On 7PHP.com there's a new post that interviews a PHP community member, Eric Hogue, about his experience with the Zend Certified Engineer exam.

This is the 3rd set of Zend Certification Tips and Advice to help anyone taking either of the two Zend Exams powered by Zend Technologies: the Zend PHP Certification Exam and/or the Zend Framework Certification Exam. The aim being to help people who want to sit for those exams and inform them what it is all about & what to expect by hearing it from (pro) PHP Guys who have already been through it, that is => Hear It From Zend Certified Engineers!

He starts off with some general questions to Eric about the exam and its structure and how he prepared himself for it. He mentions some of the resources he used to study and what kind of topics to pay attention to. There's also a few quotes included at the end giving another perspective on the exam (specifically, some frustrations).

7PHP.com has posted a new article where they asked Lorna Mitchell for some of her advice for those wanting to take the Zend Certified Engineer exam, including what the test is like and how you can prepare effectively.

This is the 2nd set of Zend Certification Tips and Advice to help anyone taking either of the two Zend Exams powered by Zend Technologies: the Zend PHP Certification Exam and/or the Zend Framework Certification Exam. The aim being to help people who want to sit for those exams and inform them what it is all about & what to expect by hearing it from (pro) PHP Guys who have already been through it, that is => Hear It From Zend Certified Engineers!

They start with a little background on her and her experience with PHP and get quickly into the questions about the exam. Topics include things like:

• What the test is about and hopes to achieve
• Some things you can do to prepare
• A recommendation to make the most of your time exploring topics you might be weak in
• Whether or not the ZCE training classes help in the learning process

You can read the rest of the interview here.

On 7PHP.com today there's a new interview posted, a different kind of one from their usual "community spotlight" series. In this new article they talk with Michelangelo van Dam about the Zend Certified Engineer test and any advice he can offer to those wanting to take it.

This is the 1st set of Zend Certification Tips and Advice to help anyone taking either of the two Zend Exams powered by Zend Technologies: the Zend PHP Certification Exam and/or the Zend Framework Certification Exam. The aim being to help people who want to sit for those exams and inform them what it is all about & what to expect by hearing it from (pro) PHP Guys who have already been through it, that is.

There's a long list of questions in the interview covering a wide range of things about the test everything from what its about out to some of Michelangelo's own opinions about the tests:

• Can you briefly give us an idea of what ZC is about, what it tries to achieve?
• Can you give us an idea of what need to be studied and what kind of stuffs we should expect..etc
• Parts of the modules that you think is more complex and one should pay special attention to?
• What TWO questions can you remember that you can share with us
• Do you recommend PHP guys to get certified?

Check out the answers to these and more questions in the full interview.

If you've ever looked at getting your ZCE (Zend Certified Engineer) certification but didn't know where to start, Lorna Mitchell suggests that 2013 is the year to do it and offers some tips (and her own guide to help you along the way).

A few people have told me it's their New Year's resolution to become a ZCE this year, and I'm sure they're not the only ones. I regularly help developers and teams prepare for ZCE, so I thought I'd make up a mini package of tips, tricks and a full set sample questions with solutions and explanations, for anyone who won't be taking a whole preparation course.

She recommends a few things in general too like studying up with the free Zend PHP 5.3 ZCE guide, research into areas that might be a bit foreign to you and, of you have the time and means, try taking a course to walk you through what you'll need to know

Another community member has passed the PHP 5.3 Zend Certified Engineer exam (Sjoerd Massen) and has blogged about his experiences both before and during the exam.

Today I passed the exam to become a PHP 5.3 ZCE. Like everyone else I had to sign the non-disclosure contract so I can't go into detail about the questions that were asked, I can however tell my impressions of the exam and how prepared for it.

His preparations included going over some of the older sample tests and some additional study time on streams. He also mentions the PhpRiot iPhone/iPad application that helped him prepare as well as a few of the training courses he bought for certain topics. His overall impression of the exam was that it was more difficult, with plenty of open questions made for you to fill in an answer.

