Zend PHP5 Certification, does it matter?

Question

The Zend PHP5-certification, is it really worth it? In the end for me it boils down to: Will it get me jobs I wouldn't without it?

Answer 1

Does it open doors ? Probably. Are those doors worth the trouble ? I don't think so.

The web industry is full of small/midsized enterprises that aren't stuck in the degree/certification idea, and I believe that those are usually more interesting places to work at than some big corporation that will come to you through a recruiter that noticed your zend cert. Just my opinion of course.

And by the way I'm from Europe, I think the US companies are using recruiters more often so I'd say it's probably more useful to get a certification if you want to work over there.

Answer 2

It won't help you very much on finding a PHP job; But it will help you if you want to know every function, syntax and what it does without having to look it up.

I did the PHP4 certification a couple of years ago; Nobody ever said or asked something about it in the interviews I had.

Answer 3

If a book author would come to me showing his english marks, would it make his book better? His story more interesting?

Technology is just a tool. Only because you certified on the tool, doesn't mean you can make good software.

Better spend the time and money in an opensource project or create something on your own.

Answer 4

First, the only sensible way to treat this Zend Certificate is like "have one more paper". It does not give you any skills that would be worth it. Now you may loose more time on this that you could spend on more valuable activities, like contributing to an open source project or having a home project. It might help you get the job, but with these two drawbacks: you may not always want to work at company which values such certificates high, and you may just better spend your time.

Answer 5

It's probably better to invest time contributing to an open source project, since it allows your credibility to be verified. Besides getting you ahead in your career, you also score karma points with the community.

Answer 6

I was developing in PHP for 3 years (coming off a CompSci undergrad education). My employer was willing to pay for the exam, so I took it.

What did I get out of it? Really, a certificate on the wall. Current employer doesn't really care about it, and I haven't tried outside employment since I got the cert.

However, the exam does cover lots of different aspects of PHP that I probably would never have reviewed. I don't work in XML or sockets, so I didn't know much about PHP's implementation of them. After studying for the exam, I now have an high-level overview of ALL of the PHP features; I wouldn't know anything about some topics without taking the exam.

Most tutorials and web dev articles don't cover the things that you only (rarely) use.

Answer 7

Like already mentioned, the web dev field is much more non-degree friendly than corporate programming jobs so things like having all the "right bits of paper" is not really as essential. That said the course for the PHP5 version is quite broad and you will force yourself to learn a lot about PHP in general.

I've personally taken it off my own back whilst I was in a development job and it was more out of a geniune interest to keep learning more. As far as cost goes its also pretty cheap compared to a lot of professional certs so it was a bit more appealing to me than doing a RHCE or CCNA (I know they've nothing to do with coding - I'm just geeky and for some reason have thought a lot about doing certs 'for fun').

I think it would get your CV more than a quick glance - we're hiring were I work at the minute and with some of the junk we're getting sent it would be nice to see something that you could at least partly trust as worth a further look.

The most important thing though if you're looking to get a job in web development is having some sites to show. I can't stress that enough! We get people sending CV's with literally no example sites or code.

Answer 8

It will help you stand out against other candidates. All other things being equal, surely an employer would prefer to hire someone with a certification, a degree, or some other scrap of paper that says they know something.

However, Zend PHP5 certification is no substitute for actually knowing something. We hired a Zend PHP5 certified developer a while ago, and he was gone shortly after because his code organization was just awful.

If you're a skilled PHP developer with good coding practices (validating user input and generally keeping good security in mind), preparation is trivial. It took me a week to prepare, and I gained a great deal of knowledge that I didn't have previously.

I think it's worth it.

Answer 9

I don't like the whole certification thing at all, but I have it for PHP 5 (well, only because it was free) and I would say it can help there. The problem with PHP is that it's a very flexible language which takes skill to use right. There are many people who call themselves PHP programmers, but who are really just hacking a bunch of scripts together and making a big mess (that still works...initially). The certificate alone is not something that will get you hired, but it's an easy way to show/prove that you are a cut above those script kiddies and might get you an interview.

Answer 10

Hi there, In my humble opinion, certifications are not here to say "you're a great programmer who can handle a very complex project"... And this is the profile companies are looking for.

They're here to say "An authority certifies that my knowledge of this topic is at XXX level".

Then THE $1.000.000 question is what the "XXX level" means...

As i'm a freshly ZCE (PHP5), i think that the "XXX level" means that you have enough knowledge to audit a PHP application and pinpoint commons vulnerabilities or misuses of the language.

If you want to be "developer/sysadmin/dba/project manager" (what companies wants)... then hard work(+) and experience(+++) is highly needed... but it's often not sufficient. Experience (and/or) hard-work can be reduced with selected degrees (BSC - for technical skills, MBA - for management/functional skills).