I'm considering the CIW Site Development Associate certification and I'm genuinely unsure if it's still recognized enough to be worth the time and exam fee. I see it on a lot of older job postings but less frequently on recent ones. My background is about 18 months of self-taught HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and I'm looking for something to put on a resume while I build my portfolio.
The exam itself — 90 questions, 75 minutes, 70.5% passing score — doesn't look that daunting for someone with my background. I've been doing practice sets and scoring around 74-77%, which is right on the edge. My weak spots are the network and browser technology sections, which feel a bit dated. Some of the HTTP headers and DNS content feels like stuff that wouldn't come up in a modern web job interview at all.
I'm putting in about 2 hours a day and I've been at it for 3 weeks. The prep material is solid but there's definitely a disconnect between the exam content and what's actually used day-to-day. Worth pushing through, or should I pivot to something like a Google UX cert or CompTIA IT Fundamentals instead?
I got mine two years ago and it hasn't come up once in a job interview. That said, having it on my resume got me a callback at two companies that listed it as a preferred qualification. Depends entirely on what roles you're targeting.
I'd finish it since you're this far in. But in parallel, start building out GitHub projects. Hiring managers at most web shops are going to click your GitHub link before they scroll to the certifications section of your resume.
At 74-77% on practice tests you're really close to passing. The network and browser sections are worth one more targeted study session. Don't let perfect be the enemy of a cert that's already 80% of the way done.
CIW is still recognized by the DoD for 8570 compliance, so if you're at all interested in government contracting or federal IT work it has real value. For private sector web jobs the portfolio matters way more than the cert.