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I'm not sure if this is true or not, but my sense in my own lifetime and in talking to those who went before me that people are increasingly seen in terms of ex

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but my sense in my own lifetime and in talking to those who went before me that people are increasingly seen in terms of existing certified skills rather than actual skills or abilities. It's as if people are widgets and you need a certified widget to fit in a certain spot in the machine; it's not enough if the widget actually fits but isn't certified as such, and it doesn't matter if it's a free widget producing machine that will produce whatever widgets you want for free from the air around us; it also doesn't matter if these two things are patently true to anyone who will think about it for a second. Maybe I'm just in a bad spot in my life at the moment but I do think many problems in current society are due to some weird phenomenon where people are seen as unchanging objects, and where abilities can't be inferred even when obvious.

nickd2001 4y ago
You say "people are increasingly seen in terms of existing certified skills" - now I wonder if that's really true that its more nowadays, and if it is, why... In the 90s employers demanded Microsoft or networking certs. This kinda thing's been going on long time. Some of us unix geeks sidestepped that nasty treadmill, as unix jobs didn't generally require formal quals (albeit some folks commanded a premium with Sun or HP certs). Nowadays you can no longer escape using *nix, for with cloud computing, you're tied to MS/Google/AWS. This may account for the perception (or indeed reality) that certs are required more these days. But as a dev (rather than ops) person you can still dodge it. Personally I think AWS certs are a PITA - lots of effort spent for a piece of paper with a limited shelf life which doesn't necessarily prepare you for the actual tech skills needed in your immediate job. IMHO, as always in the tech industry, one has to spot the fads and treadmills and stand well clear ;)

nickd2001 4y ago

You say "people are increasingly seen in terms of existing certified skills" - now I wonder if that's really true that its more nowadays, and if it is, why... In the 90s employers demanded Microsoft or networking certs. This kinda thing's been going on long time. Some of us unix geeks sidestepped that nasty treadmill, as unix jobs didn't generally require formal quals (albeit some folks commanded a premium with Sun or HP certs). Nowadays you can no longer escape using *nix, for with cloud computing, you're tied to MS/Google/AWS. This may account for the perception (or indeed reality) that certs are required more these days. But as a dev (rather than ops) person you can still dodge it. Personally I think AWS certs are a PITA - lots of effort spent for a piece of paper with a limited shelf life which doesn't necessarily prepare you for the actual tech skills needed in your immediate job. IMHO, as always in the tech industry, one has to spot the fads and treadmills and stand well clear ;)