[Dshield] On Certs

[Brenden Walker]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: list-bounces at lists.sans.org [mailto:list-bounces at lists.sans.org]
> On Behalf Of John Hardin
> Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 12:15 PM
> To: General DShield Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [Dshield] On Certs
>
> On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Julian Curmi wrote:
>
> > certification is not a silver bullet
> > solution........imho.....certification shows that you have the
> > knowledge.....can bring one closer to an interview....shows the
> > prospective or current employer that one has gone the extra mile to
> > learn more and improve one's skills......shows that you are remaining
> > current in the field ie CPEs...........certification creates a
> standard
> > to go by.....my 2c worth...
>
> So how would you view an applicant who had no certs, and said that they
> aren't worth the paper they're printed on for the reasons Jon gave?
> (which, FWIW, I agree with)

I'm one of those ;-).  I'm in a slightly different field (application development, mostly windoze).  That being said I have no degree's worth speaking of (on AS from a no name jr. college), no certifications.  I have been pretty active in freeware/shareware/open source since the late 80's though.

Initially all they had to go on was code samples.

The interview process was essentially being grilled by 5 other programmers for 2-3 hours.  That process has worked well for us.