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January 11, 2006
Certification as a means of avoiding knowledge?
Spotted on comp.lang.c: "Leo" wrote,
"I just had a job phone interview. Somebody asked me a lot of C questions which I was not prepared well. To avoid such questions in the future job interview, I hope to take some kind of C certificate."
"Leo's" request caught my eye: the place I work is doing a lot of hiring, and C is a required skill. If you have an interview, you WILL be asked C questions. I hear that some interviewees take 5 minutes or more to answer simple C questions; I'd guess that these are the guys who don't get hired.
If you go to an interview and they ask you if you speak English, you can't expect to point to a piece of paper which says, "I speak English" and hope that they'll be satisfied. If you interview for a job which requires knowledge and use of C, you really should expect to demonstrate knowledge of C. Maybe some skills can be certified away, but you can't fake it with C: either you know the language or you don't.
Hmmm. It makes me wonder if there ARE certificates you can get which will deflect any requirement of proving the skills in an interview. Scary thought.
Permalink | Posted by Joe at January 11, 2006 09:36 AM