Certification madness. Once upon a time, a college degree meant something: the holder had at least a minimal literacy (no, not mere functional literacy but knowledge and awareness of the richness of Western culture and history, at least minimal ability to do critical analysis, a comfortable numeracy, etc.) and a known knowledge base. Now? notsomuch.
Trades used to have apprentices, journeymen and masters, and some still do, but the practice is falling away in preference to certifications by both private associations and quasi (or actual) government agencies. And certifications of that sort do serve useful functions.
But a plumbing or mechanic or teaching or computer certification doesn’t measure anything beyond a specific knowledge set. It does not measure what the certification holder can and does do. There are many certified and licensed plumbers, teachers, mechanics, computer techs, etc., who passed a certification exam and/or acquired class hours for that certification who are worthless in their fields. But employers want the certs to demonstrate their hiring standards are… standard.
A couple of innocuous examples from a wealth of material:
Here in America’s Third World County, there are few certified computer techs. I am fairly frequently called upon to correct issues not addressed by or caused by one (or more) of the other certified techs. In almost every case, the cause of the lapses have been twofold: greed and laziness, not a lack of knowledge.
Son&Heir’s car was inspected by an ACE Certified Mechanics’ shop before we purchased it, nevertheless, I–a reasonably intelligent amateur–have corrected several obvious mechanical problems that popped out to my eyeball inspection (and were confirmed by a trip through the car’s manual), problems that boded well to cause serious issues down the road. Why didn’t the ACE shop catch these plain to see mechanical problems? I suspect the common “laziness and greed” factor were at the root of the poor inspection.
Certification madness–shopping to the certification rather than to demonstrated competence–among employers and consumers is a recipe for mediocrity at best. A certification should be one among other more important criteria folks should look at when seeking specialized skills work. The single best criterion for measuring a certified person’s skillset and work habits is, of course, examples of their work that you can see for yourself. Whether it’s a few cars a mechanic’s worked on, some networks a tech has installed or configured, past students taught ot untaught, examples of the certified person’s work are better meaures of what they may do for you than their certification. Of course, this kind of measurement requires you do your own homework on what good examples of work in their field are, and that’s just too hard for some folks to tackle (“too hard” as in requiring some effort, any effort).
The next best criterion is the experience others have had with their work. Ask around. Find out how the prospective skilled worker’s work has held up over time. This isn’t a sure check. Some folks may not know, for example, that adding a wireless network card to a desktop computer whose wired connection is already working, more reliably and at a higher speed than the wireless connection, is just a way for a tech to add an unnecessary $100 padding to an already padded bill. So, when using this criterion, you have to weigh the user’s knowledge and experience as well as their comments about the work done for them. That’s more work for you, work some folks are simply unwilling (or feel unable) to do.
But HR people who rely strictly on certifications (and PC hiring quotas) have no excuse for hiring certified incompetents or lazy bums. It is (ought to be, but really isn’t) their job after all to hire the best candidate for the job. That often they do not speaks volumes to their own (lack of) committment to excellence. We, as consumers, have a responsibility to our own pocketbooks, to our children and grandchildren (and not just for immediate financial reasons) and to society as a whole to seek the best–not just best paper-qualified–candidates for work we pay to have done.
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Nuke Gingrich, Woman Honor Thyself, Democrat=Socialist, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
