Value of SCJP and does score matter

[Santana Iyer]

Does SCJP matter, what is its worthiness, value?
does it give you good chance of job opputunity for person without much experience?

What is good score, 85 + 90 + 95 +
Shall one invest a lot of time to get high score or
it is better to pass and score is not that important.

[Vladas Razas]

It does look good on your resume (if you put Sun Certified logo, even better). People don't usually put the score there. No one can ask you about it, or you can say whatever you want because Sun will not give away your score and on their website you will be listed only as *PASSED*. Score 80% means you know it well. Buy a certification book. Read it well and you're set.

[Vladas Razas]

Does SCJP matter, what is its worthiness, value?
does it give you good chance of job opputunity for person without much experience?

I forgot to answer to this Yes it worth it! Double-tripple-quadruple worth it if you cannot claim or have big experience. Go for it. Also when you're in interview expect to get questions that are very much like SCJP exam.

[Kj Reddy]

Originally posted by Santana Iyer:

What is good score, 85 + 90 + 95 +

If you get 100% thats more better

[Kj Reddy]

Originally posted by Santana Iyer:
Does SCJP matter, what is its worthiness, value?
does it give you good chance of job opputunity for person without much experience?

What is good score, 85 + 90 + 95 +
Shall one invest a lot of time to get high score or
it is better to pass and score is not that important.

SCJP may not have much value to increase your chances of getting job. But when you less experience definitely it is worthful. Atleast it shows that you can do hard work and can put some time to achieve something which is good for job.

If you get 100% score that is good. But I guess you wont show your score in your resume, and none of interviewers asks you how much you scored in SCJP.

[Santana Iyer]

Thanks

[Vinit Patil]

Originally posted by KJ Reddy:


If you get 100% score that is good. But I guess you wont show your score in your resume, and none of interviewers asks you how much you scored in SCJP.

I think, most of the interviewers asks you how much you scored, if you specified SCJP in your resume. It is good idea to avoid putting SCJP in resume, if you have less score, say 60%. But if you have 80+%, it gives good impression, so put the score in resume.

-Vinit

[Kj Reddy]

Originally posted by Vinit Patil:


I think, most of the interviewers asks you how much you scored, if you specified SCJP in your resume.
-Vinit

I dont know that as I dont hold SCJP . And when I am in interview panel neither I asked for score nor my co interviewers.


It is good idea to avoid putting SCJP in resume, if you have less score, say 60%. But if you have 80+%, it gives good impression, so put the score in resume.

Thats one of tip while making resume. Show you positives and dont show your negatives. If you good score and percentage in your certifications show them in resume else dont show.
[ September 23, 2005: Message edited by: KJ Reddy ]

[Nicky Eng]

hi all,
nice info....

i didn't know that SCJP got worth value. i just know that it is the basic cert for we to gain other more specific area cert like SCWCD(Servlets & JSP), SCBCD(EJB), and other certs.

i got no experience of working with java, but i did a college final real project with my java knowledge and develop a DVD selling system which was too simple because i tried not to make it more complicated as my duedate is on the corner.

i passed the SCJP on July,2005. i got 75%

i know the mark is not good, so i wont put my mark on my resume, but i think that the interviewers 70% they will ask about the score....

so the question is, put SCJP on resume, will have more chance to get a job?
what the job title would be? as Junior Java Programmer ? or any other job title suits to describe?

[Kj Reddy]

Originally posted by Nicky Eng:


so the question is, put SCJP on resume, will have more chance to get a job?
what the job title would be? as Junior Java Programmer ? or any other job title suits to describe?

If you are fresher and trying for job on Java then better put
SCJP in resume as it indicates that you know java.

Titles changes from company to company. Most of the time I heard the following titles for a fresher in India: Associate Software Engineer, Software Engineer, Application Programmer, Trainee Software Engineer etc.,

[Theodore Casser]

Originally posted by Vinit Patil:

I think, most of the interviewers asks you how much you scored, if you specified SCJP in your resume. It is good idea to avoid putting SCJP in resume, if you have less score, say 60%. But if you have 80+%, it gives good impression, so put the score in resume.

Maybe this is just because I am SCJP, but.. when I participate in interviews for positions within my company, I make a point of not asking what the person's score was. It's kind of like the driving test - all that matters is that you passed it, meaning you have at least a minimum level of proficiency, kind of like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Doesn't matter if you score 58% or 100% to most folks. Though, I'd agree that if you have a fantastic score, it may be worthwhile to mention it.

