Getting Certified – How, When and Why?

Getting certified: Introduction

CancanIT is an online certification center with one main goal in mind – professional certification. Read on to learn more about getting certified, along with an inside look at the various certification program exams.

Having skills, dedication and time to work as a developer is only one side of the story. The other is of course a case of proof and a show of confidence of your abilities. Today, we see an abundance of IT professionals, and an almost equal demand by employers.

However, what is different, is the fact that not many intermediate developers have actual certification for their skills. At least not yet. Over the past dozen years, we have seen an expected increase in all kinds of professionals getting certified, especially freelancers.

One other interesting fact is this: Loads of skilled individuals will choose getting certified on a particular set of skills, instead of going for a university diploma.

This is not strange at all. Getting certified can happen overnight – if, of course you have the necessary knowledge and skill. And this can then result in a wide opening of job opportunities.

The main reason so many people nowadays are getting certified is very simple. It helps them stand out of the crowd and therefore land a job.

Being certified also means skilled men and women are actually able to charge good rates for their work. They would have actual proof of their knowledge, skills, dedication and professionalism.

With a certificate, you make the process of employment much easier for yourself, but for the employer as well.

Once you show up as a certified professional, this tells the employer a couple of things.

First, they find out that you have skills in the required field – which is of course very important. Secondly, that you have actually invested both time and money into getting certified for your skills. In other words - that you deeply care about your professional career.

This is exactly what most employers like being introduced to when interviewing new potential employees. Certificates provide a greater chance of employment as well as personal pleasure, pride and a nice confidence boost.

HTML5 Certification

Let's take a look at the actual HTML5 certification exam and its process. We will not be sharing any exact exam questions of course. However, we will discuss categories that are part of the exam. This should help you get a feel of how the exam may go. Furthermore, this will also help determine your level of comfort with the topics that will appear on the exam.

First, we will cover the basic rules and outlines of the exam. We have prepared this for you to familiarize yourself with the general exam process.

The theoretical HTML5 certification test consists of 20 questions, of which you must answer 15 correctly in order to pass.

The questions mix between single and multiple-choice answers. There is no option to skip or go back to a previous questions. This means you need to use the 90 seconds to the best of your abilities and choose correctly.

Moving on. There is no penalty for failing the exam, and no additional fee to take it again. There is, however, the 24 hour wait time which serves as bruteforce protection.

Let's take a look at some of the topics that the certification exam for HTML5 covers. Let me remind you that the point of this article is to familiarize the readers with the certification process. This doesn't consider revealing any exact question that will appear on the exam.

For starters, you should expect the HTML basics, such as the very structure of the language and its tags. Furthermore, the exam will test your knowledge on elements, HTML5 DOM and element attributes.

Moving forward, questions on media integration, input types and forms will show up. These should really challenge your HTML5 knowledge, as well as questions on HTML Canvas, web storage and similar topics.

That is about it for the theoretical part of the exam. However, after successfully passing, you will be introduced to the second part of the exam.

The second part of the exam consists of a practical, “real-life” task. You will be presented with a task you will have to complete as if you were actually working in HTML5. You will be given 60 minutes to complete the task.

A good example of a HTML practical task is developing code for a basic HTML page.

Anyone who has been working with HTML/HTML5 will be able to tell what they can expect and how to prepare themselves for this exam.

To reap all these benefits, and become a certified professional, consider getting certified over at HTML5 Certification.

Let's move on to some of the other certification programs and see what each is made of.

CSS3 Certification

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS3 language certification program takes on your knowledge and lets you prove your worth. Once you sign-up, you will partake in the certification process which consists of two parts. The theoretical questions-answers part, and the live practice task.

Just like the HTML5 certification exam, you will need to correctly answer at least 15 out of 20 questions.

Through the theoretical part of the CSS3 exam, you can expect being asked about CSS selectors, pseudo classes, queries, sprites and the positioning and alignment of elements. On the more basic side of things, expect questions about fonts, colors and effects.

The second part of the exam is the practice task. You can put your skills to the test by doing the practice task just after finishing the theoretical part. You are also allowed to take a break and come back another day.

The CSS3 practice task gives you 240 minutes to think, realize and complete the task. The task in question is a small „real-life“ task. This is where you will need to style a basic HTML webpage by using a CSS3 code with an example picture.

If you have been with us before, you will be glad to know that the CancanIT system now checks for your results automatically. There is no longer the need for manual verification.

