Becoming a Kentico Certified Developer

Certified, Developer, Learning
David te Kloese

I've recently passed the Kentico 8 certification exam. It was my 4th exam since I've also taken exams for the previous three Kentico versions. How to become a Kentico Certified Developer? And whats in it for you? Some tips and tricks I used in my preparations.

Since you're even reading blogs about Kentico I guess you've been putting a lot of time in this product, which is great! So why not put a little extra effort and get your knowledge confirmed, recognized and hopefully appreciated by taking the exam? Although you've been working on a daily basis with Kentico there are still unfamiliar features which this Exam forces you to take a look at. In a way the exam is also a training to sharpen your knowledge.

So whats in it for you:

  • Kentico Certified Logo which may be used on your business cards, email signatures and resume
  • Kentico Certified Online Badge which will be shown on your profile in the Kentico forms
  • Kentico Certificate to be placed above your bed next to your poster of Petr Palas
  • Kentico Certified Developer Group Membership on Linked-in to share and consume knowledge
  • Partner Points for your company, which in turn is good for your Solution Partner level
  • You'll most likely be named "The Kentico Guru" of  your company (ask your boss for extra benefits)

What do you have to do:

  • The exams have to be taken online! So no traveling, no exam centers, no frisk search, no x-ray scanner. You can take it during your lunch break while having Google open (not a joke!)
  • 50 questions (true/false or multiple choice)
  • 60 minutes

So it's easy? Although I've taken other exams which where a lot harder, this  isn't a walk in the park either. Mainly because Kentico has lots and lots of features which you're probably not using all on a daily basis. And although you're allowed to look up any question, 60 minutes isn't enough to read, understand and look-up all questions. So some knowledge and preparation is needed.

Preparations:

First I would advise to have worked on multiple Kentico projects for at least six months. I've been working with Kentico for over 4 years now and usually take about 1 day to study, handle my preparations and take the exam.

  • Look into all the topics which will be covered, mentioned in the datasheet (PDF).
  • Take the sample questions supplied by Kentico's Preparation Guide (PDF)
  • Make sure you've got a local Kentico instance! Preferably with all different sample Websites installed and reachable
    • Corporate website
    • Intranet
    • E-commerce
    • ASPX
    • ...
    • Just before the exam starts open up each site to shorten compilation and thus waiting time
  • If possible download the API Reference (ZIP 69MB) (contains a *.chm = Compiled HTML Help)
  • Start up Visual Studio for quick code tests, but mainly useful for its IntelliSense
  • Start up SQL Management Studio so you can have a quick peek at Table structures
  • It's also nice if you could quickly type and/or test some macro's. Kentico has a perfect feature for this located in the System module
    • System > Macros > Console or Benchmark
    • for your bookmarks:
      • localsite /CMSAdminControls/UI/Macros/Dialogs/ObjectBrowser.aspx
      • localsite /CMSModules/System/Macros/Benchmark.aspx
  • Last but not least: search the web via Google / Bing / Yahoo (what you like)

During the Exam

Make sure to set some 'goals' concerning the time. Like: if I want to at least see all questions once, after 15 minutes I should be somewhere near Q13. The Exam shows you the time left, but the last 15 minutes always seem to be going extra fast. If stuck or unsure on a single question just mark (on a post-it) and skip it. You'll still be able to navigate to earlier questions!

So where can I sign up?

http://www.kentico.com/training/developer-certification

 

Good luck and hope you'll be joining me soon as a Certified Kentico Developer.