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<p>Hi Russell, All,</p>
<p>An interesting idea and already some great replies from (at the
time of writing) Kathy, Peter, David and Simon.</p>
<p>I'm breaking etiquette ever so slightly by replying to Russells'
original post as I want to pick up on his final question which may
take the discussion in a different tangent.<br>
</p>
<p>I'll also flag I'm speaking for myself only here, but am drawing
on past and current work experience.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/7/23 00:23, Russell Coker via
linux-aus wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:3502813.3CdzvNlvnA@xev">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Would there be a benefit in having Linux Australia certification?
Companies like Google give out certificates when people attend their training,
would certificates of attendance be of any interest to people?
What about certification of skilled contribution to FOSS projects? We could
have a system where members of the projects can endorse worthy contributors
for a certification of their skills and work. Would that help people get
jobs?</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I think this final question - "...would it help people get jobs?"
bears careful thought...</p>
<p>Based on my experience, if the job in question is in the open
source software development/systems design space, I'd say "No:
certifications don't particularly help" Whenever I've been
involved in hiring people (all SW Development in some form), the
employer du jour is looking for demonstrated skills and will seek
to measure them directly."<br>
</p>
<p>In assessing whether to interview, recruiters (internal or
external) are looking at the persons work history, have they a
visible (Github etc) track record of credible open source
contribution, that kind of thing. Once someone is in the interview
process, most employers will set up several interviews, typically
the first is to assess mutual cultural fit ("do they like us, do
we like them"), a second for a systems design exercise ("can they
design the thing"), the third for coding skills ("can they
implement a subset of the thing").</p>
<p>Some companies are notorious for turning this process into a test
of wills of sorts, almost seeking to trip the person up.
Thankfully more and more companies (including where I am now) are
taking the approach of setting these interviews up as an
opportunity for the person to shine. Put them at ease, help them
show their best, use your preferred programming language etc. <br>
</p>
<p>But I can honestly say when hiring into FOSS roles, I've never
looked at/for a certification, or for that matter, given much
thought to presence/absence of tertiary qualifications. <br>
</p>
<p>As it happens a colleague of mine recently put the view
(paraphrased slightly) "If I see lots of certifications it's a bit
of a warning flag - why not put that time into contributing to a
FOSS project they care about?" a fair point I thought.<br>
</p>
<p>If on the other hand the role is (say) software development for
aerospace, health/medical systems, system administration, network
security that sort of thing, then I suspect the existing
certifications serve that space well and are appropriately table
stakes in hiring. But that's outside my area of direct/adjacent
experience! :)<br>
</p>
<p>Hope that's a useful $0.20 worth.</p>
<p>Cheers,<br>
Hugh</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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