In this new post to her blog today Lorna Mitchell looks at some of her experiences as she worked toward talking the Zend Certified Engineer certification (the 5.3 version), including her opinion as to whether it was even worth it.

I recently took (and passed!) the ZCE 5.3 certification. I've been a Zend Certified Engineer (5.0) for nearly 3 years, and I know a lot more about PHP today than I did then. Today I speak and write various things related to PHP, and also teach all sorts of topics including PHP certification. I thought I'd share my thoughts on the ZCE, and I'll write a follow-up post on how to prepare for it.

She talks about the changes Zend has made to the contents of the 5.3 version of the test including the removal of the "differences between PHP4 and PHP5" section. She mentions some of the resources she found to help her along the way to testing success and what the general format of the exam was like. In her opinion, the worth of the test lies in the work done to prepare for it, growing your PHP knowledge along the way. The actual piece of paper resulting from the test could, unfortunately, be more of a result of getting the "right" or "wrong" questions that could be confusing.

If you've been considering taking the Zend Certified Engineer exam for PHP 5.3 but want to be sure you know what you need to pass, take a look at this new post to the Zend Developer Zone with some helpful hints on the topics the test covers.

According to Zend , the exam covers the following topics: PHP Basics, Functions, Data Format & Types, Web Features, Object Oriented Programming, Security, I/O, Strings and Patterns, Databases and Arrays. I will detail each topic as to what you should expect at the exam, however I will first tell you some basic information about the exam. Then I will tell you about the three most important changes of PHP 5.3 and another new feature I find very useful.

He starts with a few of the basics of the exam (how many questions, his testing strategy, the number of fill-in-the-blank questions) before moving into each of the topics. It's not an exhaustive description of each, but it gives you a good idea of where to start when studying. There's lots of links to resources for each that'll take you to some great places to learn in more detail.

Arniie had an interesting experience with taking the Zend Certified Engineer test recently - especially once he found an unfair advantage.

So we embarked on a voyage of PHP/Zend (re-)discovery, we booked iBuildings to do a re-examination of our PHP knowledge - a refresher course if you will. [...] In exam euphoria (and depression) [after coworkers had taken the exam] a few questions were discussed to demonstrate the intensity of the exam. I promptly 'googled': "PHP extensions using the dl() function" and low and behold: http://www.exam4test.com/200-500.htm

His google result turned up a page with 20 example questions from the test and the possibility of more just $49 USD more. The site was providing a direct means to pass the test without knowing much PHP at all. He notes that this one thing is enough to disillusion his about the quality and merit of the exam.

A little while back on his PHP Kitchen blog Demian Turner asked the question, "Is vendor sponsored software certification the way to go?". An easy example? The Zend Certified Engineer tests.

Currently Zend certification is one of the only options available to PHP devs who want to get accredited, however. But judging by general feedback from the community it would appear that, despite the current certification choices, quality discrepancies between PHP devs on the market can still be pretty...impressive.

He points to another post from Darren Hague (on Derren's SAP blog) that has three elements that any good certification needs to really be considered successful:

• Quality - it must be professional and independent
• Portability - it must be independent of the company you work for at the time
• Customer Demand - without demand for certified people in that area, there's no reason to have the certification

Be sure and check out some of the comments to Demian's post form some other opinions.

A new post on the Zend Developer Zone talks about the Zend Certified Engineer oDesk site that has been set up. oDesk is a marketplace for "providers" (programmers/development shops) to interact with "buyers" (companies looking for their services).

Recently oDesk set up a group called Zend Certified Engineers and they require verification of eligibility via the providers certified ZCE ID #s in order to join this group. Why is oDesk interested in providing a ZCE group to their users? Primarily this came about because buyers of software services who are part of the oDesk ecosystem requested from oDesk better ways of distinguishing experienced, trained programmers from those who are not as knowledgeable.

You can check out a few different pages for more information - the oDesk trends page for PHP, the main page for the ZCE group and a link back to Zend's site for more information on becoming a Zend Certified Engineer.