Is National Certification Helpful?

"So what schemes exist and how do they operate?"

Right now the best filter is the economy. Companies are still laying people off in droves and you can be pretty sure that all of the dead wood has already been cut out of the work force.

The problem with this is that I have met far too many people in far too many fields that have all of the paper qualifications and degrees in the world, but still couldn't find their own butts with approach radar and navigation aids. Paper qualifications are certainly a good thing, but the real proof of any craftsman is in the craftsmanship.

Paperwork is easy but actual talent and skill is hard.

The modern educational and business systems have taught them well and it shows.

Often I've found medium and large plants contract with a local training facility that trains candidates in the manner the plant requires.

What would be helpful would be spending money on much more training. If the Government or Industry is interested in an overall improvement in the quality of skills, then they must train. The same organization that complains about poor skills may also be the organization that doesn't want to spend money on training. Now that Industry has spent 20 years shipping their production offshore, and they are looking for talent here.. expecting to find it, when they haven't invested in it generally, is a bit silly to me.

They should collaborate with government to determine what skills are needed in the next 5-10 years, and then put people into schools. It is the best way... Certification has a place, but only after they have fostered some actual training and skill development, as a means of supporting the economy, business, and production.

Chris

Some of the better certification classifications I've seen don't certify at training course completion but after several years additional OJT and not necessarily with original employer.

The government needn't be involved...

Indeed better if the government is not involved at all. I've never seen anything that government has not been able to screw up.

In every case with which I am familiar where standard certification has been implemented, the quality of the workforce has suffered. That is my personal opinion, not a conclusion derived from a scientific study. Generally, government interference results in attempts to level the playing field- and the only way to level a playing field is to lower everyone's standards to the lowest common denominator. Not a good policy for promoting excellence in the workplace...

wait, wait, get to the funny part, where people think they are supposed to get a more worthy paycheck because they have wasted time proving they can do the job they have been doing for years, or about how employers benefit by getting to toss workers out easier, knowing they can just go pick up another out of work, more desparate (reads "will work cheaper'") worker from the unemployment files, and the best part of all is that with a certification program, there is probably going to be some sort of training program, so that then any shop owner can walk over to china, pakistan or somewhere dirt cheap and start up there with a training manual .... We seldom have an employee who can't hold up their end of the wrench, but more often its just the personal stuff that impairs the worker on the job, like standing around talking instead of working, or taking stuff home, or being someone else's pain in the scuttlebutt, and are already spending so much time and money on the safety program that wants a near sterile shop, impossible working with cutting oils, cannot imagine another cert. program eating up mfring time. Any shop is somewhat specific to the jobs it takes on for customers.

Once again my friend, I must absolutely agree with you. Too often with the things that have been "fixed" in the last century, the solution was worse than any non-existent problem. This has been so consistently the case as to make one give some credence to conspiracy theorists (God forbid!).

And yes, a ten or more year record of accomplishment and a folder full of letters of reference and recommendation is worth more than all the certificates and degrees in the world.

Good answer.

Nope! then your over qualified for the position and you will never get hired.

You will have to dump at least 80% of your better referances and also never speak of 90% of your better accomplishments from within that time frame if ever wish to come close to getting the position.

Unless of course you are willing to let some clueless management shirt take full credit and related rewards for all of your greater accomplishments and actual work once you are hired.

It is my opinion that certification of any kind can be compromised through corrupt means. I have seen workers on a job because they knew the boss, or were related. The "good old boy" network is alive and well in many industries. Fortunately most who get past certification, are placed in positions where they can't do too much damage. Germany has one of the stiffest apprenticeship programs around. Maybe that's why they excess in their machining skills.

So my certificate of completion of training after a 5 year machinist apprenticeship from a gov't agency certified under the auspices of the Department of Labor is no longer good enough? We have to get ANSI involved?????

Funny how the apprentice training programs were disparaged to the point of extinction by the "gotta go to college" crowd. Now we have to re-invent the training programs that worked so well in the past? YGTBSM...

"National certification of machining skills...."

Yeah, that's only been around for a couple hundred years. Now apparently someone has found a potentially new way to profit off it. I predict those certs will be about as worthwhile as Microsoft certifications.

Thanks for putting me in a pissy mood...

Hooker

I agree, so now we have two bureaucracies.

The old one is federal:

Office of Apprenticeship

and provided assistance, guildlines, oversight and even grants for employer managed apprentice programs.

Now we have competing groups? Ugh...

Hooker

Might I suggest a different approach:

National certification availability of machining skills is good for everyone. Employees can go anywhere and prove since they have the right skills for the job. Employers can be confident that the individuals they hire individuals who can do what they say they can do. So what schemes exist and how do we assure that our workforce gets these critical skills? In the U.S., the National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) is the nation's only ANSI accredited developer of precision manufacturing skill standards and competency assessments. NIMS certifies individual skills against standards and accredits programs that meet its quality requirements. Is your company involved with NIMS, and if so, has national certification lived up to its billing?

Does your company have a program to develop Skilled machininsts? Do you have a process to share and retain knowledge that your 'machining clan' has developed? Do you send employees to local community colleges to teach, or to be taught? Do you send people to machine builders for seminars and hands on training? Do you send a team to technical conferences and Tradeshows in the industry to stay up to date on latest technology and developments?

Or do you whine about the terrible quality of todays applicants and wait for some bureaucracy to solve this problem for you?

Having nice looking certifications in the HR file and a guy destroying your equipment because he doesn't really have the skills serves no one. NIMS standards are Nice I call them a want. Having a trained, can do workforce is even better. I call that a NEED.

milo