Like with every certification program, you are allowed to retake the exam for free without any penalties. However, in order to avoid bruteforce attempts, a 24-hour wait time is mandatory between taking the exam again.

Think about getting certified today – go to CSS3 Certification.

jQuery Certification

Like other certification programs, the jQuery exam also divides into two parts, the theoretical part of the exam, and a single „real-life“ practice task.

The theoretical part of the certification exam will fire 20 different questions your way. You will need to defend from at least 15 of these in order to receive the passing medal. You will be given 1.5 minutes for each question.

In order to prepare, you should familiarize yourself with the following sections of the jQuery framework. Element selectors, events, Ajax calls, effects, animation, framework usage and DOM manipulation.

Those are the basic outlines of the whole theoretical part of the jQuery exam will look like. Master these and you will be one step closer to being able to call yourself a certified jQuery professional!

The second part of the jQuery certification consists of the „real-life“ task where you will be given 90 minutes to successfully complete it.

The task will include developing custom on-page scripts by using jQuery to try and convert numeric values. The results will be checked automatically. There is no need for manual certification.

All applications will be given unlimited attempts to solve the entire exam, however, the questions will be randomized and you may get a new version of the exam if you fail and take it the second time.

There is also a 24-hour mandatory waiting time between re-taking the exam. This is put in place as to avoid bruteforce attempts.

Check out the getting certified guide - jQuery Certification for more information on the CancanIT certificate program.

JavaScript Certification

Moving on, we come by the JavaScript certification program. If you consider yourself a serious web developer, and you are now looking to become a certified professional – read on.

The JavaScript Certification exam process also consists of two main parts of the exam, the theoretical part which itself showcases 20 single and multiple choice questions, and a „real-life“ task as the second part of the exam.

Throughout the first part of the exam, you will be given 1.5 minutes to answer each question, and it is suggested you do answer each question, since there's no penalty for a wrong answer and you cannot go back and answer a certain question later.

In order to pass the theoretical exam, you will have to answer at least 15 out of the 20 questions correctly.

If you are wondering what kind of questions will appear on the exam, we have prepared a few topics that will be covered during the certification process.

These include variable types, arrays and objects, general language basics, expressions, operators and statements. Moving on, you will be asked about functions and classes, and things like DOM manipulations.

After you have successfully solved at least 15 questions and passed the theory exam, you are ready to move on to the second part, the „real-life“ task.

Note that you can retake any part of the exam unlimited number of times with the sole restriction of a 24-hour wait time between retaking any part of the exam. The wait time is implemented as to avoid bruteforce attempts.

During the „real-life“ task, you will be required to develop on-page JavaScript flooring and price calculator, and you will be given up to 150 minutes to successfully complete it.

In order to learn more, consider getting certified forJavaScript Certification.

PHP Certification

Let's move from front-end and check out some of the awesome certification possibilities for all back-end developers!

Get ready to prove your skill and knowledge in PHP language by acquiring your own PHP developer certification! If you decide to get certified, this is what you can expect.

The PHP certification exam will consist of two different parts, one with theory – questions-answers based, and the second part which is actually a „real-life“ task you will have to complete in order to pass, and the certificate is based on PHP5.

The theoretical part will take you up on 20 different questions, where you have to answer correctly at least 15. The questions may contain single or multiple choice answers.

Going through the theoretical part of the PHP exam, you will encounter the following fields. These include the very basics of the language, variables and data types, then files and directories operations, arrays and objects, functions and classes, database/mail operations and last but not least – application security.

Use the topics provided here to familiarize yourself with the exam closely, study up and get ready to take the exam!

But that's not all. After successfully completing the theory exam, you still need to move on to the second and last part, and do a PHP practice task. This is likely consists of developing a custom PHP script for a single website, for which you will be given 60 minutes.

Note that if you fail, you can retake any part of the exam an unlimited number of times for free, without any penalties, but you should also know that you can have one try per 24 hours. This 24 hour time limit has been set up in order to stop any bruteforce attempts.

In any case, once you are ready to explore getting certified as a professional back-end PHP5 developer, head over to PHP Certification and get your certificate today!

MySQL Certification

Following the back-end developer's path, we come by a certification program for MySQL.

Proving your expert MySQL database development and administration skills has never been easier.

CancanIT MySQL Expert Certification program allows your knowledge and skill to surface and provides you with a certification which you will carry by your side as proof of your abilities.