[Anand Prabhu]

Originally posted by Vinit Patil:


I think, most of the interviewers asks you how much you scored, if you specified SCJP in your resume. It is good idea to avoid putting SCJP in resume, if you have less score, say 60%. But if you have 80+%, it gives good impression, so put the score in resume.

-Vinit

Doesn't match with my experience. When our team interviews for a J2EE candidate for core development, we do consider SCJP as a plus. But we do not ask the candidate the score. We may ask him the year he passed the exam. We prefer to ask him some basic concepts and see if the candidate is motivated and strives to have clear concepts. He may give wrong answers or say "I don't know but I think it is....". But if we feel he is in the right direction, we give him due consideration. But definitey, the score is not a yardstick we consider for measuring his capabilities.

[Sameer Jamal]

I was never asked for my SCJP score but I do put my SCJP score in my resume, It might help in shortlisting the candidate for interview but in interview it wont help.

[Santana Iyer]

I want to thank everyone who replied,
very good response from all of you.
You provided good information as per your knowledge and experience and it is valuable for fresher like me who does not know about industry. I appreciate it very much.

Thanks to Internet, Ranch, and all ranchers.
[ September 23, 2005: Message edited by: Santana Iyer ]

[Sania Marsh]

Originally posted by Santana Iyer:

Shall one invest a lot of time to get high score or
it is better to pass and score is not that important.

You shall invest lot of time into knowlege - certification is secondary

[Jason Cox]

The problem with the SCJP, at least when I took it, is that it is mostly a test of knowledge regarding Java syntax and foundations. The SCJP doesn't make you a programmer, and gives absolutely no measure of what your ability to actually write functional software is.

As such, I doubt your score really matters to anyone. As someone who has a degree in a non-technical field, I have found that having the SCJP was useful during the time when I had little experience. Since then it is nothing more than resume padding though. No one really cares about SCJP if you have experience.

Even though I scored fairly high (somewhere over 80%, don't remember exactly) I have never mentioned my score in job interviews. The certificate I received from Sun also made no mention of my score. I think if the interviewer is interested, then by all means share your score. Otherwise I would leave it off resumes. I know if I were evaluating a new prospect, having their score right on their resume would just be an annoyance. It's great they could pass a test that ascertains they understand basic Java concepts, but a high or low score gives absolutely no indication of how good they are going to be.
[ September 26, 2005: Message edited by: Rob Aught ]

[Theodore Casser]

Originally posted by Rob Aught:
The problem with the SCJP, at least when I took it, is that it is mostly a test of knowledge regarding Java syntax and foundations. The SCJP doesn't make you a programmer, and gives absolutely no measure of what your ability to actually write functional software is.

I think that went without saying, though. If you think about it, the SCJP is kind of like a driver's license - it proves that you know how without saying if you're good or bad at it. (Last time I checked, at least, my licence didn't say if I was a good driver or a menace to motorists.) It's just a mark of a minimal amount of experience.

Though I do disagree minorly about how much it matters when you have experience - I think it can also be a good sign that you're continuing to study and improve yourself, even if you have experience, and those kinds of things do matter to some firms.

[Jason Cox]

Mostly I was just trying to illustrate why a score isn't going to be of much importance.

I think for a further example, I just barely passed my test for my driver's license (damn parallel parking!). Oddly enough, I went on to parallel park just fine that same day (I can park between two cars just fine, but two poles was too difficult). Anyway, I digress. Despite my poor performance on my test, I have had fewer accidents than my sister who did much better.

But you're right, I'm probably downplaying the importance of the SCJP after gaining experience. It is more of a footnote on my resume though, especially since my certification was for Java 1.2. No one seems to care much about what version my cert is for though. Except for other techno-geeks that aren't hiring managers.

[Roger Chung-Wee]

Kathy Sierra barely scraped a pass in the SCJP exam at her second attempt. Her score didn't matter, what Sun wanted was a pass so that she could meet their precondition for employing her. And by further studying, Kathy learnt a lot more about Java than most of us ...

[Prakhar Khandelwal]

How much does is sufficient to clear SCJP with a good score

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Prakhar Khandelwal wrote:How much does is sufficient to clear SCJP with a good score

There are a lot of excellent points in this thread. After re-reading it, what specifically are you curious more about?

And welcome to CodeRanch!

[Kakollu Durga Prasad]

Its really didn't add much value so so . But after GATE exam, I had really enjoy lot while writing SCJP.