[consulting] Drupal Certification and Requirements

[Liam McDermott]

Chris Johnson wrote:
> Students who are good at rote memorization and good at test taking excel at
> -- well, taking tests.  Same with certification for the most part.  In hiring someone,
> I want someone who will be good at the job, not good at taking tests
> or good at collecting certificates.
With this in mind, does Drupal have to take a conventional approach to 
certification? Consider this:

   * traditional certification sucks;
   * practical experience is all that counts;
   * a good measure is contributions to the Drupal community;

Maybe a certification could be based upon completing a practical 
project. The exam might have only one question: 'Write a contributed 
module to do x' (it could require examinees to write documentation too). 
This also has the added advantage of not needing to be re-written every 
time the Drupal API changes. The disadvantage is that the results would 
be difficult to mark, not sure if this stops the idea being viable, but 
is food for thought none the less.

Kind Regards,
Liam McDermott.