Apply HN: Skill Certification You Can Trust

Re:Apply HN: Skill Certification You Can Trust by greenyoda on Saturday April 09, 2016 @10:13PM (#11464528)

"Certificate/degree holders would be tested on their knowledge and skills at some point after the certificate/degree was awarded. Holders would be able to register their availability for testing at certain times and days on a system similar to the WADA ADAMS system. They would be called at 12 hours notice anytime over the next 3 to 12 months and asked to sit a test in one of their nominated times slots. Failure to be available for the test would mean a fail."

As an employee, I'd find this distasteful. Just as I wouldn't work for a company that wanted me to piss in a cup at random intervals, I wouldn't work for a company that wouldn't hire me unless I was re-tested for competence at random intervals.

Also, I'd find it disturbing if a company that has a financial incentive to make people take as many tests as possible would be given control over who gets hired across a large number of companies. And the system seems to be lacking the transparency that would allow people to determine whether the testing company was itself competent to judge the competence of others.

Finally, in a field like software development, there's such a wide variety between the skills needed in different jobs that a one-size-fits-all certification would be meaningless. E.g., it's perfectly fine for someone who works on operating system kernels to not know anything about HTML, CSS, JavaScript or mobile app development.

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Re:Apply HN: Skill Certification You Can Trust by danieltillett on Saturday April 09, 2016 @10:38PM (#11464585)

I am not sure where I suggested that a company is forced to use the system or not. I can't see any company testing their current employees as there is no advantage for them doing so. The would only be interested in the certifications of new candidates.

So your objection seems to be that a company offering these tests might make a lot of money by having lots of people take these tests? It is not like companies aren't doing these skills tests already - the nice thing about this approach is that it makes the whole testing process more transparent. As a candidate you know if you passed or not, which is more than can be said for the average whiteboard test.

Of course the tests would be specific to the skills you want to be tested on. If you want to be tested on front end material the test would be about that, not operating system kernels. The candidate controls what skills they want to be tested on.

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