Microsoft certification
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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!
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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
When you say the cert cost $5K, what are you paying for? Just curious, Steve
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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
Hey Luke; A little history here. First there was MCSD and MCSE, this was back in the VB6 days! People got MCSDs by basically writing the exams after they'd been working with the product for a few years. These papers fast became worthless b/c they did not demonstrate any extra knowledge. Next came the .NET certs. They decided to break these certs out into different levels: MCAD.NET then MCSD.NET; MCSA (Systems Admin) and MCSE (Systems Engineer). Kind of a rookie/experienced mix. They classified MCP has anyone who had passed a prerequisite for any of these exams and then they added MCDBA. The MCDBA is kind of a frankenstein, it has one SQL Server course (same one MCSD and MCSE took) with a little OS and a little programming. The new versions of MCAD and MCSD are MCTS (Technology Specialist) and MCPD (Professional Developer). The TS actually has like 17 different aspects, but they're each kind of 1 or 2 exams. The MCPD is like a group of 4-6 exams with a focus (Web/Windows/Distributed). There are upgrade exams everywhere, so it's not like getting MCAD.NET is "bad" or "useless", 'cause the point of taking the exam is to learn this stuff. As to their value, this is a hairy issue. I know that personally, my MCP certs have helped me get better jobs, especially with Microsoft Certified partners. But this is not always the case. The truth is, you need to prove lots of things when applying for a new job or trying to get promoted in your current job. You need to demonstrate experience and knowledge and competency and success and some inner drive to learn. If you've delivered 5 ASP.NET projects, then you've probably already demonstrated these things. What the certification does is that it demonstrates *some* of these aspects all by itself. You demonstrate that you want to learn, and that you know how certain technologies work. Even if you work with .NET every day, taking one of these courses will drastically increase your understanding of the technology. So when you're in the interview, this is how you have to sell the cert. (If people discount the cert constantly, you can always offer them a $100+exam fee if they can pass it tomorrow :)) But remember that not everyone even regards or respects the cert, so it's not usually worth some type of auto-pay-raise. However, nobody in their right mind will pay you less/i> for having certifications. Knowing more will make you more productive, but you do this simply by studying, it's not like you need the cert. The cert is really just the means to
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When you say the cert cost $5K, what are you paying for? Just curious, Steve
I actually paid to go through the classes. When I was coding VB6, I did it on my own and avoided the COM Interop stuff and most of my code was inline. I didn't use classes for anything. Obviously, this was not very complicated code. I decided to go through the FULL VB.NET training class, not just a bootcamp. It paid for all of the classes, the books from Microsoft ($175 each!), and 2 cert tests PER area. My MCAD was in all of .NET, not like it is now and broken up. My cert required Winforms, Web, and Server components. I was pre-paid for 2 certification tests in each area. To me, it was more than worth it. I tried reading the MCAD/MCSD Prep course books from Microsoft and it wasn't making any sense. I could answer the test questions, but I didn't understand why you would do what they were doing. The classes were scheduled over 3 months, I took another 1.5 months to study while working full time, and took my tests about 3 weeks apart. The cert was free, but the tests, classes, and books are really what cost me $5k.
JamminJimE Microsoft Certified Application Developer
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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
Take the latest one you can. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that you will learn any practical skills from the certification courses. They teach knowledge, not skill. My only issue with certification is that people think it indicates ability to do a particular job, when all it means is the person has the basic information to do the job. It's entirely possible, and in my experience likely, that they don't know how to use that information if they don't have practical experience along with the certifications. I haven't read the other responses yet, but if I'm the only one saying this, I'll be really surprised. If you are a person with lots of experience, I wouldn't bother with any of these certifications. Not having them hasn't really hurt me. If someone wants a certification, I usually tell them what I just told you. I have had people go ahead and ask me to do a test at that point, but since I have the experience, the tests aren't usually that hard. Sometimes they are though, and that leads me to another issue worth mentioning. 90% of questions on certification tests cover material you will never use in real life, and an understanding of that material is specialized knowledge that will not apply to anything in the future. I would like to see a SQL Server exam that has a correct balance of actual, real-life likely situations, and maybe 10% arcane memorizations that you just need to know. That's why I put little value on certifications and would rather have someone actually demonstrate their ability right in front of me. Someone who can sit down at a computer in my office and build a stored proc or a couple tables or something... that's worth all the certifications in the world. I want results, and certifications are no proof that I'm going to get that. I mean, In 20 years of doing this, I've built a parameterized view ONE TIME, and it turned out to be the wrong implementation anyway... yet there's 10-15 questions about parameterized views on the test? WTF?! Who cares about that?