Just like every other CancanIT certification program here, MySQL program divides into two pieces, the theory, and the practice task.

Again, the theoretical part takes you up on a journey of 20 different questions, where you will have to answer at least 15 correctly in order to successfully pass the first part of the exam.

Note that you can retake this part of the exam if you fail, unlimited number of times, with no penalties or limits expect the 24-hour bruteforce protection.

The theoretical part of the exam will consist of the following topics: General SQL Syntax, data store and retrieval, data and index types, SQL query and storage optimization, routines, triggers and events, and finally – routines.

You will be given 1.5 minutes to consider and answer each of the questions.After successfully passing the theory exam, you will be introduced to the second part of the certification process. The „real-life“, practical task.

This has will likely consists of developing a single MySQL database and optimizing it for performance. You will be given 150 minutes to reach this goal. You may also retake the practical task part of the exam if you fail, without penalties, with the same 24 hour limit.

Learn more about getting certified at MySQL Expert Certification.

WordPress Certification

With the back-end development programs behind us, we finally come close to the end of the exam reviews and reach out the final programs – general field development, and first off: WordPress certification.

Ah, WordPress, the beauty of CMS, beloved by many, but certified by few. Needless to say, the world of WordPress reaches far and wide, and provides an abundance of work for freelancers.

That being said, we can see how attractive WordPress is for freelance work, it is very easy to master the basics and any advanced knowledge doesn't take too much time either.

There are many WordPress professionals out there, but what's very strange is that the number of these self-proclaimed professionals that are actually certified – is very low.

This is strange on one hand, but also exciting to anyone looking to get certified today, as this would bring forth hefty advantages over other agencies and freelancers!

So, let's get to it. If you're here to get WordPress certified, read on.

The Wordpress certification is based on the 4.2. version and the exam will consist of two parts, a theoretical exam of 20 different questions, where you need to answer 15 correctly to pass, and then there's the „real-life“ practical task.

In order to help you get ready for the theory exam, we recommend you prepare your knowledge and skills on WP installation and CMS basics, theme development and customization, users and permissions, core functions, hooks, taxonomies, plugin development, multisite setup and speed and performance.

The practical task usually consists of developing a simple WordPress website along with several custom features on it. You will be given 150 minutes for the practical task.

If you didn't follow up with this whole article, you should note that you can retake any part of the exam even after failing, unlimited number of times without any penalties. The only restriction is the 24-hour wait time which is set up to prevent bruteforce exam attempts.

Read more about getting certified over at WordPress Certification.

SEO Certification

As with any story, this one has to come to an end as well, and we do it by reviewing the SEO Certification program exams. Search Engine Optimization has been around for long, and during this time the very algorithm that power these engines have changed, a lot. It is no wonder that there are many, many self-proclaimed SEO experts out there, including sole freelancers and agencies, but also marketing companies.

A lot of folks know their way around optimizing a website. However, it is still very known that a lot of these ''professionals'' often create huge mistakes that eventually end up hurting the website's rank.

Mistakes are often made, even in good nature, because SEO demands constant adjustments and updates of your skills and knowledge. One needs to learn how to optimize a webpage, and how to prepare for upcoming algorithm updates as well!

Clients around the world are starting to notice a huge gap in knowledge. Especially with so-called ''SEO experts'' and are starting to hesitate employing unknown marketers.

This is exactly where professional certification program comes in. With all things considered, it may be so that SEO certification is one certificate that you cannot go wrong with. The very nature of SEO skills promises a worthy certificate, since these provide great value to the marketer and clients.

Let's take a look at what the SEO certification program offers. Just as other programs, you will be presented with a two-part exam. This includes the theoretical questions and answers-based task, and then a practical task.

The theory will consist of SEO basics such as keyword importance and research. Other factors about on-page optimization, link building, search engine crawling and indexing of webpages, and similar.

There will be questions about SE penalties, Google ® algorithms, social media, Bing ®, Yahoo ® and other search engines.

There will be 20 questions, of which you need to get 15 right in order to pass. You will be given 1.5 minutes for each question.

As for the practical part of the exam, you will be introduced to a real life task, where you will need to prove your on-page optimization skills for a certain website. You will have 120 minutes to do so.

It is also important to mention that you can retake the exam after 24 hours if you fail. There are no additional charges or penalties for failing. The 24-hour restriction between retaking exams is in place as to prevent any bruteforce exam attempts.

Learn more about getting certified and become a SEO expert today by checking out the SEO Certification program.

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