Microsoft certification
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I started my MCSD course recently in c# .net 2.0 here in Brisneyland As you sit the exams you do pick up a cert or two :) Bryce
--- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitorOur kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff
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Hi guys, I was going to do MCAD, but since net2.0 and now nearly 3.0 is out now its better to do them. But the scheme changed a little bit now, i used to know it as first you do MCAD and then advance to MCSD. Now there's MCPD for web development, Mcpd for application development, is there one for both? MCTS in .net framework 2.0 MCTS in sql server 2005 I am a little confused, can any one help me? Thanks Luke
Microsoft has divided the certification exams in to more sections than earlier. Now in the new track they don't have MCAD and MCSD which covers all the areas like windows dev, web dev and database etc. Instead of that they have divided the exams in more specific way. MCTS is basic lavel in the new track and you can get MCTS in any area you like.For that you have to do one or more exams depends on the area Eg. MCTS in web development,MCTS in Winwods development. after that, if you want to be a professional in your area you can do next step exams and earn MCPD in relevent area. Same as you can earn MCTS,MCPD in several areas (eg. Web dev+Win dev+Ent dev) see more details on http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcts/default.mspx hope i make my self clear to you rgds Thushara
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Microsoft has divided the certification exams in to more sections than earlier. Now in the new track they don't have MCAD and MCSD which covers all the areas like windows dev, web dev and database etc. Instead of that they have divided the exams in more specific way. MCTS is basic lavel in the new track and you can get MCTS in any area you like.For that you have to do one or more exams depends on the area Eg. MCTS in web development,MCTS in Winwods development. after that, if you want to be a professional in your area you can do next step exams and earn MCPD in relevent area. Same as you can earn MCTS,MCPD in several areas (eg. Web dev+Win dev+Ent dev) see more details on http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcts/default.mspx hope i make my self clear to you rgds Thushara
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:) you are welcome....!!!!. I believe its worth of doing the certification exams. At least you will get a good knowledge on fundamentals. Wish you luck for the exams ...! rgds Thushara
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There is MCPD for windows, web and distributed applications
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Perhaps it is because I have seen so many methodologies that hurt rather than help the process, I can't help but to think that in his early years, Albert Einstein was ridiculed and mocked. It is likely, that his relativistic views would not have been certified by the physicists of the day.
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norm .net wrote:
they're not worth the paper there written on
they are only worth it to the company, if the company believes they are worth it. For instance, although a degree or an MS certification would not assist me in my job since most of it is R&D (how do get instruction on inventing things that have not been invented?). Still, if I had either, or both, the company would increase my salary appropriate to the level of "worth" they associate with the degree or certification. It is all a bit subjective and it could be a little or a lot, but you don't know until you do it and they decide subjectively what it means to them. Mostly it is PR worth. The lead programmer for yyy project has zzz certifications/degrees. It just looks good on paper. Sometimes they will even partner with me someone who's certifications or degrees looks better on paper to improve the comfort level of the contract granting office who hasn't a clue what any of it means.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
A good degree from a reputable University will show that you have been taught how to learn and if a research based degree (MSC/PHd) how to research (and stand a better chance of being creative/inventive). MS cert says you are only good for a narrow band of technology. As a company we would give very little weight to MS cert, more on interview, general education (degree), tech evaluation, and previous work. Anyway who want's to be certified by Microsoft :)
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I know of people who claim the done MCSD MCAD and actaully haven't :rolleyes:
.net is a box of never ending treasures, every day I get find another gem.
well to be honest i havn't completed it, but NH Australia will attest me to starting it ;) bryce
--- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitorOur kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff
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It's sometimes the case that experience + certification is worth more than experience alone. In other words, some employers (typically consultancies) insist on it. I don't have certification but I did have an interview in which I was asked why I wasn't certified. I didn't get the job. I suspect they would have been happier had I been certified.
