Selenium Web Driver Certification

[George Baker]

I looked at Q&A before asking following  question : 

Is there certification for Selenium Web Driver from Selenium HQ (Selenium.org) or some other recognized organization?

Thanks

[Amit]

Yes Agile Testing Alliance is providing certifications on Selenium:

Here is the page that you can visit:

http://www.agiletestingalliance.org/sat.html

-Amit

[Jim Evans]

Thank you for posting this. Now I have a specific example of something to screen for on resumes. I can explicitly look for this certification and immediately reject any candidate who lists having it.

Look, it's been my experience that certification programs generally exist only to line the pockets of those providing the certification. They do not provide an indication of actual practical knowledge possessed. Recruiters and HR folks would like to have an easy shortcut to evaluate job candidates without actually, y'know, talking to them, and certification seems like it should provide that shortcut. In practice, though, certification programs don't actually provide that confidence of knowledge for the fellow professionals who potentially have to work with those candidates.

[Ripon Al Wasim]

I do agree with Jim Evans...

On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 3:00 AM, Jim Evans <james.h....@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you for posting this. Now I have a specific example of something to screen for on resumes. I can explicitly look for this certification and immediately reject any candidate who lists having it.

Look, it's been my experience that certification programs generally exist only to line the pockets of those providing the certification. They do not provide an indication of actual practical knowledge possessed. Recruiters and HR folks would like to have an easy shortcut to evaluate job candidates without actually, y'know, talking to them, and certification seems like it should provide that shortcut. In practice, though, certification programs don't actually provide that confidence of knowledge for the fellow professionals who potentially have to work with those candidates.

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[Agile Testing Alliance]

We have degrees, diplomas and driving licenses. Why do we have them? A driving license does not guarantee a good driver. It guarantees that the driver has gone through driving school, knows all traffic rules and can handle the vehicle well on road with usual traffic. It doesn't mean that only drivers with license are good drivers nor that drivers without license are bad driver. Nor does it say that there cannot be a good driver without license. Same is the case with certifications. Certifications in itself is not bad. 

Rest is your choice. My suggestion would be to not reject anyone or any idea on the face of it. Make informed decision.

Try ATA. Know more about it and its work. About people behind it.

Try CP-SAT. Go through its learning objectives here.

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[Agile Testing Alliance]

Selenium HQ does not provide any certification. In fact Agile Testing Alliance (ATA) is the only non-profit organization providing globally recognized Selenium certification. ATA CP-SAT (Selenium Automation Testing) certification covers basics topics like record and play to advance topics like frameworks, grids, integration with CI & CD tools etc... CP-SAT is also very much focused on practical aspects of selenium. It doesn't make you a master in it. But definitely guarantees all round practical knowledge of Selenium. It makes sure that the person can start working on the Selenium projects immediately. 

Check out more details of CP-SAT at following URL:

http://agiletestingalliance.org/sat.html 

On Friday, April 3, 2015 at 9:50:34 AM UTC+5:30, George Baker wrote:

[amda...@gmail.com]

If what you state about certifications is true, that "They do not provide an indication of actual practical knowledge possessed", then by observing the certification listed on a resume you yourself have no indication of the applicants' skill. How have you gained information to justify "immediately" rejecting that applicant? Do you believe it to be impossible for a person that is truly skilled and qualified to fill your position to also have gained this credential?

You make a good point about certifications, but I don't see how you are doing what's best for your company by filtering out applicants who may just be guilty of having some ambition.

[Krishnan Mahadevan]

@Agile Testing Alliance,

The analogy is good, but I wonder if I should just stop at the analogy.

Comparing “educational qualifications” with “a certification for a skill” to me sounds like apples and oranges are being compared. A educational qualification is of course backed by some recognised/acknowledged educational establishment, whereas the same “needn’t be true” with a certification !

Historically what I have seen in my personal experience is that every single certification is grossly exploited. Right from just looking around for “dumps” to “previous years question papers” I have seen so many certifications being plagued by people who just want to take the easy way out. So I stand by Jim Evans for every word that he said. Just because a person flashes a fancy certification in his/her resume doesn’t mean that he/she knows everything that is being expected in a Job Interview. So when I have a candidate who flashes his contributions to some open source solutions around Selenium (or) establishes his strong contributions to the users of Selenium Vs a person who just flashes a certificate, I would definitely be more inclined to talk more to the former guy rather than the latter !

