[ILUG] ECDL myths

[Gareth Eason]

	Fair comments - but as companies start outsourcing recruitment to 
agencies more and more - and agencies know less and less about what jobs 
actually entail, perhaps it's good to have a bunch of standards and some 
sort of equivalency system or higherarchical method of comparison of 
these many standards.

	For example, I was looked poorly on by a number of agencies who had 
job-specs that _required_ an MSCE - which I do not have. Despite the 
fact that I have been dealing with M$ operating systems in various roles 
since DOS 2.10, they felt I was not able to do this, for lack of an MSCE.

	Likewise, in my current role one of my colleagues recently turned 
around to me after a somewhat indepth discussion of RedHat internals and 
said, "But you have an RHCE, no?" I don't - but it doesn't mean I don't 
have a reasonably thorough knowledge of the various RH releases, having 
used them since RH 3.0 (IIRC) (I was flattered that

	Having been recently through the work looking for a new job (due to a 
previous contract coming to a close), I must admit I was quite miffed to 
see Baud/Stewie looking for someone with 5 years PHP experience on IRC 
yesterday. Should that rule out someone who's been developing code for 
10 years in various languages but has only started using PHP in anger 
for the past 12 months? I, personally, would prefer someone with that 
history rather than the applicant who had been doing nothing but PHP for 
the past 5 years. I've done quite a bit of technical training for 
various companies and I always feel that if someone understands the 
*logic* of a programming language, I can teach them the *syntax* within 
2 weeks.

	So always be suspicious of job role requirements, and with things like 
the ECDL - always mark it as "ECDL or equivalent required" or some such 
thing. Otherwise I guarantee you that some day you or I or some ILUG'er 
will be turned down for a job because we don't have an ECDL and the 
recruitment agency doesn't know that an RHCE is not only equivalent but 
more in depth...

	And thus ends my Thursday rant - now back to C / SQL / PERL / Linux 
bashing :-)

	Regards,
	-->Gar



Kae Verens wrote:
> Conor_D_Wynne at Dell.com wrote:
> 
>>> You might not like it - I don't either - but nonetheless it is a
>>> qualification widely recognised by employers, and at least lets them
>>> know that their prospective employees have a certain level of
>>> knowledge. 
>>
>>
>> I would be seriously embarrassed to have that on my CV.
>> To be honest I have several MCP's and I dont advertise that either :--)
> 
> 
> A person with BSc in something will maybe not bother putting the leaving 
> cert on the CV, while a person who has not gone to college would use the 
> next best thing - their leaving cert results.
> 
> I think the Linux ECDL will be similar - it's an introduction to 
> computing with Linux. Yes, I'd be embarassed to have it on my own CV as 
> well, but then - I would be embarassed to apply for a job that required it.
> 
> A person that required the ECDL for their job would most likely not be 
> in the computing world - secretary, or the like, maybe - and so would 
> not bother with our own opinions of the "worth" of it. To them, it's 
> proof that they have a fundamental skill in something.
> 
> Kae