Since the recent discussion about certification I was wondering if instead of a semi-central certification system we would be better off with some referral system. I am sure there are a number of such systems out there and I am also sure they have their own problems.
I have been using LinkedIn for a few weeks now and while it does not provide all the features I think we need it could be a good starting point.
I though of some system where I could say things like "This person took the Fundamentals of Perl course in my company" without saying if s/he was good or not. Or I could say "I don't know this Randal guy personally but I have seen some of his code and some of his articles and I think he is good". Or your boss will be able to write an endorsment for you like "XYZ worked in my team for 3 years. He is very motivated, knows a lot about Widget development and while he can work on his own he is also a good team player."
We could also add an interface that will generate a weighted score of referrals for each person. So the applicant could write this score on her resume instead of a Certificate.
If there are not too many negative things about such a system then we can either setup one of our own or use an existing one like the above mentioned LinkedIn
