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.