"Quality Software since 1983!"
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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
Yes, Microsoft makes money from the certs... but really, is this an arguement against them? MS as big as they are for this to be a big revenue source for them, I doubt it. Yes, it helps with recruiters and companies to get you in the door. From there you are on your own. All interviews I have had with an assesment test had questions that were very similar to the questions on the test, so in that aspect it helps to take the test and brushen up your testing skills. Some people test well, others dont. Just like some people can memorize things well and others are better at grasping concepts. I am the latter, my memory is shot (as well as it should be with all the tools, upgrades and different languages over the years) but I can grasp concepts and problem solve well. College degrees, they do help but I can tell you that I have been in positions where my boss or counterparts had degress and still were way behind me in the current tools/languages. Although the school system has been getting better teaching computer science, the real world is moving lightening fast before teachers can get caught up. My best friend no college degree, MSCE and making 120k year. Me no college degree MCP(missing one for MCAD) 94k yr. I will tell you it was the cert that backed up everything that was coming out of my mouth during the interview and passed their silly assesment test. It is my experience and my contstant thirst to learn more throughout the years that backs up my work. Flip side of the coin if you didn't have to come up and were blessed to go through college and get a college degree more power to you, you may not need a cert. but remeber in our field there is contstant learning. ~Mann.
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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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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
The certifications are supposed to provide proof that the person has the knowledge about the subject. That sadly does not prove how good a tech the person is. Example a company I worked for sent our lead tech to a Novell school and he came back with the software and the cert. But I had to install the product because he couldn't get it to work. There are a lot of people that are professional students and can pass a test but can't function in the real world. Sort of a File and Forget mental ability. I'll take someone that I get a good feel for and can pass my tests. In fact I'll go so far as to say that a person with the cert has a harder time getting the job than the person that is self taught. Why? because I expect more out of the guy with the cert.
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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
Hi there, The generic certification process is flawed by its very nature. It means you can memorize a set of patterns (text/code/answers/what-have-you), but it does not illustrate: - your ability to come up with solutions to real-world problems - you have communication skills (written/oral) - your attitude towards your team/colleagues Our company's philosophy's always been - and I happen to agree with it :) : - Demonstrate real-world experience - Have a good personality / attitude - Be pro-active rather than re-active - Have good communication skills, especially writing We found that employees fitting the above, are generally very valuable employees. For what it's worth... Joseph B. Senior .Net Architect for the past 3 years Senior Consultant / Senior Application Architect for the past 10 years Never had ANY certifications, only been asked about them once
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hhmmm, so just out of curiosity are you putting College Degrees ahead of Real World Experiece?
The pleasure's been all mine...and in the end, that's all that's really important.
Hmm. I wasn't thinking about the relative value of College vs. Experience. I think that is really open for debate. I see them as complementary. College can be thought of as a barrier to entry. You input time, effort and energy and you receive expanded options on the other side. It is very hard to argue that going to college gives one fewer options. With expanded options, we are more likely to gain real world experience that is to our liking because we gravitate toward things we like, and with more options, well, you should see the logic...
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I actually paid to go through the classes. When I was coding VB6, I did it on my own and avoided the COM Interop stuff and most of my code was inline. I didn't use classes for anything. Obviously, this was not very complicated code. I decided to go through the FULL VB.NET training class, not just a bootcamp. It paid for all of the classes, the books from Microsoft ($175 each!), and 2 cert tests PER area. My MCAD was in all of .NET, not like it is now and broken up. My cert required Winforms, Web, and Server components. I was pre-paid for 2 certification tests in each area. To me, it was more than worth it. I tried reading the MCAD/MCSD Prep course books from Microsoft and it wasn't making any sense. I could answer the test questions, but I didn't understand why you would do what they were doing. The classes were scheduled over 3 months, I took another 1.5 months to study while working full time, and took my tests about 3 weeks apart. The cert was free, but the tests, classes, and books are really what cost me $5k.
JamminJimE Microsoft Certified Application Developer
Thanks for the reply. Probably not a bad idea -- I've done a lot of .NET but I know there are a lot of holes in my knowledge. Steve
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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.
My son just finished a 4 year degree study on computer science with both hardware and software backgrounds and when he went for interview with Comcast and Airtran among others, he was asked "what Microsoft certifications do YOU have?" They never did ask “what king of degree do YOU have? So I guess Microsoft certifications are useless unless you are trying to do Linux!….. :confused: