I wrote this a few weeks back for an email that went out to the Asia Pac Umbraco newsletter subscribers about the benefits of becoming an Umbraco Certified Professional but I thought that I would share it here also.

This is what I wrote:

"There are many benefits for both the developer and their employer when becoming fully Umbraco Certified Professionals.  With Umbraco fast becoming one of the leading open source .net CMS worldwide, being an Umbraco certified developer is a great barter card for any developer when seeking work, both as an employee or as a contractor. For the employer and certainly their sales team, being able to tell clients the team are certified gives both credibility and assurance.  If four or more employees within an organisation are certified, they then become an Umbraco Certified Solutions Provider, gaining a profile on the Umbraco website and exposure to many of potential customers."

I became an Umbraco Certified Professional approximately 2.5 years ago in Melbourne Australia when Niels Hartvig came and ran a Level 2 course.  The course was a complete sell out with people travelling from as far away as China to attend. At that stage the only way you could gain certification was to travel to Denmark, so when the opportunity arose anyone who was using Umbraco seriously jumped at it.

Since then I have been full time developing with Umbraco.  Certification gave me a kick start into knowing the system well and having the confidence to attack projects.  At that stage in my career I was also heavily involved in the sales process.  Certification was something that the larger corporate clients appreciated.  It gave them both the confidence that they were using someone who knew what they were doing, and also that they were buying into a system that had a community of developers prepared to invest in a product through a certification program.

Umbraco has grown exponentially (in terms of installs) since then and is now the top download from the Microsoft Web Platform installer in the CMS category. Clients are now aware of Umbraco and now more than ever are looking for Umbraco Certified Professionals and Certified Solutions Providers to help them through the development process.

I now offer training for developers, leading them through the Level 1 training course and equipping them with the knowledge they need to pass their Level 1 Certification test on completion.

I fully encourage anyone interested in getting their certification to do it. If you are interested in becoming an Umbraco Certified Professional check out the training page for more details.