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Qualifications on
Qualifications

Make more money! Increase your chance of getting a really good job by getting some QUALIFICATIONS! Sounds good so far. But then the advertisement goes on to say that neither work nor ability are required. Of course the usual thing about qualifications is that you go to University and study for a few years and then pass an exam. To get a degree requires being clever and also doing some work. But mainly it's being clever that's important. But what about these people offering you a qualification just by paying them some money? Will that increase your chance of getting a really good job? And mean you can DOUBLE YOUR SALARY? Well, I doubt it. There are a few things about this which need to be thought about:

I studied for years and succeeded in getting a degree in computer science at a proper university. This means that some companies would like to employ me on a reasonable wage in a better-than-average job. Not that I need such a job, as I run my own company. If I was to put up an advertisement for job vacancies for people to work for me, and invited people to come for interviews, don't you think I would actually check how clever the people were before I employed them? And if they'd got a "qualification", don't you think I'd check it to see if it was worth the paper it was written on? What would be the point in employing someone because they'd got a qualification that they'd bought? In fact, having such a certificate would be a disadvantage in a way, as it would infer a lack of honesty, rather like a bogus CV.

The point is that getting a qualification has to require ability, or it's not worth anything. The converse isn't true, however; it IS possible to have ability without having a qualification.

Update 2006/12: The rate of incoming spam offering fake degrees is little diminished, although it is having to compete with vast amounts of much more commonplace rubbish with other very predicable spam lines. It is very rare these days for a spam message to offer anything honest or genuine. Most spam messages are total scams! See Rogues Gallery and Bank Hoaxes. Also, the level of intelligence of the target audience has dropped, as spam senders make it easy for us. But this is not universally the case, and I recently received a message which requires closer scrutiny. It's a message about fake qualifications and another scam matter (being charged for things that are usually free), but on closer examination there is something clever going on, and I think it's worth exposing! (though not necessarily in the way the message primarily suggests!) ... So read carefully and think about this: I paid 180 US Dollars for this information on Ebay, yours free!!! * Please do not write in and tell me this is a SCAM unless you've read what I have actually said about it *