Regretting my OCP certification on Java SE 7. I feel I wasted money and time.

[Mohammad Ali Asgar]

This writing is not for those who are pursuing OCA/OCP certification on Java SE 7/8. Please leave this page.

But, to those who already possess OCA/OCP certificates (like, myself) on Java SE 7/8, I would like to say that I regret having obtained OCP on Java SE 7 because I had invested so much time+money on it, buying and trying Mala Gupta's book, Enthuware mock tests, etc etc, with a false impression that after being certified the prospective employers will look at me differently.

Alas, in the job market, there hardly is any job asking for SE credentials. All of them ask for EE knowledge/experience on things like application servers, JMS, JPA, RESTful web services, JSF, Servlets, Spring, Struts, etc.

My question to experts: Is it really worth pursuing any certification on any Java technology that has "SE" in it?

[Ahmed Bin S]

Well, a certification alone will rarely get you a job - unless it is an entry-level position, it is experience that will matter most.

However, a certification does still have it's benefits. Firstly, you gained knowledge. That is good. Secondly, employers love seeing people taking the initiative and learning. I am an Oracle Certified Professional DBA, and when I go for a job interview, they usually ask me about that and why I pursued it.

I wouldn't be too despondent. Your knowledge is fresh, now take it to the next level - maybe start developing some Java Web Applications, post the code on GitHub, and hopefully you might find a job.

[Scott Selikoff]

If you're goal was solely to get a job solely with the certification, then you did it for all the wrong reasons. Getting a certification is about furthering your education, learning the newest and more recent changes to the Java language, and improving your skills. I found anytime I studied for an exam, it improved my programming skills because I took what I learnt and applied to my professional programming experience.

Yes, for some jobs it can help, but you can't rely on it solely to get a job. I don't think anyone on this forum ever made the claim having the certification would get you a job all by itself. It can help as a benefit for some companies and some interviewers, but it's purely subjective. For example, when I've interviewed candidates I take a certification as an important part of their background, but I don't hire people solely on that. Getting a job is about offering an employer a full set of skills, experiences, and team skills. A certification is just a piece of that.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself whether you learnt anything studying that will make you a better programmer, with increased value to an employer. Some employers pay for certifications because they tend to improve their employees skill set.

Telling people "don't do this because it didn't help me" is a pretty pessimistic outlook on programming. Everyone's background and experiences are different, the industry as a whole can be quite fluid. Hopefully what you learnt from the exam will lead to better software for future employers down the road.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

The Java EE exams have the Java SE cert as a pre-req. So if you plan to take a future cert... I agree with the above. A certification gives you greater skills and knowledge. And it can help set you apart.

There are some "core java" jobs out there, but Java SE + EE ones are more common. You still have to know core Java for a Java EE job.

[Ganish Patil]

Mohammad Ali Asgar wrote:This writing is not for those who are pursuing OCA/OCP certification on Java SE 7/8. Please leave this page.

Let everyone know the both sides of coin.
If you get certified then

Side One: Perhaps help you to get job (Which generally shouldn't be the purpose of getting certified ).

Side Two: Damn sure you'll get knowledge and improves your programming skill which leads to get you job.

there hardly is any job asking for SE credentials. All of them ask for EE knowledge/experience

SE is the base. It is like a builder is questioning why the hell my clients are not asking and wanting to see how the base of building was built but they only ask & look for area, color, well furnished or not, parking etc. But everyone knows whether it is builder or client base is more important to make above floors stand still.

Hope this clears your confusion of getting certified. Being unemployed is quite difficult to digest. If this tense you, you can visit this forum and see how doubts are being raised and solved by experts. You will learn a lot here and will also elevate your morale level, as Java is ocean get as much as you can. Have patience,be optimistic and just keep it up you will sure get a nice job.

[Mohammad Ali Asgar]

Thank you everyone for all your replies. Yes, I have experience. And, Java is my passion. As one of you compared Java with an ocean, I tool believe so. I am now focusing more on EE now that my core is officially solid with SE. It is just that I was expecting to see jobs asking for experience in Standard Edition Java = core Java but instead I found tons of jobs asking for experience in Enterprise Edition Java.

One of you did mention that some core Java jobs are available. I have yet to find some. I put my eyes on the Indeed website to look for such jobs.

Another thing is that, I had fun with threads in SE. But EE, in spite of providing a concurrent API, feels less flexible and more inhibiting on threading since a lot of threading jobs are transparently handled by containers in application servers.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Mohammad Ali Asgar wrote:One of you did mention that some core Java jobs are available. I have yet to find some. I put my eyes on the Indeed website to look for such jobs.

Maybe it depends on where you live? Here in New York City, I see lots of "Core java" positions on Dice.

[Mohammad Ali Asgar]

Thanks, Jeanne, for the reply. I am in the Toronto area in Canada.

I have randomly picked some of the NYC jobs found on the link you provided. Here is one sample taken from them. This asks for these:
Service oriented architecture - Rest/SOAP Services, SPRING, HIBERNATE.

Aren't these technologies used with EE, as opposed to SE? Some employers use the term "core Java" very wrongly.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

No. "Core Java" means "not Java EE". It does not mean only libraries that come built in with Java SE. Some of the positions do mean only Java SE like this one

I've used REST APIs on a client to do testing. That's certainly not Java EE. And Spring/Hibernate are "Just" Java libraries. You can use them client side standalone apps. You can use them on the server side. You can even use them from an EJB based app. The last one is Java EE of course.

[Ahmed Bin S]

Mohammad Ali Asgar wrote:
I have randomly picked some of the NYC jobs found on the link you provided. Here is one sample taken from them. This asks for these:
Service oriented architecture - Rest/SOAP Services, SPRING, HIBERNATE.

You won't find Java developer roles which require knowledge of SE only unless you're applying for graduate positions or another entry-level position where the pay will be low. You just need to build on what you have learnt and not just give up.