Does attending the upcoming Devdays 2011 have some value for a resume?

Question

This fall I'm 99% going to London to attend the awesome Devdays 2011;
I have many reasons to go there and some of them are:

• Professional stuff
• Great people
• Awesome topics
• Unicorns
• Passion
• London :)

Obviously all the cool technologies that will be discussed are light years far from my daily work but useful for my side projects and maybe for some future employment.

Now, to get to the point; a coworker said to me that he won't come with me because Devday London is expensive, and something expensive should reward you with a certificate, a certificate that could have some value to the eyes on an employer.

Is he right?

Do you think that attenting to this kind of event have some value on a resume?
Should it be highlighted?
Does it have any value for a future employer?

Answer 1

I agree the the general consensus that a 'certificate' would be worthless.

The value (in job hunting) for attending something like DevDays is not for your resume. It is for:

• Personal knowledge enhancement; as per reading widely, practicing, etc
• Which dove tails in to: Interviewing

Attending DevDays help you be more aware of what is out there. It will help make you more knowledgeable and hence help when interviewing for a job.

So, if you want to bring up attending something like DevDays, bring it up during the interview, not on your resume.

Eg: "Actually, when I was at DevDays this year, Mr xxxx and I discussed the merits of..."

Answer 2

The value of attending these events is for your own knowledge gain. You will comeback with ideas buzzing in your brain, you will learn something new. That is the value. You may put it in your resume but it won't matter much.
I don't agree with your colleagues line of thinking that the value in spending money is only if you get a certificate.

Answer 3

Attending a conference is hardly something that is resume worthy. However, there are benefits. If you are even mildly extroverted, you may make contacts that help you land a job, but there is no guarantee that that will happen.

In my experience, conferences are good for a few things: +High level exposure to new ideas, technology, techniques +Giving you ideas about what you want to go home any play with +Opportunities to speak with people who have similar interests, particularly if you are a specialist where you work

That being said, don't go to a conference expecting to learn anything new in depth. At the best conferences new and exciting information will be pumped at you like water from a firehose. Try and take notes about things that really interested you and then use that as a springboard for new research and learning in the following week.

Also, if you are lucky, something will stick out in your memory that you can use to raise your geek cred in future interviews. Being able to say things like, "I saw Larry Wall speak at an ALA conference once and it was interesting because..." can make for interesting anecdotes that show an engagement in your profession.

That being said, there are conferences that are bad, boring, and not worth the money. Choose wisely.

Answer 4

I'm a 15-year old hobby programmer, I know little about professional development other than for what I have absorbed being here at sites like these.

The techniques you will learn might prove useful for the future, and future employability, yet, just being there doesn't make you more employable, I would say. Listing that you have been there on your resume is a bit like listing what books you have read; sure, you will learn stuff from them, but they aren't interesting, the stuff you know from them are.

Therefore, if you learn something new which is a good thing on your resume, sure, put it there (I guess you won't learn enough about most things from a 1 hour talk or what you have there to put it on your resume, but you can research interesting topics more later and maybe put them on your resume).

Then again, it could be fun and you could do networking, so I'm not against attendance.

Answer 5

Interviewers love to see evidence of continuing education, and managers often really like it when people come to them with ideas about how their training budget can be well spent.

Conferences like DevDays or the ACCU Conference can be great value for money too. Lots of sessions, lots of high calibre speakers, lots of things to get you thinking and motivate you to go out and learn more. All of these things probably provide more value in the long run than a couple of days coding and the cost of the conference.

Thinking of it another way - if you went on a blah training course, you might seriously consider mentioning that on your CV (resume). Conferences or residential training courses are just the same. Mentioning it in passing on your CV can result in an interesting line of inquiry during an interview, one you can get enthused about. That passion is worth a hundred boring certificates, any day of the week.

Answer 6

I've yet to meet an employer who even considers certificates when deciding whether to hire or not, unless they're the really top-notch certificates like Cisco security expertise. If you meet a single developer, and he refers you at some point in the future for a job, this is far more valuable.

If you meet (and circle/follow/friend) more than one it will help you a great deal. I know it helped me.

Answer 7

Putting myself in place of my manager, I only search for someone who can do something for me, not someone who knows a lot of things, or has many certificates. However, putting myself in place of my instructor at university, I search for someone who knows many concepts and has many certificates (theory) Thus, I think what matters for your professional work is the practice and attending this event would be of little to no value for your career.