If I need to hire sharepoint consultant/developer. Why should I hire Microsoft certified sharepoint consultant?
With Beau & Fred explaining their view points, I do agree with them as a technology with this scale, versions & a history of more than a decade, you cannot afford to find someone who knows everything & cannot judge only based on the certifications he/she has.And yes, you need decide based on the skill set you require & whether the person can fit in the required role. But having certifications has real positive edge in few scenarios. Finally it falls in two cases.
- Are you looking for a consultant for a short term association or just for a project completion? If yes, then you need to see whether he/she has the skills to execute the implementation.
- If you are a company, looking to build a team having a long term goal of creating skills, expertise & values, having a certification helps. He/she do have a knowledge to the depth in terms of administration or development, which ever stream he is certified with. And the most important part when you are planning for a MS partnership, having people with certifications is vital for you.
There are many schools of thought around Certifications. On one hand, certifications may not be an indicator of technical ability, rather an ability to be well studied for the Microsoft exams. That’s not to say that Microsoft Exams are easy, they definitely aren’t and often times require quite a bit of experience and/or studying in order to pass.
On the other hand, is the same exact reason. Much like any other exam, it is possible for someone to study extremely hard using practice tests, and be able to pass the exams without being an “expert” in the technology.
This question gets asked a lot, the best I can say is don’t put 100% of your decision making in whether or not to hire a consultant based solely on their certification credentials. They are nice to have and show that someone is willing to put the effort into get them. However, when deciding between candidates, in person interviews are the best way to figure out:
1. Does this consultant have a good success rate for projects?
2. Will this consultant work well with our team?
3. Does the consultant have enough experience/know how to work on my project.
4. Does this consultant have experience with a project of this size?
5. etc… etc…
These are things that are more valuable than a credential in my opinion.
My 2 cents —Â
SharePoint is a large platform that a certification may not necessarily cover what you maybe looking for. The breadth of Office 365 stack requires asking the right questions as outlined by Beau.
Even with years of experience, there are certainly hits and misses (or lack of adoption) when implementing projects using SharePoint. Thus, it is much better having the right fit and skill set you’ll require on a particular project or application you’d like to tackle.Â
My starter questions —Â Â
- What is your primary motivation or goal?Â
- What will be your success criteria?Â
- How would you support the solution once it is rolled out?Â
- etc.Â
So far these questions are non-technology specific which the consultant should help hash out with your organization.Â
