Feedback on the J2EE Architect Certification article

[Apologies to those people who added comments to this post on my radio blog - they didn't come over..]

Well, the article on the SCEA J2EE Architect certification has garnered a respectable level of feedback from the J2EE community - both direct feedback via emails and also through the discussion thread on theserverside.

On the discussion thread, a number of common themes have come up and I'll address the main one in my opinion - the validity of the certification.

Some posters have recounted stories about companies where one person sits the exam and then discloses exam details to colleagues, effectively giving them a free ride. Other stories include the 3-hour submission and so on.

Long story short, I addressed this type of thing in the article. It sucks to see people cheat because they are attempting to devalue all the hard work that decent candidates put into getting the J2EE architect certification, but the fact is that some people will always try to cheat on an exam.

Cheaters will always be found out when their experience and know-how falls woefully short of their resumes / CVs and any good interviewer will quickly figure this out. Plus they won't take 1% of the value that comes with actually working through the exam itself. I have yet to hear of anyone who walked into a position - contract or permanent - simply because they had the J2EE architect certification. Especially with the job market as tight as it is right now on both sides of the atlantic, that just ain't gonna happen.

As for people who boast of a successful submission in some ridiculously short timespan - they cannot prove it. Having taken the exam and also seen submissions, I don't believe that a successful submission could be produced in a couple of hours. If someone wants to boast about speed of submission *shrug* so what? Let me know what you think - add a comment!