Last Monday, on the 19th, I got my Zend PHP certification! I wish I would have waited a little longer since 5.4 was released a few days after I purchased the 5.3 voucher, but at that point I’d still be waiting on the new 5.4 test which isn’t out yet. I’m pretty excited about passing!
To prepare for the test I read through and quizzed myself quite a few times using the PDF (PHP 5.3 Certification Guide) they provided. I also found a lovely program by uCertify, called Zend PHP 5 Certification Practice Test, this software, and other uCerify software, has a lovely “100% pass guarantee”. With such a confident guarantee, why wouldn’t I get it? It had quite a few questions, and after finishing any of the tests you could go back and see what you did wrong with an explanation. You could also see reports of your progress and quiz yourself on your trouble areas. I would recommend this software to anybody who is interested in getting certified. They have an impressive 98.17% pass through rate, but because there isn’t a way to report if you passed or failed on your exam, the number seems a bit shady.
We were required to bring 2 forms of identification, and one needed to be a photo identification. They weren’t very specific about which two identifications you could use, but after calling I confirmed I could use a drivers license and social security card. It would be nice if they listed what was accepted since they had a strict policy that if you miss the exam you have to repurchase the voucher. Nobody would appreciate having to repurchase a voucher over such a small detail.
Something I also didn’t notice before was that upon being Zend Certified, you can only use the logo on personal items such as your personal website, resume, business cards and the like. You cannot post the Zend Certified logo on your company website, which was something my boss was looking forward to. The terms can be found at the bottom of the Zend Certified Engineer Logo page.
