We should all get certified. Seriously, we should. I’ll be honest, I used to think certifications were a waste of time. But then I had a few experiences that changed my mind.

In this second post in the ‘We’ve got it all wrong’ series, I want to talk about why I think we should be certified¹ and require it of interview candidates.

The Interview

Recently I’ve been thinking of getting a permanent job, and saying goodbye to freelancing. So I contacted a few companies to talk informally.

As a result, a few weeks back I had a technical interview on the telephone with Company X², which was really funny on so many levels but I’ll come back to that. About 30 mins in, Bob (that’s not his real name) asks me to tell him the difference between a Java interface and an abstract class. [For those unfamiliar with programming/Java this is a bit like those questions on the TV phone-in quizes which cost £5/min: is 2 a) a fruit, b) a whole number between 1 and 3 or c) an off-white color. Hmm, let me think about that for a mo.]

Another interview, err, no thanks

What’s even funnier about this situation is that:

1. I contacted the company via LinkedIn, so they have complete access to my LinkedIn profile, which has 20 years worth of Java on it. So I’m either one of the most blatant liars on the face of the planet or that question is a complete and utter waste of time.
2. I wasn’t told that I was being called to have a technical interview.
3. I wasn’t even applying for a role and had contacted them to have an informal chat.
4. It was on one of the worst VoIP lines imaginable. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how bad.

Oh dear. The next week they invited me in for a face-to-face technical interview. I declined. It gets better though.

It gets better ...

I’m talking to a friend a while later who was interviewing with the same company. He’s a well-known expert in his field and has written 10,000s of lines of open-source code. So I’m sharing my experience about the phone-call, and he then tells me that in the next stage of the process they asked him to write a Word Count program. Oh, how I laughed.

It’s a mediocre recruitment process, at best.

... and then some

It gets even funnier though, because the next week I’m talking with another company, chewing the fat about programming languages, process and other stuff. I happen to mention the Word Count story, at which point they look a bit sheepish and suggest that the question-set/approach was probably their in-house one borrowed by ex-staff who have transitioned to Company X.

So it wasn’t even Company Xs approach. It was lifted from another company.

Don’t get me wrong. There is an argument that says you should baseline candidates by the same approach. I think it’s flawed reasoning, at least to some extent, but I get it.

Amateurs

But what can we expect? I’ve never been at a company where they have trained their technical interviewers. They are amateurs. They’re making it up as they go along. At best, they might get a company approved list of interview questions. If you’re really lucky this will be current. Unfortunately, it’s often not.

So you end up with someone like Bob³, apologising their way through the question-set. This is the impression you want your interview candidates to come away with? This is how unimportant getting the right candidates is for the average company? I’m figuring not.

We use amateurs and take an amateurish approach, and we get amateurish results. This is how we acquire ‘talent’. Shocker.

Back to certification

I was fortunate to start using Java pretty close to year zero. I worked on the first Java project that EDS did in the UK. I always had 2/3 yrs more Java than most people. I’m lazy. I never needed to get Java certified because I had great experience.

But on reflection, I wish as an industry we just required it of developers. It would save at least the first 10-20 minutes of every technical interview I’ve ever done! It would also save me from ever having to interview another candidate who couldn’t answer the basic questions. It would let us cut to the chase.

Certifications are really pretty similar to the driving test. They won’t tell you who the great drivers are, but they’ll tell you who can’t make the basic grade. Why would we not want to set minimum standards in the industry?

But certifications are rubbish

So sure, the quality and breadth of current certifications could be a lot better. But then if there’s no market for it they will never improve. If companies purchased more, they would increase the market size and quality. We’d end up with better certifications.

And this is the rub for me, the big companies, the blue-chips, consultancies, etc, should be pushing the standards forwards for the industry. Lifting the bar. However, from my experience with Company X and others I would have to say they are just as amateurish as the rest of the industry.

I think we need to get certified. All of us. Set a minimum standard. Raise the bar for the industry. Plus we need to give a lot more thought and attention to the way we recruit.