[consulting] Drupal Certification

[Domenic Santangelo]

Brian Vuyk wrote:
> I tend to think a Drupal certification would be a bad thing as well.
>
>   1. Clients being what they are, if a certification becomes somewhat
>      common, it will become much more difficult to get freelancing work
>      without it.
>   2. For that matter, every IT / tech recruiter posting a job
>      description on any job sites will now require it.
>   3. Certificate exam would need to be retaken every time a new version
>      of Drupal comes out.
>   4. Unless cost is very low, this is an added barrier to entry for
>      small shops and freelancers.
All valid points. Here's the thing: I believe that a Drupal 
certification in some form is inevitable, whether tomorrow or in 5 
years. We have the opportunity -now- to start it, guide it, and make it 
what we (as devs and consultants) think it should be, rather then 
retroactively trying to affect changes once some company or foundation 
builds it. There have been many good points in the thread about being 
company-centric rather than developer-centric, devaluing developer 
skill, etc -- we can mitigate most (all?) of these things if we take the 
reigns now, rather than trying to jump in once someone else does.

One way I've thought about the implementation would be something like this:
-Create a board consisting of sub-boards for (say) 4 core competencies 
within Drupal: Code, Theme implementation, Contribs, Theme creation 
quality and creativity.
-Using that board, rate applicants on each competency. Many applicants 
will be 8/10 in code and 0/10 in theme creation and vice-versa. This 
allows each applicant to be graded on his or her strengths as well as 
weaknesses.

Just a thought.

-D