Many years ago when I sat the foundation certificate it made very little difference (if anything at all) to my day to day work. I remarked to a colleague though that the certification would make us all “more employable”. I was right.
Back then not many people had the certification so when you saw it listed on a CV (complete with required logo) it made that CV and candidate stand out. Had they taken their learning more seriously? Were they prepared to see what this certification lark was all about? What was this certification thing?
Soon though, everyone had a certification and you no longer stood out from the crowd.
Thankfully though – along came more higher rated (and presumably higher valued) certifications. Great. You could stand out again. Until of course – most people started to get these too.
Now you need something more to stand out. I wrote a whole book to help you work out what I think you need to do. But one thing came to mind* the other day that I realised I missed from the book.
What if your CV was the only one that DIDN’T have a certification?
That would make you stand out.
And any good hiring manager might start to ask “I wonder why they felt the need not to get certified, or list it on their CV?”. And that is an excellent starting point for a good conversation about you, software testing, certifications and your learning.
Note: Although this blog post is a flippant approach to the challenges hiring managers have of finding good candidates – it could actually be a useful approach to standing out.
* I recall some Twitter banter around certifications and why you don’t need them but can’t recall (or find) who actually made a statement along the same lines as I have. If you know who it was please let me know.
– I’ve since been informed that it was Michael Bolton via Twitter who said to leave the cert off the CV – sage advice indeed.