Questions about SUN certifications

Question

1.What are the most wanted (recommended) sun certification in the IT industry?

2.Are they really valuable for a person's career path?

3.Can somebody survive with only doing sun certifications (Without doing any academic qualification) as an example a Bsc?

4.Is there a huge job market with higher salary rate for Java technology within the IT field (Comparing to other technologies)?

5.Can somebody find a good job (with higher salary rate) if he has completed all the sun certifications but without any experience?

I need your valuable contribution on these questions. Thanks.

Sun Certification Path. http://lk.sun.com/training/certification/java/index.xml

Answer 1

1. Consultancies like the Sun Certified Programmer qualification - this is the most basic qualification. Beyond this experience really counts especially with enterprise systems.

2. Survive doing what? Again experience is probably more important than certifications.

3. A good Computer Science/Maths/Physics degree is a must for any well paid and interesting IT job

4. Again it depends on the experience of the programmer and what the company wants.

5. They may have an advantage over other candidates but yet again experience and fit will decide.

Answer 2

I can't answer most of the questions, but if you have the certifications and no experience you will probably not find a higher paying job than someone with experience and no certification, as the certification is then just book knowledge.

Where the certifications come in handy, IMO, is in what you learn, especially when you have some experience with Java. Then you can see that the 'final' keyword has some uses that you didn't realize.

When you can tie in what you learn, as you learn the language better, with real experience, then it will help you.

A certification may open the door, but it is up to your experience to get the job.

Whether Java is higher salary than .NET depends on the market. In Atlanta, GA, for example, they seem to like Java, in Knoxville TN, .NET is the main language.

Answer 3

May be you will get some useful information from this thread - Is the SCWCD still worthwhile, and if so, how to prepare?

Answer 4

2.Are they really valuable for a person's career path?

I attach no value whatsoever to Sun certifications as most of the programmers I've interviewed who had them were frankly useless. I believe that some colleagues who do have them actually do not put them in their CVs!

3.Can somebody survive with only doing sun certifications (Without doing any academic qualification) as example a Bsc?

I would strongly advise against this. Doing a numerate degree at a reputable university is likely to be way more beneficial than a programmer certification.

4.Is there a huge job market with higher salary rate for Java within the IT field (Comparing to other technologies)?

Not in general, no. Specific comparisons with certain languages (PHP for example), then answer may be yes. But against C++, C#, Python etc, I would think not.

5.Can somebody find a good job (Higher salary rate) that have completed all the sun certifications but without any experience?

I doubt it: experience is everything when developing software. Well, almost everything. You certainly aren't going to compare favourably against developers with experience just because you've a certification

Answer 5

I wouldn't place much emphasis on certifications. They're not the ticket to huge pay increases like they were 10 years ago. I personally got the SCJP certification just because I wanted some validation of my 9+ years of professional Java development to put on future resume's, but that is about it. I wouldn't expect huge gains from certifications these days.

Now the security industry, that's a different story...

Answer 6

Get a degree.

• Learn the fundamentals.
• Learn by doing interesting projects with interesting, talented people.
• Have fun.
• Relax.

Get a job.

• Learn by doing interesting projects with interesting, talented people.
• The money will follow if you are proficient enough and are interested in your career.

Forget about a programming certificate.

• It'll go out of date - you may need to keep renewing it
• It'll be applicable to one kind of technology which may could fall out of favour any time.
• Without experience - it will look lame.

Answer 7

I do have some certifications. They have gotten me precisely no money or job opportunities. I don't know about Sun certifications, but I'd suspect they're about as useful. Before getting certified for something, check the job listings to see if there's any mention of the certs. There's almost no chance that there's a secret market for them that doesn't show up in job listings.

And get the degree. If the certification works out as well as you'd like, which I doubt, you'll get a job doing Java programming. Right now, that's a good position to be in. How will it be in ten years? If you ever want to move to doing something else, you'll want that degree. This applies if you want to move into D-flat or whatever the high-money language is then, or if you want to go into management, or into something else like software sales or auditing. Without the degree, you'll find it difficult to be anything other than a Java code monkey. Not necessarily impossible, but you'll probably save a lot of hassle and problems in the long run.

(This doesn't necessarily apply if you're starting a new company up, but if your startup goes bust, as most do, have an exit plan that includes getting your degree.)

Don't expect the certification to replace experience. It might make you more attractive for an entry-level job (which isn't a bad thing if it works), but it won't get you farther than that. It is almost certainly less useful than a bachelor's degree. Heck, learning to write with correct grammar and spelling will likely pay off more than the certification. (Don't send me a resume or cover letter with incorrect capitalization, iffy use of parenthetical phrases, lack of subject-verb agreement, and other problems in your posting.)