[Phpwm] Zend Cert?

[Elliot Smith]

Darren Beale wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been toying with the idea of becoming Zend Certified for some time now,
> so much so that I bought the Zend certification book and sample questions a
> while back. I notice that the new PHP5 one is coming out soon and as I don't
> want to 'waste' the money I've spent on these books plus the time I've spent
> reading them so I figure I'd better get my finger out and go get tested now
> before the format changes.
>   
I got my Zend Certification in January. The exam was fairly easy. I 
basically went through the tutorial book once (thoroughly), then did all 
the sample questions in the test questions book. Probably about a day's 
worth of revision.
> Anyway, my question is to the people on the list that employ developers on a
> short or long term basis: is it worth it? Would seeing Zend Certified on a
> CV or website make any difference to your hiring decision?
>   
I can't see as it would affect your chances negatively, as it is the 
only "official" PHP certification (that I've come across, anyway). I've 
mentioned previously that since passing I've been contacted via my Zend 
profile twice by recruitment agencies and once by a company hiring 
directly. This is without me having to do anything or pimp myself on 
freelancer websites. So I think it's probably worth the investment and 
you could make more of it than I do (I'm not actively looking for 
development work).

Cheers,
Elliot
> I ask as I became a CCNA early 2000 and it was quite hard work with a high
> pass mark to become certified. Due to the nature of the test (closed book,
> no access to reference materials) ALL of the information had to be in my
> head and I found that due to the massive amount of cramming a lot of it was
> lost within weeks (admittedly not helped by the fact that I stopped using
> Cisco kit), which seemed a huge waste of time. With PHP for me it's
> different as I've been coding in it for so long, however I still use
> php.net/manual a lot and my fear is that I'm going to be cramming so I can -
> say - remember each individual formatting flag for sprintf() and it seems a
> bit pointless when in the real world I'd just go to php.net or access my
> IDE's docs.
>
> Any Zend cert's on the list? Has it made you life better in any way?
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> Darren Beale
> Freelance Web Developer
>
> Office:     0121 288 7197
> Mobile:     07711 716 197 
>
> Skype:       darren.beale
> MSN:     mail at bealers.com
>
> http://www.siftware.co.uk
>
>
>
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