Decius wrote:

Meh. Computers don't kill people, generally speaking. Doctors do... Legal malpractice can result in executions, long prison sentences, or crime. I'm generally opposed to having government regulation of a profession without a compelling pulic saftey interest. The market weeds out IT professionals who suck, generally, and my experience has been that IT projects that fail do so because vendors have oversold a company on the idea of embarking on an extremely ambitious project using products that don't actually work well enough to fit the bill.

The bottom line is that managers are responsible for choosing a prudent path forward for their infrastructure that doesn't involve biting off more than they can chew or over-confidence in vendor claims. If they need the government to help them weed out resumes, they shouldn't be where they are. Furthermore, the fact is that in the IT industry there is often an inverse relationship between the number of industry certifications someone has and their competence. If you knew your shit you wouldn't need to take SANS classes. This kind of legal requirement would place the the keys to the kingdom in the hands of those least capable of handling it.

I agree that government involvement and certification boards don't help. But a venue to help managers weed out bad candidates in a more time efficient manner would of course be beneficial. Even if that means not having to spend as much time on the phone calling references.

Linked in? You get into messy legal issues with allowing people to post negative feedback, but if someone can't get positive feedback, what does that mean for them?

I guess LinkedIn already does something like this? Of course there are libel issues with posting bad recommendations. Doubtful, but I wonder if the right to sue could be forfeited in the TOS of the site the account is hosted on, be it LinkedIn or whatever.

RE: Kick out incompetent IT pros