I've been doing Salesforce.com for a time now. I have to say that I was born to this. I've never been good technically until I learned about it. It just suits what I really like to do - something that I don't have to build from scratch, but something that I can still do a bit of coding of. I just fell in love with it. I learned Mainframe COBOL and Peoplesoft, but I should say, I am a Certified Force.com Developer!
I got certified last year. The first level would test your knowledge on the declarative setup of the Force.com platform. It came out a big deal everywhere I go, but people have this misconception that when you are a certified developer, you're also versed with Force.com code. The case is not. Apex, Visualforce and Metadata API knowledge is that of the Certified Advanced Force.com Developer. That, I'm planning to take in the near future. You can never know all the use cases of the customizations, but getting the certification legitimizes your ability to develop such. It wouldn't validate your skills, but it will prove that you know how and where to get answers when you need them.
In my opinion, certifications tend to be bookish. You'll have to read a lot if you didn't bank on experience. I read a lot of blogs saying that you really need experience to clear the exam, but I think, they just didn't read materials, that's why they learned everything on project work. I still don't have that much bank of experience, so my game plan is to take that risk. Study everything and just give it my best shot at the exams. I've proven it once, when I took the first track. I cleared the exam without any project experience. I just have this gut feel that I can do it on the advanced level certification. Well, I would never know until I get there. I'm so willing to take the risk.
I should head back watching Chris Barry again. My fave line from him now is - "Apex looks a lot like Java. If I were to make a rough estimation, its probably 75% similar, but its the 25% that gets people in trouble" - been studying for custom code lately. Well, if you had been mining materials online, you should know him. Hahah!
I got certified last year. The first level would test your knowledge on the declarative setup of the Force.com platform. It came out a big deal everywhere I go, but people have this misconception that when you are a certified developer, you're also versed with Force.com code. The case is not. Apex, Visualforce and Metadata API knowledge is that of the Certified Advanced Force.com Developer. That, I'm planning to take in the near future. You can never know all the use cases of the customizations, but getting the certification legitimizes your ability to develop such. It wouldn't validate your skills, but it will prove that you know how and where to get answers when you need them.
In my opinion, certifications tend to be bookish. You'll have to read a lot if you didn't bank on experience. I read a lot of blogs saying that you really need experience to clear the exam, but I think, they just didn't read materials, that's why they learned everything on project work. I still don't have that much bank of experience, so my game plan is to take that risk. Study everything and just give it my best shot at the exams. I've proven it once, when I took the first track. I cleared the exam without any project experience. I just have this gut feel that I can do it on the advanced level certification. Well, I would never know until I get there. I'm so willing to take the risk.
I should head back watching Chris Barry again. My fave line from him now is - "Apex looks a lot like Java. If I were to make a rough estimation, its probably 75% similar, but its the 25% that gets people in trouble" - been studying for custom code lately. Well, if you had been mining materials online, you should know him. Hahah!