In one of your other replies you state

 In fact Agile Testing Alliance (ATA) is the only non-profit organization providing globally recognized Selenium certification

How are you stating this ? Do you have any data that basically shows “x number of companies” accepting the certification being issued by Agile Testing Alliance ? If yes, which are those companies ? Data would help a lot.

I would normally lean towards a Selenium certification [ as a last resort of course ] if its in one way or the other blessed by the core folks who actually built it. 

So was wondering if you could please help point out some association with SeleniumHQ. That would be a lot more convincing !

Thanks & Regards

Krishnan Mahadevan

"All the desirable things in life are either illegal, expensive, fattening or in love with someone else!"

My Scribblings @ http://wakened-cognition.blogspot.com/

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[Agile Testing Alliance]

• Well first of all, there are no dumps or questions available on net for any of the ATA certifications. 
• I compared driving license which is a certification for driving skills and not a typical educational qualification. Take any other certification of a skill for that matter. How about certification in scuba diving or free fall skydiving? I can debate on why comparing educational qualification is not any different. But lets keep it for some other day. Lets focus on Selenium certification for now. 
• No. Our certification is not "blessed" by any Selenium curators. Does it decrease the value of knowledge or level of skills that we provide? Or lets says tomorrow it gets blessed by one of the curators? Does it increase the value or justifying certification? Many or our steering committee members and founding members have created forward looking frameworks, products and tools. They may not be famous now. They are not. But might be. They would be. They might become as widely accepted and magical in 2020 as Selenium of 2015. Or might not at all. Who knows. Does all of it make any difference to what we are teaching today and what value we are adding through our training, content and delivery TODAY!?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/selenium-users/D1488DE2.30228%25krishnan.mahadevan1978%40gmail.com.

[Krishnan Mahadevan]

>>Well first of all, there are no dumps or questions available on net for any of the ATA certifications. 

Glad to hear that and hope it stays that way ! Else it is not going to make much of a sense in the long run !

>>>Does all of it make any difference to what we are teaching today and what value we are adding through our training, content and delivery TODAY!?

Never said it was. But look at it from a customer’s perspective who is interested in getting enrolled. Do you expect that a user shouldn’t be even trying to probe for any of this information and blindly just believe in whatever a website put out there is going to claim ? 

>>No. Our certification is not "blessed" by any Selenium curators. Does it decrease the value of knowledge or level of skills that we provide?

Remember that many of us get into a certification rigmarole only to boost one’s job prospects and NOT to satisfy one’s quest for knowledge always !

If the certification is vetted out by the core Selenium committers, then it would definitely give boost my confidence levels in terms of the relevance and validity of the course [ yes that’s my yardstick !] because they are the ones that have created the tool and as such they are the best set of people who can judge what is and what is NOT relevant for a Selenium Certification of course !  

So if it doesn’t have any of the core selenium committer group vouching for it, then to me its value definitely decreases in terms of the claim “Its a globally recognized Certification in Selenium” ! That’s just me of course ! Aint claiming to be the voice of the public here !

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/selenium-users/CAL3SD-gh8Zyj0pQzd5uvzXVWFiw7%3DB6c1PnX-pc8pnhHFWgEOg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jim Evans]

Okay, let me put it this way: Do you allow people to sit for your certification exam without registering for an "official" or "approved" training course? If so, your website does not make it at all clear how to do so. If not, and your organization's aim truly is to validate that someone seeking the certification has the requisite knowledge, then why not?

In point of fact, I *did* examine the "learning objectives" before making any comment on the subject. I found it incredibly amusing that the objectives focus on not one, but two obsolete technologies with respect to Selenium. They place at least some emphasis on methodologies that lead to unmaintainable test collateral in the long run. There is an inordinate amount of time spent on topics that have only a peripheral relationship to Selenium, and furthermore, promote the use of proven poor practices.

I see no indication of credentials for whoever constructed this curriculum. I have no way to evaluate their veracity as Selenium experts. I have evaluated the curriculum, and found it wanting. You are free to form your own opinion whether I qualify as an expert or not.

[Ashish]

Interesting discussion.. however seemingly endless as certification is matter of choice, if one sees value in terms of either knowledge gained or even improve job prospects, then they would go for it.

