Becoming a certified PHP developer, does not mean that you become a better developer but, it can surely give you some more chances to get the job. We tried to do a little research about PHP certifications, where to get one, what it takes to get one and why you need it. We also tried to find some online tests for you in order to prepare yourself before you actually go for it.
Where?
The industry’s standard can not be anything else than Zend’s Certification. Zend has been running the PHP certification program for more than 4 years and has certified nearly 5000 PHP developers. Actually, there is a contest running at the Zend site that will reward the 5000th certified developer with $5000. This is what they say:
We are rapidly approaching the 5000 PHP Zend Certified Engineer and we would like to give the 5000th person to achieve this prestigious accomplishment a special gift of $5000 in Zend Training Units and if we reach this milestone before ZendCon09 – a free entry pass to the conference!
There are guides and online exams that can help you prepare yourself to get the certification but you have to pay some money to get to them except the Zend Framework Certification study guide that comes free of charge.
There are 2 ways to get the certificate. The first one is by purchasing the examination from the Zend online store and the second one is by scheduling an exam with Pearson Vue, the company with which Zend certifications are executed.
Upon certification, you are listed to the Zend Yellow Pages, where a lot of employers look into for PHP developers and you get special discounts on Zend PHP conferences worldwide.
W3Schools has been a web development resource heaven for many years now. It is not luck that it is the first site to visit for most of people who want to learn web technologies and development. Recently, w3schools has been rolling out a PHP certification program. You can take the exam online and you should be supervised by a person that you select so, you have to choose a supervisor wisely in order to add credibility to your certificate. This does not add value to the certification though IMHO.
The examination consists of 70 multiple choice or true/false questions about PHP (it requires fundamental knowledge of SQL too) and you have 70′ (minutes) to complete the test. To become certified, you have to have 75% of the questions answered correct and, if you get more than 95% you get an excellency degree. The service will inform you about your pass/fail status immediately after the end of the examination and if you have passed the exam, you will be sent a PHP developer certificate. Your supervisor should sign the certification which, you can use to prove your PHP knowledge. You can verify your certification online at a unique URL that the certificate points to.
The w3schools certification costs $75 and you can pay by Paypal or credit card.
Brainbench is dedicated to helping organizations use assessment science to predict employee success. Using the Brainbench assessment platform, companies improve hiring and retention, boost training success, enhance customer satisfaction, and increase profitability. One of the ways to do this, is by certifying several aspects of job criteria. Brainbench has tests for you to certify your knowledge for nearly anything from aerospace to programming and of course, for PHP.
You can take the examination online for $49.95 .
ExpertRating is an ISO 9001:2000 company that offers hundreds of popular certifications and tests which are suitable for students, professionals, job seekers and companies.
ExpertRating tests consist of timed, multiple choice questions with one or more correct answer/s to each question. Each test covers basic to advanced questions on each topic. The test taker should keep in mind that the knowledge of applied skills gained through real work experience is emphasized rather than theoretical knowledge. For achieving certification the test taker must score at least 50% marks. Clearing the test with a score of 80% or more will be credited as a distinction and mentioned on the certificate of accomplishment.
To get PHP certified with ExpertRating, you have to pass a 40 multiple choice questions test. You have 45 minutes to answer all questions. The certificate costs $9.95
In OST’s unique online Learning Sandbox®, students have access to their own web programming and Unix shell-based database environments where they will apply new skills as they are presented by completing real-world projects.
Completion of the 4-course series earns students a Certificate of Professional Development from the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education. All courses are certified by the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science, and students receive Continuing Education Credits upon completion of each course in the series.
The PHP/SQL Programming Certificate series is comprised of four courses covering beginning to advanced PHP programming, beginning to advanced database programming using the SQL language, database theory, and integrated Web 2.0 programming using PHP and SQL on the Unix/Linux MySQL platform.
The certificate costs $398
What does it take?
To become a certified PHP developer, besides PHP knowledge, you might need to be aware of :
- HTML
- SQL (MySQL most commonly)
- Web administration
- XML
Why?
Because as stated on the top of this post, being a great PHP developer sometimes might not be enough. Sometimes, you have to prove your knowledge to an employer to get the job and, being a PHP certified developer is one great way. Employers from around the world can find you easier since, most of the times, your name will be listed as a PHP developer on pages associated with employers.
OK I like it. Where do i start?
Here is a good list of tests and quizzes to help you get accustomed with most of the exams above:
- The Manual – Needless to say that this is the best book to read
- PHP Quiz @ w3schools
- SQL Quiz @ w3schools
- Prepare for Zend Certificate – A very useful slide-show about Zend Certification
- Passing the Zend Certification Exam - A blog post from Ben Ramsey
I hope this post is informative and that it will help you to get better job opportunities with PHP.
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Love this post. I’ve plan to sit for ZCE. I took part w3c sample test, got 20 out of 20, but i’m not expert yet, so its a bullshit test i think. Don’t know about others but ZCE is toughest i believe.
Taking the exam from Zend for ZCE PHP5 I think is very important first for yourself and then for the employers. Most of the employers will check your works but there are employers that check your certifications. Personally I will give the ZCE PHP5 exam this month or the next one just for my-self and then I will give the ZFCE exam for Zend Framework :)