Is Labview Certification Helpful?

[sc118]

Hi all,

I am Masters student , I graduated in dec 04 and I am looking for a job in Labview Programming. Will any Labview certification help my cause.

Plz reply

regards

SC_118

[Louis Manfredi]

Hi SC:

LabView certification has helped me a good deal-- Even though I had 10 years experience with LabView before I took the certification exam, it was all in one industry, and I'd spent a lot of time doing non-programming things, so the certification gave me credibility that brought some consulting work my way-- certainly more than enough work to justify the cost and effort of getting certified.

If you are ready to take the exam (be sure you go through the whole list of things to know posted on the NI site ) I'd say go for it.

If not, it is certainly worth studying for-- In fact, I learned about a number of features I'd never used, and didn't expect to ever need, like Data Socket servers, and TCP-IP servers and, surprise :!: the very next potential client needed someone who knew that stuff & I was able to say "Sure I have experience with that" Some quick review and that client has become one of my steadys.

I wouldn't hold up completing your master's or the job search to get the certification, however-- Its a time consuming & perhaps costly thing to prepare for (even with my experience, I ended up taking all but the basic NI course to prepare for the test-- though more painfully I'm sure I could have studied it all on my own.) If you are bright & young & have a nice shiny new MS degree , someone will probably hire you anyway, and may well pay for the cost of the exam-- if you're really lucky they might even let you study on the clock!

Keep in mind that programmers are fairly common in the job market-- most of my work comes from people who know that I know about windmills, or strain gages, or test planning-- only a little of it comes to me strictly because I'm a certified LabView developer. If you search Monster for for LabView, you'll note a lot of work in specific industries-- for example, right now in biomed-- automated lab testing stuff & the like-- if that interests you, some minor courses broadening your capabilities beyond being a simple grunt programmer might be of more value than the LV certification.

In any case, good luck & I hope my rather rambling answer has been at least a little help.

Best Regards, Louis

[Bryan]

Would certification be more worth it for someone who is more or less self-employed and consulting than someone who has a permanent job as a LabVIEW developer?

I'm guessing the first one is probably going to be the answer. I don't know of many (or any) companies that will give raises and promotions to someone just because they got certification, although if for some reason I would end up having to search for another job, it may come in handy, but even then, I don't know if starting salary would change based on certification, or lack thereof.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Also take a look at this post:

http://forums.lavausergroup.org/index.php?showtopic=76