Why I'm not a fan of certifications
I've seen a bunch of stuff on Twitter recently about developer certifications, specifically Laravel certifications. Of course, a couple of years ago, Taylor Otwell announced the end of the partnership with the "Laravel Certification Program".
At the beginning of this year, we discontinued our official partnership with the "Laravel Certification Program".
— Taylor Otwell (@taylorotwell) January 4, 2023
There is no longer an "official" certification program for Laravel, although Laravel certification exams managed by third-parties still exist and may be created.
Seeing the conversations on Twitter and remembering the above tweet got me thinking about if I was hiring for an engineer role, what would I care most about:
- Being able to pass an exam
- Being able to provide me a Github url containing projects they've built and code they've wrote.
I would much rather source dive projects that a candidate has built to find out how they approach stuff, how do they tackle problems and how their brain works. All a certification does is tell me you can remember how a framework works, but it doesn't tell me how you use the framework.
Unless I'm missing something, I genuinely don't understand the point of becoming a "Laravel Certified Developer", it makes no sense to me. Surely the best way to become certified, is to go out and build something? Not sitting answering questions set by a panel of experts that could be out of date by the time you take the exam.
If you're reading this and planning on becoming Laravel Certified, take it from someone who is in the industry, save your time and money. Invest the time into building something awesome instead. Trust me, nobody will take a look at a CV and think "Oh, this candidate is Laravel Certified, best get them in!", without any actual proof you can do it.
This isn't a dig at people who are Laravel Certified, if you are, congratulations on completing it!
