To qualify for recertification, a person must complete 120 contact hours of continuing education. Classes offered by conferences such as COMMON or seminars sponsored by vendors are often used to meet the recertification requirements. These classes typically provide up-to-date information on the latest market innovations. It seems to me that this type of ongoing education can't help but make a person's knowledge more relevant.

Certification not only is a sign that a person wants to strengthen and broaden his knowledge of information technology, but also shows evidence that he comprehends it. Of course, there are better measuring tools, such as on-the-job experience, but in the rapidly changing world of information technology, I welcome anything that will help measure what a person understands.

?Richard Shaler, CCP

In general, certification is a good idea, but I think it is, at best, self-serving to compare ICCP certification to the process a doctor, lawyer, or CPA goes through. One problem is the lack of responsibility that goes with the certification. If an ICCP-certified consultant writes a program that crashes and costs a company business, would the certified programmer be sued for malpractice? He probably wouldn't be, because certification doesn't assign responsibility. However, the doctor, lawyer, or CPA in similar circumstances would. So the analogy between ICCP certification and that of professions like those mentioned is pointless to me.

My experience is that people certified by vendors are often much better prepared than those with a general certification like that given by the ICCP. Richard asserts that certification shows that a person comprehends information technology. Unfortunately, it doesn't prove that the person comprehends meaningful information technology. That's where the vendor certifications (like Novell's CNE certification) have excelled. Vendor certification isn't without problems, but people who go through those certifications are better prepared to implement information technology instead of just comprehend it.

Frankly, the problem that I've seen with some employees was not their ability to understand the technology; it was their ability to understand the business. I'm not convinced we need people committed to the profession. People like that often lose sight of the fact that what we do is solve business problems, not have esoteric arguments about information technology. We need balanced and well-rounded individuals with real world skills.

As a manager, I too would count certification as an advantage for a potential employee. However, I wouldn't want people who can just talk or think about information technology, I would need people who can do it.

?Jim Hoopes

Let me sum up the issue of certification in one word: bunk.

In the past 20 years of my career in IBM midrange computing, I've been fortunate to work with several brilliant programmers and MIS managers, all of whom were sans certification?and in many cases, including my own, absent a college degree. I've also worked with dozens of so-called "certified" professionals. Almost to a man (or woman, or person, or whatever is PC this week), the noncertified MIS professionals had learned their trade the old-fashioned way: they worked their butts off. The certified professionals worked hard, true, but I've always had this nagging feeling that they look down their alphabet soup (CDP, CCP, et al.) noses at MIS professionals who are not certified.

This is a dynamic industry filled with a constantly changing array of challenges and technical hurdles. In the final analysis, working in the field of business data processing comes down to one thing: knowledge of data processing, not academic minutiae.

Unlike the medical or legal professions, business data processing is an acquired profession. Much like brick layers or bulldozer drivers, business data processing professionals apprentice to their craft. It's impossible to complete a prescribed set of tests and claim to "know" business data processing. Only by years of dedicated, disciplined study, work, and effort can one master this industry.

In the end, the business data processing professionals who deserve the title "certified" are those who have been sanctioned in the crucible of daily involvement in MIS problems and challenges.

What of the alphabet soup certification? Bunk.

?Kris Neely

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