From: Gregory Seidman <gsslist+ruby@...>
Date: 2007-12-10T23:52:00+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby certification

On Mon, Dec 10, 2007 at 11:24:50PM +0900, Robert Klemme wrote:
> 2007/12/9, Austin Ziegler <halostatue@gmail.com>:
> > Let me try to state this a different way. We recently had someone who
> > interviewed where I work and he claimed to be (among other things) a
> > Ruby expert. Since I *am* a Ruby expert, I was involved in the
> > interviews with this guy. (We've since hired him, because he checked
> > out.)
> >
> > But you know the very first thing that I did? I Googled him. I was
> > able to find examples of code that he'd written (not Ruby, but other
> > languages). I went into the interview armed with knowledge about him
> > far better than any certificate would provide.
> 
> But then again, you're probably also an *interviewing expert*.  There
> are probably more people around interviewing whose Google-Fu would not
> have brought them that far. :-))

...which falls under places I probably don't want to work. If they can't be
bothered to Google me, it probably isn't somewhere I'd be happy.

Remember that an interview cuts both ways. You may be trying to convince a
potential employer that they want you to work there, but they'd better be
selling you on the job and the environment. When they "end" the interview
with "Do you have any questions for me?" you should be doing the same thing
they were doing: asking questions to which the answers will determine
whether you should work there. (The questions asked by both sides are, of
course, additional pieces of information for that determination.)

It's pretty common to think of job seeking and interviewing as one-sided
affairs, where the candidate humbly submits him-/herself for consideration
and desperately tries to convince the powerful employers that he/she is
more worthy than the other candidates. This is crap. If you are actually in
this position you have already done something wrong.

Part of the reason for working on/with leading edge technology is to be in
demand. The market for Java or .NET programmers is largely saturated, and
typical (note I said typical, not all -- your anecdotes have no power here)
compensation and working conditions are what they are because of
simple supply and demand economics. Other pressures level the field to an
extent, in that differences in competence have a relatively small effect on
compensation and working conditions. Likewise, with demand
outstripping supply for Ruby (and particularly Rails) developers, I can
expect to find work I like with compensation and working conditions to my
liking because I can pass up less appealing opportunities without running
out of options. As long as you are competent and can show your competence,
the same applies to you; certifications won't help with that.

> Cheers
> robert
--Greg