I was thinking of doing a comparison on certifications like ISTQB and Mafia following some points:

1)Both are based on fear. Testing certifications base on the fear of the tester to get a proper job or raise.

2)There is a clan hierarchy in both organization. Board of directors, testing centers, accredited training centers etc are part of the usual certification institute.

3)Protection tax. After paying for exam, you need to pay new fees at some fixed periods. Some certifications expire after 2 years for example.

4) The “certificators” are getting people in their teams similar to Mafia. There is not too many job vacancies for this, but they select people in a secret way and based on their internal recommendations.

5)Secrecy is part of certification, not allowed to share the information, questions to exam etc. Although in both certification and Mafia there are leaks. This is opposite to open source and sharing the information.

6)Certification has deep roots in industry where company freely or not so freely ask for people with certain papers like ISTQB. Also the “certificators” finance PR for themselves and different statistics to show how many people they have corrupted.

7)There is a ritual to certification: register, apply, training(or not because there is a lot of leaked resources, but they make sure training is needed), exam, evaluation,reevaluation, the certification itself. This is opposite with continuos learning and improvement.

8)Usually people certified tent to hire other certified persons instead more experienced ones.

9)They take your personal details also

10)Both seek continuous expansion in numbers or areas

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1. Tony Bruce says:

   June 24, 2010 at 12:49 pm

   I like all 10 points. There is however one important point you missed:
   ISTQB is an offer you can refuse.

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2. Eusebiu Blindu says:

   June 24, 2010 at 1:04 pm

   @Tony
   Well it can be refused but its affecting anyway the marked a little bit.

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