Kevin
For the areas I work in (native application development and Visual Studio Extensibility) there are no certifications available anyway, so that's a moot point. Everything is .NET, and that's a very small subset of what I do, and therefore not an area it would be worth me studying for an exam in. :rolleyes:
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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I don't see why people would need to get these certificate's to get interviews... surely a university degree and a little experience should be enough to say you are interview-worthy at the very least. Then you cull the useless candidates in practical assessments! Any company requiring a useless certification isn't really worth working for... just my opinion. :)
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Hi guys, I was going to do MCAD, but since net2.0 and now nearly 3.0 is out now its better to do them. But the scheme changed a little bit now, i used to know it as first you do MCAD and then advance to MCSD. Now there's MCPD for web development, Mcpd for application development, is there one for both? MCTS in .net framework 2.0 MCTS in sql server 2005 I am a little confused, can any one help me? Thanks Luke
Luke, I am a MCAD. My certification cost me almost $5k (paid for it myself through New Horizons). I got my cert in April 2005. By the end of 2005, MS was already working on the new certifications. The ink wasn't hardly dry on my cert and they were putting out the new MCPD certifications. Honestly, the only thing my certification has been good for is getting past HR interviewers. I was pushed to the top of the interview pile when up against non-certified applicants. Some companies have accepted my certification and we completely bypassed the interview process! However, once you get on site, they expect you to be GOOD at what they hired you for! Other companies couldn't have cared less about the cert and I have even had other companies tell me that "we can't afford you!" and not give me the chance to hear their offer!! I was going to go for my MCPD Web and MCPD Win, but with VS2008 coming out, you just KNOW that there's going to me another round of certifications coming with that. I don't know about you, but even being a Sr. Programmer Analyst, I don't make the kind of money that it would take me to keep up with Microsoft's Certification program. I miss the days when a certification was good more than 18 months! Just my opinion!
JamminJimE Microsoft Certified Application Developer
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Where? cut the code and show them an app, jobs yours.
.net is a box of never ending treasures, every day I get find another gem.
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I don't see why people would need to get these certificate's to get interviews... surely a university degree and a little experience should be enough to say you are interview-worthy at the very least. Then you cull the useless candidates in practical assessments! Any company requiring a useless certification isn't really worth working for... just my opinion. :)
atilaw wrote:
Any company requiring a useless certification isn't really worth working for...
Funny, I feel the same way about any company that requires a "university degree" to apply for a job.
Grim
(aka Toby)
MCDBA, MCSD, MCP+SB
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I seriously wouldn't bother with these certifications they're not worth the paper there written on.
.net is a box of never ending treasures, every day I get find another gem.
The only reason to get a certification is because HR managers don't get it... Most of the time a technical manager puts a job requisition together for a software developer and only gets resume's that the HR people think are a fit. HR people think (incorrectly) that the certification actually has meaning and therfor give preferance to certified people. The HR people giving preferance, because of ignorance, is the only value that any certification has. As ignorance is the cause of the value it doesn't matter what kind of certification you have, because the HR people don't know the difference any way. Some of the training for the certification can be a good primer if you are unfamiliar with the technology at hand. I took a week long VB.net course and got a lot of good info on web services, that I have never used. It was an interesting and fun week but as an embedded guy I havent touched VB in years except for the ocational test program. The certification process is enough to give you a basic familiarity, and a foot in the door but don't expect it to get you the job. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never... Ouch... Nevermind
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Like anything it depends. My wife spent $20,000 for a 6 month class to get certified. She was never able to get a job after a 9 month search. She gave up looking and now she works as a security guard. I've always wanted to get certfied but couldn't justify the expense. That is, how much of a pay raise will I get if I'm certified. In reality nothing. The difference between me and my wife, I have a grad degree and 20+ years of experince, she has no experience but does have a Cert. Employers in our area are more concerned about experience and not Certs.
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I don't see why people would need to get these certificate's to get interviews... surely a university degree and a little experience should be enough to say you are interview-worthy at the very least. Then you cull the useless candidates in practical assessments! Any company requiring a useless certification isn't really worth working for... just my opinion. :)
I believe the poor man's position, and I mean poor man as *clueless* about tech or not enough time to do it right, will require *some* certification. Whether this is a degree or cert doesn't matter to them. It is an objective third party evaluation. Anyone who thinks it qualifies a candidate for inclusion in the interview or hiring process is the same person hiring those people (we all have them) who say they are an expert programmer, yet aren't. Those people wallow in their self-delusion. My answer to the original poser of the question is: If you want to test yourself, then get certified. It depends on the company whether you really need that. Larger companies may pay to get you certified or a college degree as long as its in the career field you are in. All monies they contribute are tax exempt, then you pay nothing (almost) out of pocket. The one person's Microsoft Gold dealership would require you to be certified because they need a certain number/percentage of employees with specific certs. If you don't have the money for the cert, don't go for it, but utilize the Internet to test your skills. Also go through all the topics of the cert and make sure you personally research and try to apply the research on various platforms: 2K, XP, Vista. Then you are ready for cert and it becomes an academic "when I have money" problem, not a technical one. Remember your target market and ask: "Do they know enough about tech to not just require a cert to talk to me?" -T-
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I don't see why people would need to get these certificate's to get interviews... surely a university degree and a little experience should be enough to say you are interview-worthy at the very least. Then you cull the useless candidates in practical assessments! Any company requiring a useless certification isn't really worth working for... just my opinion. :)
You're right, a university degree and a little experience should be enough. But when you're staring at 300 resumes with a university degree and a little experience, you're looking for more than that. Is spending several hundred dollars on books and tests for a certification going to get you an interview? Maybe, but seems to me that it's a small price to pay for such an opportunity. -=Mike=-
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I would say if you want to make sure of an interview go for chartered status, it actually means something. Microsoft do qualifications because they can make money from them!
