in reply to Perl Certification

This was discussed some time ago in Web-based certification services.

I still think the main line of critique against web-based certification services like Brainbench is in essence a critique of formalized testing procedures (like multiple-choice tests) as such. This may have some merit, but in the end anybody arguing against formalized testing procedures will have to provide some alternatives when facing the decision on how to evaluate candidates for a given job. Usually these alternatives will be more subjective (face-to-face or even telephone interview, recommendations, etc.) and/or more expensive (assessment center, trial periods, etc.). For a discussion of some alternatives, see Interview questions.

Christian Lemburg
Brainbench MVP for Perl
http://www.brainbench.com

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Certification fullstop...
by Elgon (Curate) on May 21, 2001 at 23:23 UTC

    Well,

    the problems with the Brainbench certification is that you can cheat and the questions asked require no "understanding" of the topic, merely a certain knowlege of it - THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE! The perl test certainly sucked (I took it once, got bored and failed).

    In general I wouldn't trust someone on the basis of a brainbench certification...

    /me, Brainbench certified in...

    Master Computer Electronics (Haven't done any for years.)
    Master High IT Aptitude (Yeah right! How good am I at Perl?)
    Master Math Fundamentals (This is probably fair enough...)
    Written French (Way too low a mark...)
    Physiology (I failed medicine at University!)
    Biochemistry (Okay, so I'm a chemist!)

    *grin*

    "Violence is the first resort of those faced with yet another BSOD."
    --/me

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