Why was becoming certified important to you and/or your organization?

Kate Hudson

I've recently been certified in RE at the Fundamentals level and received one badge. I plan to finish other badges and take the Professional certification exam this summer. 


It is important for me for personal satisfaction and for professional develpoment/resume-building. It sums up my training and knowledge in a simple way on a resume line or cover letter. While I'm not looking for a job currently, I keep it in mind for the future.


My manager is a big believer in certification also. She even put getting the certification as a part of my annual evaluation. It's the best way (currently) to prove I have sufficient knowledge for my job - similar to the teachers at our org that must maintain their certification. Even if I was not asked or encouraged to do the certifications, I would anyway for the reasons above. In the past, RE users would skimp on classes and not finish their prescribed course of trianing, and our data suffered for it. Getting the certification means that won't happen again, because I've proved to Blackbaud and thus my org I know my stuff.


Now, I feel like the exams aren't perfect and just because I pass doesn't mean my database is amazing...I realize it's very difficult to have a multiple choice exam and truly test knowledge. I don't think my database reflects best practice, but I'm working on it. Some things I have no control over bc of what the board, ED, and Dev Director want. I feel like if I got certified at the professional level tomorrow someone could look at my database and think "yeah right." I think an exam similar to what many organization do for Microsoft Office testing and have students use a sample environment and complete actual tasks would be better than the current method.