You absolutely nailed it on the head about this being a revenue generation engine for Microsoft. I spoke with the head of the program at Microsoft at TechEd and you can bet that his career viability was about separating as many people from their money as possible. That said, he knew very well that he had to do whatever he could to prop-up the value of the certifications. They do this by trying to keep the barrier to entry not too low (not the same as high). This is a conflicting constraint with respect to maximizing revenue. Certifications are tertiary, at best, behind College Degrees and Real World Experience.
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I don't see why people would need to get these certificate's to get interviews... surely a university degree and a little experience should be enough to say you are interview-worthy at the very least. Then you cull the useless candidates in practical assessments! Any company requiring a useless certification isn't really worth working for... just my opinion. :)
Interesting that all the comments about "who needs a certification" comes from people that obviously don't have any. Are you guys jealous? Never wanted to invest in your knowledge? Everything these days is a "money milking machine", including "corporate starbacks". Stop complaining about how others succeeded and do whatever fits you and your plans for the future. Either way, real life experience is always at the top - but when you don't have that (either because you are a newcomer or looking to "switch"), technical certifications are ALWAYS more appreciated (with ANY company) than a college/university degree from the simple reason that those put you a spot to do your work straight away - not the same with the useless theory stuff you learn at the university. If you can get a job without any certs good for you - but then look at the size of the company and the role of your work - unless you want to remain a pity programmer all your life, at some stage you'll need something to climb up the role steps... Just my $.02 .leON.
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Interesting that all the comments about "who needs a certification" comes from people that obviously don't have any. Are you guys jealous? Never wanted to invest in your knowledge? Everything these days is a "money milking machine", including "corporate starbacks". Stop complaining about how others succeeded and do whatever fits you and your plans for the future. Either way, real life experience is always at the top - but when you don't have that (either because you are a newcomer or looking to "switch"), technical certifications are ALWAYS more appreciated (with ANY company) than a college/university degree from the simple reason that those put you a spot to do your work straight away - not the same with the useless theory stuff you learn at the university. If you can get a job without any certs good for you - but then look at the size of the company and the role of your work - unless you want to remain a pity programmer all your life, at some stage you'll need something to climb up the role steps... Just my $.02 .leON.
Things may work differently here in the UK, but at university alot of the theory we learn is applicable to the real world. We also get our experience on gap-years in industry. Oh - and I would take my degree over a M$ certification any-day of the week. I work for a multinational company, in a small R&D team working on image processing algorithms for embedded systems... doesn't sound like a pity programmer job to me! :) Last year I was travelling Europe, Canada and US visiting major manufacturers and training with their top engineers... I only graduated university with my HND and a BSc 2 years ago. When I was in Canada they have such cheap education that most of the engineers had multiple MSc's and BSc's which they were learning WHILE working, and they said I would find it hard to find a decent programming job over there if I didn't have at least an MSc. That was in both London (not UK version) and Montreal (very cool place!). Certifications are good - I never said they weren't, I just don't see how they would be a pre-requisite to getting an interview for a decent job, especially if the person has proved they can learn and apply their skills in a Software Engineering final year project or a real-world job... but maybe in the UK things are different. Oh.. and one final thing... most people do need SOME form of study... I know a couple of "on the job" learners of programming, they make rookie mistakes, have bad programming habits and rarely know the theory of what goes on in the machine, which can affect quality of work, and usually means they cannot switch to other languages or applications quickly or easily (such as basic CGI/JavaScript/HTML from programming in C)! Again, I'm not saying ALL people are like that, just the ones I have met!