Certification is a process that has gradually spread amongst all areas of software development. Software testing certifications are mainly managed by the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB) and its local affiliates. The Professional Tester’s Manifesto is a strong statement about the certification process in software testing.
There are many issues with the certification process. Companies use certification as a criteria for employee selection without considering the actual capabilities of the people applying for jobs. The value of certification is dubious and it is mainly a money-making market. As an example, in the Scrum agile project management domain, where many organisations compete in the certification area, you can achieve the Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) status just by attending to a two-day course.
In the software testing area, certification is based on the ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 Software Testing, a set of standards for software testing that should be used within any software development life cycle or organisation. The implementation of this standard in the software testing world has raised some concerns and the Professional Tester’s Manifesto is one of the results of these concerns.
The main idea of the Professional Tester’s Manifesto can be summarized in its last statement “That choosing not to be certified does not mean I do not take my profession seriously. It is because I take my profession seriously that I choose not to be certified.”
You can read and sign the Professional Tester’s Manifesto on http://www.professionaltestersmanifesto.org/