# Got the books. Built some examples. Now, how to get "certified"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 24, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/got-the-books-built-some-examples-now-how-to-get-certified/172662 "2009-07-24T20:44:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![parki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/b782af/32.png) [@parki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/parki)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/got-the-books-built-some-examples-now-how-to-get-certified/172662/1 "2009-07-24T20:44:43Z")
I’ve been playing with RoR for about 2 years. Bought all the books, built prototypes for at least a dozen apps, follow the online discussions, and have a good basic understanding of things. The challenge is that SW design hasn’t been my full time occupation for several years. I’m thinking about making the jump, but would like to find a way of certifying that I can be a productive member of the community. It’s a risk for a company to hire a programmer without a portfolio. Any suggestions? –BJP ---
**Author:** ![parki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/b782af/32.png) [@parki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/parki)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/got-the-books-built-some-examples-now-how-to-get-certified/172662/2 "2009-07-24T20:49:24Z")
On Jul 24, 7:17 pm, Brian P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’ve been playing with RoR for about 2 years. Bought all the books, > built prototypes for at least a dozen apps, follow the online > discussions, and have a good basic understanding of things. > > The challenge is that SW design hasn’t been my full time occupation > for several years. I’m thinking about making the jump, but would like > to find a way of certifying that I can be a productive member of the > community. It’s a risk for a company to hire a programmer without a > portfolio. Any suggestions? Well first off, as long as you can show that you’re generally a smart guy with the right mindset that may be enough (that’s been the usual way in which the company I work for hires people). That said any or all of: - contributions to relevant open source projects (existing (eg rails) or you own - write your own apps. Scratch that itch you’ve always had - track record of speaking at conferences, local user groups etc - writing articles (whether on your own blog or elsewhere) about relevant topics (doesn’t need to be ‘how to prove the four colour theorem’ - showing that you can effectively communicate even basic skills shows a decent mastery of the topic) - (I’m sure others will think of things to fill this space) would in my opinion go along way Fred Fred ---
**Author:** ![parki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/b782af/32.png) [@parki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/parki)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/got-the-books-built-some-examples-now-how-to-get-certified/172662/3 "2009-07-24T21:01:41Z")
> Well first off, as long as you can show that you’re generally a smart > guy with the right mindset that may be enough (that’s been the usual > way in which the company I work for hires people). > > That said any or all of: > > - contributions to relevant open source projects (existing (eg rails) > or you own > - write your own apps. Scratch that itch you’ve always had +1. Even if the app you want to write has already been done it can be a great way to showcase what you can do (code style, tests, documentation, etc.) I wrote an app like that partly to scratch an itch, but more so that I’d have a full working site that (technical) clients could look at in it’s entirety. Saves the whole “well i did all this work, but I can’t show you cause I was under NDA”… Another option is to find a rails plugin that is complicated and build a demo around it. Maybe one of the search engines (solr, sphinx, etc). I did that with [http://facebooker.pjkh.com](http://facebooker.pjkh.com) – partly to get a sense of the facebooker plugin and partly because if I’m asking questions so are others and maybe it will help those folks. > - track record of speaking at conferences, local user groups etc > - writing articles (whether on your own blog or elsewhere) about > relevant topics (doesn’t need to be ‘how to prove the four colour > theorem’ - showing that you can effectively communicate even basic > skills shows a decent mastery of the topic) > - (I’m sure others will think of things to fill this space) - Make a point of answering questions on this mailing list. Answer the ones you know, see if you can answer the ones you don’t know by figuring it out. Many times it’s 10 minutes of digging through the Rails source code and you’ll learn something along the way. I doubt it will get you hired, but it’s nice to be able to tell a potential client search for ‘removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid’ on google groups. Shows a nice long history of answering questions (and hopefully your competency 🙂 - Search the open Rails bugs and see if you can fix them. Yet another point you can show potential clients. Good luck! -philip ---
**Author:** ![parki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/b782af/32.png) [@parki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/parki)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/got-the-books-built-some-examples-now-how-to-get-certified/172662/4 "2009-07-25T21:22:37Z")
On Jul 24, 2:17 pm, Brian P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > –BJP > If you’re concerned about a having a portfolio, then you should work > on some open source projects. There are numerous open source Ruby on > Rails projects to which you could contribute. Your contributions > there would not only give you a portfolio of work to show potential > employers, but they would expose you to other programmers who may know > of a position to which you could apply.