<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>As a middle aged computing professional (and some time hiring manager) I can say that ACS is not even on my radar when it comes to hiring.<br><br></div>One of the great things about contributing to FOSS is that all by itself, working on FOSS projects shows what you can do. You can not only display your tech skills, but you can display the all important ability to work well with other people, to communicate clearly and to be a genuine asset to a team. And the reality is that working in teams is what we all need to do. If you can readily demonstrate that you have submitted patches, docco, cogent bug reports etc to open an source project or projects, you're presenting concrete evidence of the kind of interest, commitment and self-direction that many prospective employers are crying out for.<br>
<br></div>Certifications, courses and degrees are fine ( I have some myself </grin> ) but they are no substitute for demonstrating that you are engaged, interested, curious, inventive and have done techie things for the love of it.<br>
<br></div>-- <br></div>MC<br><br><br><div><div><br><br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 5:35 PM, Russell Coker <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:russell@coker.com.au" target="_blank">russell@coker.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im">On Tue, 17 Dec 2013 07:08:33 Brenda Aynsley wrote:<br>
> The ACS (Australian Computer Society) is the recognised professional<br>
> association for those working in Information and Communications<br>
<br>
</div><a href="http://www.acs.org.au/sfia-certification/acs-certification/guidelines" target="_blank">http://www.acs.org.au/sfia-certification/acs-certification/guidelines</a><br>
<br>
The main purpose of the ACS seems to be to get "certification". You do a bunch<br>
of things that they consider to be good and make records of it and then they<br>
award you with a certification which might theoretically be regarded well by<br>
some employer at some future time.<br>
<br>
The certification process has improved since I last checked it some years ago.<br>
Last time it seemed almost impossible for anyone who does FOSS work to get the<br>
higher levels of certification (they were mostly aimed at managers). Now you<br>
can even count time spent reading blogs towards ACS certification.<br>
<br>
I think that if you want certification you should look at something like RHCE.<br>
The RHCE test is based on past knowledge (if you have good skills you can just<br>
turn up and pass the test), it has a training course which can be combined<br>
with the test (for people who might not pass straight off) and it is difficult<br>
enough that skilled people can fail it (I've seen that happen). Note that I'm<br>
not saying that RHCE is better than other Linux certifications, it's just the<br>
only one that I've done.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
My Main Blog <a href="http://etbe.coker.com.au/" target="_blank">http://etbe.coker.com.au/</a><br>
My Documents Blog <a href="http://doc.coker.com.au/" target="_blank">http://doc.coker.com.au/</a><br>
</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
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