Certification to be or not to be

I have been reading a lot about certification recently and have found a lot of negativity coming from bloggers in the USA. In particular I found James Bach's blog very interesting.

I have had a few conversations regarding certification and the ISTQB this year and I thought I would blog my view.

The Pros

• Attempting to gain certification shows a genuine commitment to improving your craft.
• It gives testers around the world the ability to learn the same base level of knowledge.

The Cons

• Non practicing testers are gaining the certification and calling themselves testers.
• The certification is being promoted by some as a must have to gain your next job.
• Some feel gaining the certification means they are a good tester and can stop learning more.

So where do I stand on this topic? well I am neither for or against certification. I really like that we have some standard knowledge being spread across the globe I think that is really positive. But I really hate the fact that a lot of the courses are being run for pure profit.

In my team I have promoted self study of the course content. I have expressed to my team that the piece of paper at the end of the course and exam is not what is important. The most important part is that we are learning more about our craft. I am not looking for my team to blindly follow what they learn. But i feel that armed with more knowledge of their craft they are better equipped to make decisions on how to test.