What do you find more valued on a Resume?
MCPD certification (Or any certification) or a Degree in Comp Sci? And why?
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I find that a Degree is more valued on a resume. |
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I find experience more valuable. I might lean more towards a CS degree (probably more so), or I may lean more towards a certificate holder with experience under their belt. For an entry-level position a degree is likely to be considered the minimum requirement to be considered at most places of employment. On the other hand I've seen people without a degree do fine for themselves in contracting/consulting type positions - and they didn't hold any certificates. I don't think certificates are a complete waste. I think they do allow you have a better grasp on what technical possibilities exist. The .NET framework is huge and chances are you won't be involved with its vast offerings. You may never have a use for System.Drawing or any of the cryptography stuff depending on your line of work. What is useful is that it exposes you to the different libraries and lets you know what's out there. When you ultimately face a challenge you might have a better idea of how to tackle it since you've come across it during your studies. Bottom line though, certs != experience. Some good reading: |
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One thing which I did not know until recently is that companies need to maintain a certain number of staff with Microsoft certifications in order to qualify for various levels of Microsoft partnerships. My employer has been hiring recently and any MCTS certifications on a candidate's CV were a particular plus for this reason. It wouldn't get you hired without good experience and a good interview, but it was a definite plus. |
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A degree is far more valuable than any certification. A bachelors in computer science from an accredited, established college tells prospective employers that you have a wide range of skills, theoretical knowledge, and practical experience, as well as the tenacity to make it through the long duration of a degree course. While a certificate is valuable as a supplement to a degree, it doesn’t give you the stamp of a college degree, and only prepares you to work in a very compartmentalized, niche, limited capacity. |
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A CS degree and an MCPD aren't comparable. The MCPD is just four multiple choice exams. A person of reasonable intelligence can pass the exams in the course of a 6-week paid bootcamp program, or during a two or three months course of self-study. The quality of computer science programs varies hugely between schools, but a degree from any sort of reasonable university will generally require 3-4 years of study, the completion of at least a few programming projects, and dozens of exams. At best the MCPD is an indicator that the person has a basic familiarity with the Microsoft development stack. However, because the tests can be crammed for and passed without much real programming experience, it isn't even that reliable. A generic CS degree isn't a perfect indicator either, but at least it provides some evidence they can purse and complete a project over a multi-year timeline. The degree itself won't tell you much, but the transcript of their classes and grades will provide quite a bit of information. They should also be able to show you actual code they've written for their class projects. |
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Neither tells me anything useful about a potential candidate. When I look at a resume, I want to see a breadth and depth of professional experience. I want to see that the candidate isn't a one-trick pony who can only work with one language or one framework or one type of application. I like to see that he or she is working on open source projects on the side. Ideally, the open source work is being done with technologies that are different than those used professionally. I try to find something on the resume that says to me: this candidate is passionate about software and software engineering; that this candidate cares and is interested in this career for more than just a paycheck. Everything is details and is to some degree negotiable. I'll let the right candidate take a month of my time to learn technologies that they need for the job if I think that he or she is a real ringer. |
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A degree covers an academic decipline or more (as in MBA). A degree has a very long life of value (ex. a PhD or Master's) and is almost always appreciated socially (at least) regardless of the exact discipline. With a degree, such as Master's or a PhD, you could almost always get a job. A software certification is focused on practical area of applied knowledge and not only that but also to a specific software version related to this area. A certificate expires in very short time and has zero social value. It may show evidence of achievement but is not a widely agreed measure of proficiency in the subject. A certification alone will most probably not get you a job. |
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I'd vote degree by a long shot. And probably not in comp-sci. No one will ever spend 4 years teaching you how to think and write, but there are many ways to pick up enough computer science to do many programming tasks. Some employers might even pay for. |
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In general, the degree is going to be more valued, especially if you don't have any prior work experience. However, I could see some situations where the MCPD would be useful if you already have some prior work experience and even more so if you already have a degree in something else and don't want to go back for another Bachelors or to do all of the extra work that may be needed for a Masters in computer science. In general though, the degree is good for getting started and preventing your resume form being filtered out by HR later on in your career where as certificates are generally not that useful unless you are trying to demonstrate some sort of knowledge in something while trying to get a foot in the door somewhere. |
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