Certification Exams

[Wolf]

In January - in the midst of moving house - I sat the first of two Micro$oft Certification exams. Bloody hard it was - I hadn't studied and my mind was more on moving house before our baby was born than anything else. I was sure I was failing and about half way through I just wanted it to finish so I could go home.

Despite that, I passed and became a Microsoft Certified Professional.

Last Friday - 5 days after the birth of our daughter - I once again went up to Auckland, this time to sit the second test. Again, I hadn't studied. Again, my mind was on other matters. I had also had had very little sleep for the previous week and had had only one coffee that morning between dropping the boys off at kindy and school and being picked up to go to Auckland.

This exam was even harder than the first. It made the first one seem tame. This time I was certain I had failed.

Despite that, I managed to pass by an even better margin and so now I'm a MicroSoft Certified Desktop Support Technician.

All the best to Lias, who's going for his 2nd exam next month.

[Lias]

Grats old man.

[Wolf]

Grats old man.

Thank you, young Padawan.

[dveus]

Nice work mate.

Must get around to finishing mine off. Have a couple more to do for my MCSE. The most difficuilt thing I found with the exams was reading/understanding just what they were wanting from some of the scenarios.

[dino3310]

congrats on both occasions mate.
will know who to pm when i have any pc probs.

[magicfairy]

Nice work mate.

Must get around to finishing mine off. Have a couple more to do for my MCSE.

Worth doing, cos there won't be MCSE in 2008 track. MCSE is gone.
But if you have MCSE for Server 2003, a lot less exams to upgrade to MCTS (Technology Specialist) and MCITP (IT professional) in the new certification tracks.

[pzkpfw]

Ah fooey.

I got an MCP back in the days when it was two exams. (Dunno what it is now, but it did become ONE at one stage).

I have "Developing Apps with Microsoft Access 2.0" and "Wosa", or "was", whichever it was then. My MCP number is so short (number-of-digit-wise) no one thinks it is real.

My current employer started a thing where they'd only send people to Tech-Ed. if they had "certification".

Screw 'em. I got a better job by going to a client and saying, basically, "hello".


Good on you all for doing the exams. Do them while you can be arsed.

[sinister^]

Grats man I'm doing my A+ at the momment soon to be doing MCP and CCNA

[Wolf]

Ah fooey.

I got an MCP back in the days when it was two exams. (Dunno what it is now, but it did become ONE at one stage).

I remember it was once 2 exams. Now the MCDST is 2 and the first exam you pass automatically gives you an MCP rating.

I've been working in the computer industry since '85 doing a variety of jobs - mostly self-taught or "learn on the job". So it means I have a shit-load of experience dating back to some fairly arcane stuff (not all of it IBM-based, either) but no qualifications. I started back when if you could show you knew more about the computer than the bloke hiring you, you got a job- despite a total lack of qualifications.

Recently the boss has been getting pretty insistent that the staff are demonstrably "qualified" so we're all having to pass exams to get paper qualifications to proove we can do the job we've been doing for the last few years. They're paying for the courses so I can't complain too much.

I've already got the Certified Novell Administrator rating but no point going for Certified Novell Engineer as we've migrated fully to Micro$oft.

This year they want me to do National Cert in Computing Level 4 - which'll be pretty much an RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) for me. Just do the assignments on time and get my certificate.

At least someone can say to the auditors, "see, our staff are appropriately trained and certified".

[pzkpfw]

...shit-load of experience... ...but no qualifications.

Yep - good reason to do these exams, and good on the C.V. for those who can't see past the quals.

At least someone can say to the auditors, "see, our staff are appropriately trained and certified".

My current work (this is my last week) is a Microsoft Certified vendor. That means Microsoft rates them on how many "qualified" staff they have, and that affects how we can advertise ourselves.

[Nasty]

Well done on this achievement .. i know the exams are quite tough!!

[YellowDog]

Well done on this achievement .. i know the exams are quite tough!!

Some pepole study really hard to get these. Some fail, 'cos it is quite tough.

What annoys me is the people who just buy a book on passing the MCPs and pass, yet know bugger all.

They were the ones that I seemed to always have the misfortune to employ!

[vifferman]

Good stuff, Dr Wolf!

[Krayy]

Not wanting to detract from Wolf's achievement (I hate exams and tend to freeze anytime I do one), but this is what's wrong with the M$ certification program.

In a nutshell, anyone can pick up a book and pass it within a couple of days, and sometimes these "professionals" end up in positions of responsibility that are way beyond their level of expertise. I worked with a bloke in a Novell environment that got his CNE and wore the lapel pin everywhere like the dork he was and what he didn't tell people was that he learned the material it out of a crib notes book. I spent most of my time (with my lapel pin firmly in a sock drawer at home) fixing his f**k ups.

I would rather that all of these technology companies throw in a requirement similar to an apprentice scheme, where the certification is backed by actual experience. When I did the Solaris Engineer exams, I could not have got anywhere near a pass without a couple of years hands-on plus a refresher course before the exam, likewise with the Linux one.

One of the best (or worst depending on your viewpoint) seems to be the Cisco network engineer exams, where you would require a good 4 or 5 years hands on plus a huge number of courses to get within cooee of a pass. Who would have thunk setting up a router would be so hard?

P.S. I have actually blinged Wolf on his pass

[Tank]

As an employer - we value them, and the effort that people put into getting them.

We pay $450 for each paper someone passes as a 'thanks for the effort'.

As you can imagine that gets expensive when you have a couple of hundred MS developers.