Yes, ATA allows people to take the exam to validate their Selenium knowledge and it is lab based practical exam.  It is not stated on the website (point noted to update website), however it gets communicated and there have been several participants who have only taken the exam.

I invite you to work with us to improve the course content, being agile is all about taking feedback and improving.

Having consulted all over the globe, I have seen how something obsolete could still be relevant to certain sections/geographies. Even now I am working with bunch of clients where their major challenge is to migrate thousands of legacy RC test cases (!!!!!).  We consider this relevant and cover migration from RC as part of the course.

While designing the course it becomes highly challenging to cut across the potential needs of the wide array of participants and fit it into 2.5 days.  I was part of the team that created the course content and we always up for any helps in improving the course.  I did it on a pro bono basis and seek others who can work with us.

[Andreas Tolfsen]

I also share a deep skepticism of certification programmes like this. The exact definition of a “certification” is that it _qualifies_ and _certifies_ you to have a set of knowledge.

The body of knowledge needs to be what is commonly accepted as a good canon of Selenium knowledge, and a quick look at ATA’s curriculum I can‘t say I could get behind that.

As Jim pointed out, certifications are usually designed to line the pockets of those organising them, in the sense that people pay a good lump of cash to attend the training and that there's an expectation of receiving a diploma on completion, regardless the amount of acquired knowledge.

Comparing this to a driver‘s license is ridicolous because I wouldn‘t be interested in hiring someone with the “bare minimum knowledge of traffic laws” for designing road infrastructure (as an equally silly corollary to test infrastructure).

Obviously training and attending courses is good. I would encourage everyone to do that if they can find good tutors. Unfortunately a certification doesn’t guarantee good tutors either, only merit alone does.

On 6 Apr 2015, at 09:09, Agile Testing Alliance <agiletesti...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ATA CP-SAT (Selenium Automation Testing) certification covers basics topics like record and play to advance topics like frameworks, grids, integration with CI & CD tools etc...

That record-and-playback is a good introductory topic on Selenium is contentious. Personally I’d recommend anyone getting started on Selenium to avoid it.

Saying that you “have proficiency in Selenium IDE”, as opposed to say that you know patterns of page object design or have deep knowledge of the WebDriver API, is not just on the list of technologies I don’t want anything to do with, but also a CV that raises some red flags.

[Abhilash]

Jim, I don't know where the argument is leading too, what we are here after

Are we validating ATA certifications?? 

I strongly suggest please do, but first experience their knowledge sharing and then if you have second thoughts I will join too

 

ATA is one of the growing agile testing communities in INDIA and in the world, who have taken it in their hands to support the platform of testing keeping in mind the need of IT industries with agile and XP being the latest flavors. I am one of the individuals who have attended their training sessions which covers most of the selenium topics required for knowledge. The trainers are highly skilled, thoroughly experienced, course is excellent. I am more from a manual and web services testing background, it was healthy industry experience served to me by most experienced and well known professionals, they say it clearly SAT "Selenium automation testing" not *Selenium automation tester*. They don’t make you selenium experts no one can, in a matter of 2.5 days, ATA provides handful of information about the frameworks, the setups and how to face the challenges in automation, in a very practical sense. No one can be trained to be automation it always has been exploratory and one gains only on the nature of the work he is doing.

 

“I wanted to explore Selenium as a tool, got the knowledge of the frameworks, and understood what needs to be developed as part of growing this skill?? CP-SAT is a good certification for beginners and who have good hands on experience in Selenium and the people who are interested and motivated towards automation and who are willing to build their knowledge on selenium as part of continuous integration”

Thanks to Ashish and Co -ATA

 

Ashish is also the author of the book 

A Practitioner's Guide to Test Automation using SELENIUM Paperback

The team of ATA is hugely experienced with experience scaled more than 19 + years. Now that's huge. Couple of them are successful Entrepreneurs as of I know.

And whatever interview you attend your CV is just an eye-catcher but the real test is to go past the questions that are thrown towards you and if you are good enough you can clear and justify the skills. CP-SAT is a very good start and has a long way to go but in coming years it’s going to be very successful, we are agile believers and things evolve continuously. 

Abhilash

Test Lead | ISTQB Certified Test Manager