Not having looked myself, this is as much a question as a suggestion, but
are there not postgres dba training seminars/courses you could recommend
they send their dba's to?
There are some classes out there but in my opinion your best bet (from
point of view of looking for good talent) is to get people that found
their way to postgresql themselves. In that sense you want to hook up
with people from the mailing lists or develop contacts from within the
community. So, training classes are useful for beefing up on
knowledge and learning new tricks, but postgresql dbas are born, not
made :)
I have the same opinion. Just look around and see how many "certified
something" are there and how many of them *really* know the product, its
details, how to work with it.
Certifications don't even certify the minimum knowledge. They are like tests
that we do in school: they show how we are feeling and what we "know" (or
memorized during the night) at the instant of the test. Some people even
cheat on tests (not that I'm saying it is done or is common with certification
tests...).
So, if I have a good memory to retain information for a week, I'll excel in
certification tests. But then, what after that week?
I'm against certifications for any product. It just doesn't show the
reality.