posted 20 years ago
Hello Sundar,
In my opinion, the ultimate goal of a programming certification is to help you gain employment or to help you advance to a better job with the employer you already have. A certification will not necessarily get you a job, but I think that getting a certification increases your chances in two ways:
1) by studying for the certification you will fill in some of the gaps in your knowledge and you will reinforce what you already know. The more completely you know your subject, the more likely you are to succeed in using the technology to make something that works. The more often you make stuff that works, the more obvious it will be to an employer or prospective employer that you are a desirable employee.
2) an employer can assume a basic level of knowledge from a candidate who holds a certification. This makes it easier on an employer when they have a stack of 100 resumes and they need to trim it to a dozen for initial phone interviews.
However, the certifications won't get you anywhere if you don't practice what you know. In a technical interview you won't get any slack just because you have a cert. Unless it is an entry level position you will be expected to prove your knowledge within the first few minutes.
The certification gets your foot in the door for a technical interview and it helps strengthen you for the onslaught once you get it.
