Autodesk AutoCAD Certification

[jkuck954603]

I was wondering if anyone has benefited from becoming a certified AutoCAD user? My employer knows my AutoCAD skills and has me holding classes to teach my coworkers. I probably wouldn't need to study for a certification exam. I feel my wages are at the higher end of what an AutoCAD drafter can make and I am happy with my place of employment.

I am wondering if it would be worth the time and money to become certified?

[Brian Myers]

I am wondering if it would be worth the time and money to become certified?

For what it's worth, I find people typically benefit more from the PROCESS of certification than they do from certification itself. The prep people do for a class is often times the first time they've really studied some of the "non-work related" items they might not run into from day to day. I (personally) wouldn't hire you just because you had a certificate, but it would be a small point in your favor in terms of dedication to your work and bettering yourself. Ultimately, just do it for yourself....if something good comes out of it from others then all the better for you.

[mmccarter]

I have sat a trial version of the certification here in the UK at our reseller. So any comments I offer are in relation to my test I sat which in reality based upon the feedback the 20 or so of us who sat it at the reseller plus others no doubt, are likely to be made on a test which will be revised for the UK market.

I felt the test itself was pretty good. The questions were good and covered a wide range of techniques and commands. I can't recall how many questions there were, but I think 3 hours was maximum time, I finished in around 1 hour 45, the first guy to finish took just over an hour and scored the highest - I think he was an alien or a robot, a couple of guys finished just after me and the rest took almost the full 3 hours.

The content on the whole required a bit of thought about how to approach it. Although my feeling was that in terms of using the certification, I would only see it as a junior CAD technician being competant for their level. Above a junior level I do not think that the content would be a good indication of someones skills.

For me, knowing how to use a few commands is no substute for common sense, good attitude and being a good drafter.


Where it might be useful for companies is to identify skills gaps across the company using the reports generated from sitting the test. This could assist nicely with training plans.

[Misteracad]

Quote removed due to SPAM postings.
For the record, you can still purchase 2010 and 2011 exams from Autodesk's online testing website http://autodesk.starttest.com/, but no 2009.