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[...]
> don't see
> it as being useful for keeping people out of jobs. I just see it as
> something you take to your current employer and use to
> leverage a better
> assignment, a raise, more authority, ....
>
> Certification, if it is ever to exist in the field, should be
> a way of
> demonstrating that you _are_ experienced, not a way to _get_
> experience.
I would think that your actual work would be the best leverage to get more
money or respect at your job. I think the best way to show that you are
experienced is to actually do things that people notice. If you don't feel
you are getting respect or money, you need to educate your boss or your
organization your contribution to the bottom line. It's been discussed in
endless ways on this list, and I don't entirely see why a new acronym or a
piece of paper in a frame or a gold star will dump value upon someone.
You'll just be spending the same amount of energy convincing your boss and
coworkers that your certificate is worth more than the paper its printed on.
This reminds me of my first job, where I worked for a smallish Seattle
startup that was bought by a large, slow dinosaur in Columbus, Ohio. They
had a rigorous set of job titles that made me wonder if I was working for
the government, and they had the definition of a tech writer practically
down to what keys that should be allowed to press during the course of a
business day. This certification talk seems similar: quantifying the
process of a very dynamic job until everyone is limited as to how they can
exactly do something. It's a lot like how the HMO business tore up the
medical industry, dictating how long doctors should spend looking at each
patient and saying exactly how many pills you were allowed to take before
you got better, without factoring in any human element whatsoever. I'd like
to think my current job is more interesting than that, and I realize that
this is not a requirement, but it still seems a bit silly.
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