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| Subject: | RE: [gislist] GIS Certification? |
| Date: |
06/10/2004 10:35:00 PM |
| From: |
Anthony Quartararo |
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> > Why, pray tell, should any vendor have any role in a
> supposedly "objective"
> > assessment of a persons professional competence and
> qualifications? I
> > would contend that as soon as you let vendors inject anything other
> > than a long-arms reach pat on the back, you taint the whole
> process,
> > and by default dilute those that achieve certification status.
>
> I disagree, if you look at IT (it's not the same thing of
> course), take Cisco's very successful certification program.
> Someone with a CCIE (which means they will have experience,
> it's practically impossible for such a person to have that
> cert w/o exp.) can easily walk into a non-Cisco networking
> environment (Juniper, Foundry, whatever) and get a
> good-paying job, unless the Management are complete idiots
> (As in they will be out of business within 6 months).
Perhaps. Then what you are talking about with respect to the GIS industry
is technical [ie. Software] competence. Choose your platform, there are any
number of ways to test someones level of competence in performing various
software functions. That's old, and no need to add a certification for
that, please agree with me on that....
> > To throw another fly in the ointment, we discussed this before, but
> > the case has been made that these certified professionals
> will slowly
> > start to expect and perhaps demand higher salaries. Should
> the stroke
> > of a pen on a certificate be the justification to up
> someone's salary
> > by X %? Think of their colleague in the next cube over, equally
> > competent, perhaps more so, equally educated, equally savvy and
> > analytical, but also sees little professional value in seeking
> > certification. Now, the boss acquiesces to the newly certified
> > professional and gives a salary increase, maybe even mid-year, and
> > this professional skips back to their own cube, sits down
> and resumes
> > scratching his/her head over a spatially-related problem,
> only to ask
> > his neighbor [the uncertified one] for help. Does this
> sound familiar
> > in your office? Can I get an amen ? :-)
>
> So he goes out and gets a certification?
So, the operative motivation here is money. There's no shame in that folks,
it's a great, fantastic motivator. If that's more or less the main
objective with the certification initiative, that's groovy by me, let's just
not cloak it in some "ivory tower" idea that it will materially advance the
profession. I could be wrong however...
> I mean, I don't know especially think certification is
> desirable, but I don't really see the above-mentioned
> scenario as a disaster.
> The problem there is the manager, not the certification.
Consider the reality of the above scenario. Scale it to the national US
level, at the very least. Many in our industry operate in a "departmental
support" role: that is, not really the stars of the show, but relegated to
unrealistic demands by unappreciative "colleagues" in the planning
departments, engineering departments, the tree hugger departments, etc. etc.
The relatively healthy salaries that these "support" GIS staff command only
slighty offset the denigration experienced on a daily basis in their jobs.
If you then start toying with that balance, by seeing "certified" GIS
professionals getting salary increases with NO corresponding performance
increases, you will threaten the morale, and that is not something to trifle
with. It's not an insignificant issue, and if uncertified staff are then
defocused from their JOBS to focus on chasing "windmills", then who loses ?
Would you not resent both your boss and your colleague? Would you not start
looking for another job ?
Anthony [ok, if I sound off, it must be past my bedtime...]
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