Macromedia's Certification Exams?

[NCD]

Simple one...

Macromedia's FlashMX Designer and Developer Certification exams... are they worth the $150?

I finished "VisualPro Quickbooks" Flash 5 Adv. by Chun ages ago... am just completing Macromedia Press' FlashMX Adv. Actionscripting course-book (the "From the Source" thing) and, from the look of the sample tests online, I'm already poised to get close to an 80 on the developer's exam and I'm only 1/3 of the way through Macromedia's study guide.

I'm doing a career change and have no web design to put on the resume (though the rest looks good for troubleshooting and hardware type tech stuff). I'm hoping that a developer cert could offest the fact that I'm a "hobbyist" with Flash who doesn't have any paying work to show in a portfolio yet. My samples are all stuff I'm putting together now to be just that... samples.

Opinion poll.... Am I wasting my time with the certification exam or will the certification really help considering that I have no commercial web design track record yet?

NCD

[pheck]

i think that your idea is a good one. in many cases, the cert exams may not pay off. but in your case, i think it's smart. i would also look around to your close friends and family and see what multimedia needs they have, and offer to do it for them for cheap/free. this will probably help you even more in the long run, if your endpoint is project acquisition. best of luck and welcome!

[NCD]

Thanks pheck, I've been vulturing the thread for any responses (not too smart but my time online is limitied these days).

One idea I have is that I got some great fla code examples from "around" and will be tweaking them. In the portfolio I plan to credit the original author and then explain exactly what I tweaked and how I did it, showing the code changes in a text block. The idea there is to show that I didn't just copy some code but that I actually took the time to understand the coding and am competent enough to alter it for a specific effect.

Unless I'm mistaken, the reality is that designers spend far more time adapting other existing scripts to specific needs than generating whole new ones from scratch. Isn't that a big part of what reusing code is all about?

Of course, one must include enough original material to show competence in that too.

'tis a passing thought. I'll check back in a day or three.

Thanks again,

NCD

[mikecoutermarsh]

You would most likely be better off by doing work for family members and making up 'Fake' sites then modifying others code.

If I was the 'client' I would prefer someone with completly orginal work.


-Mike

[NCD]

Funny you should say that....

I've been coding my a** off for 4 days and found that it was far easier for me to write a pair of gravity / anti-gravity engines (complete with true acceleration and friction) from scratch than it was to understand and tweak a tiny 3D script (never did figure it out, no comments in the code to hint at how the problem was approached).

I have one little game completed and the hard parts of another plus a quiz maker & taker set that saves made quizzes to the hard drive as SO's. A teacher can make any quiz of any length and save as many of them under different SO's as the disk space allows. Students take the quizzes and know the results immediately. I may add some kind of record for scores as well. Plus, the creation portion of the set is passworded to prevent students editing the quizes.

So far, that's about all I could show... well, that and the base portfolio page that can call these things up. Hopefully, those plus passing the exam (odds are looking better every day and the exam's Tuesday) should be enough for me to be able to start at a Jr position somewhere and get some exp under my belt.

Funny thing is that I fancy myself as more of a designer but am poised to take the developer's exam... and only now am beginning to see the difference. LOL

NCD

[Gloomycus]

Do whatever you want.

Personally, I won't waste my time with the exam because you could score 100% on it, but if the companies don't see a strong portfolio they aren't going to hire you based on your score on a test.

[erova]

troo gloomy, but let me play devils advocate with what you just said :

some corporate recruiter doesn't know jack about recognizing good design or what goes on under the hood to appreciate flash development, but knows that someone who banged out a perfect score on a recognized flash exam must know what they're doing, and bam--now you have an interview to show the art director/creative director/whatever, that portfolio you've been working on...

that's exactly why i picked up a certification at dirt-ass dev con... it wasn't for the people who knew what i was talking about, it was for the gatekeepers who had access to the people that i didn't....

[hurricaneone]

Originally posted by erova
some corporate recruiter doesn't know jack about recognizing good design or what goes on under the hood to appreciate flash development...

If these people did know what they were talking about, would they have chosen a career in human resources?

Could it be said that HR is for people that want to be in business, yet have no qualifactions that make them directly pertinent to the business at hand?

And these are the people who staff companies in countries all over the world. Employment is a game of favouritism, a game of who has the best suit, the nicest hair, the most affable personality, the best test scores.

Perhaps this is not true all of the time, but in most cases, you will have to get through the HR vetting process to even have the chance to talk to talk to someone who has the skill, even the right, to cast a judgemental eye over your port.

[erova]

Originally posted by hurricaneone
...And these are the people who staff companies in countries all over the world. Employment is a game of favouritism, a game of who has the best suit, the nicest hair, the most affable personality, the best test scores.

Perhaps this is not true all of the time, but in most cases, you will have to get through the HR vetting process to even have the chance to talk to talk to someone who has the skill, even the right, to cast a judgemental eye over your port.

yup, for the most part this is the game, it's just a matter of who wants to play and who rides the pine pissed off at the world...

[NCD]

The idea is to show a few key things that could lead to a start:

A) I'm serious enough to pass a certification exam... ANY certification exam.

B) The Cert will show that I at least have a clue when working with Flash

C) The cert will show others in this field that I may be worth taking on and training as part of thier team

The learning NEVER ends. The idea is for me to be someone who shows enough potential to be worth teaching.

NCD