Benefits of being a MCPD [modified]

[Jerry Hammond]

I am Borg of Certified...

"My interest is in the future because I'm going to spend the rest of my life there." - Charles F. Kettering

[Harvey Saayman]

I have a big problem with these MS certifications, or any blah blah buzzword certification for that matter. I've found that alot of numb nuts get them so that their employers think they are Gods gift to the IT industry and then essentially get paid a shit load of money for being useless. For me, if I come across a person with a 14 page CV half of which are certifications the red lights will go off.

Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

[Jerry Hammond]

Harvey Saayman wrote:

and then essentially get paid a sh*t load of money

Yeah! That just ain't fair! :((

"My interest is in the future because I'm going to spend the rest of my life there." - Charles F. Kettering

[dickysum]

Hi, right now I have 2 certificates, one for .net 2.0, and another for windows application development. I need to get one more done to "just" get MCPD for Windows Development 2.0. This is how I felt after completed 2 exams: Negative sides: 1. It definitely drains your energy and time to study the exam thoroughly if you don't want to rewrite the exam 2. In the exam, I found that just reading the MS training without doing any practices code is very diffcult. 3. My company makes in house product, I don't need to use all the technologies that .NET provides, but you need to know them all for the exams. 4. In real life, I can always look up examples and references. Why did I waste my time to study it... 5. .NET 2.0 is old already. .Net 4.0 is coming out, and all MS Certs only valid for about 7 to 10 years. They will depreciate. I will need to keep taking new exams to update myself. 6. Most of the exams (so far the exams that I wrote) are really just memorization. I am interested more in theory, design patterns, best programming practices and software development process. Positive sides: 1. You get some prides from your colleges, and you prove them you know more. 2. Getting the cert will add credit points if your company is a MS partnership. 3. Occasionally, you will find interesting technologies during your study that you haven't heard of. 4. Knowing more would help you code faster, since you know what .NET has to offer. 5. Studying seems to keep my brain refreshed with new ideas, which makes me feel smarter :) 6. Having MCPD would helps your resume look better. It demonstrates you are willing to continue on develop your professionalism. Conclusion: I found that if you are working in consulting, or writing custom solutions for different clients. Having MCP, MCTS and MCPD will add credibility on how well you can develop a solution. That doesn't mean you code better than others, it just mean you can lavage .NET better. If your company develops its own software, I found that these certificates have less impact. I personally did the exams myself just for the heck of it. It is more a personal accomplishment than helping the company. However, since your boss encourages you to get MCPD, why not! We are in a recession, and having more certs do not hurt. There aren't too many MCPD out there.

[Harvey Saayman]

dickysum wrote:

We are in a recession

What!? :OMG: I did not get this memo :sigh:

Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

[Brady Kelly]

Haha.  We went to Emperor's Palace for the 94.7 Heavyweight Comedy Jam, and the whole place was packed.  Our one directory joked, "What, hasn't the East heard about the recession yet?"

[Flavio Marcondes de Oliveira]

Well, I'm MCTS in .Net 2.0 and Web development. I took my certifications 3 years ago. Do you know what benefits I had? None Nowadays I'm working with totally diferent stuff and I just can't applied I've learned. Do you know what my perspectives about working with .Net again? None Don't waste your time. you'd better spend your energy learning some top technology/tendencie like Android dev app, IPhone development etc

[Harvey Saayman]

Brady Kelly wrote:

94.7 Heavyweight Comedy Jam

I bet it was a blast :) wish i could have made it

Brady Kelly wrote:

"What, hasn't the East heard about the recession yet?"

:Laugh:

Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

[Marco Turrini]

My boss is thinking about us getting certs even though he does know perfectly our skill (I have been here for 4 years, the "most recent" colleague has been here for 2); there are two main reasons for this: 1) There's always something you can learn from anything, even from an exam :) 2) We can tell our customers we are certified in this and that; maybe, this could be the most imprtant reason. I recognize this is a psychological more than technical reason, but if it helps to gain a customer... Anyway, once you plan with your boss the time to dedicate to your training (obviously you will have to delay your normal activities in order to study and practice), I cannot see what harm can this do to you.

Marco Turrini

[Oshtri Deka]

Just get it done, it won't hurt. I've done it for myself, not for my employer. I've learned few new "tricks" and cemented previous knowledge. Some people are suckers for certifications, and some people aren't sure how much do they know, and some people (like me) went to colleges which don't have many things in common with CS or CE colleges. I believe these are most common reasons for certification in my area. It seams you don't have much choice either way.

[V 0]

Jerry Hammond wrote:

I am Borg of Certified...

You do mean "We are Borg of Certified", right? :-D

V.
Stop smoking so you can: Enjoy longer the money you save. Moviereview Archive

[smcnulty2000]

Sorry if this looks like a jumble but my thoughts went all over with this question. Suggestions for stopping it: (edit: moved this header.) One argument you could use to counter-sell this is that it will make you more marketable. It doesn't matter if it is or isn't true. If he agrees that it makes you more marketable and wants you to take it anyway then I'd probably throw in the towel and just take it. If they're paying for the privilege. Maybe you should suggest that your company send you to a boot camp? Feel like some travel on the company's dime? Just tell them you are a very busy professional and the only way you'll be able to get the time to work through this is with a boot camp. Otherwise it will take waaaay too long. Maybe they'll back off with that. How difficult: My cert wasn't a microsoft cert so I can't speak about MCPD directly. My OCP has gotten me money, but another reason I took it was that it was a great test of intelligence. Another was to increase my confidence in myself. Another was to validate my experience to the hiring authorities. I can say cert tests can be gruelling. Mine were. And they should be to be worth a damn. I can also say if you are testing on something you are actually able to work on you can cut the time on the testing process way down. And although Microsoft claimed they'd phase out MCSEs who didn't keep their certs up but they had to back off of that because the threat wasn't working after Y2K when the IT labor market dropped. I don't know if they're back on it. Valuable?: It gets you by the HR people who have it on their checklist. It won't suffice in lieu of experience with any manager but without the right items on your resume you often don't get to talk to that manager. The bigger the company you apply at the more likely it will matter to HR. I can also say that some companies like to see things on the resume that they then don't have to pay for. This would qualify. Again, the bigger the company the more likely that they think this way. Other thoughts: Scout all the tests out some before you start. Keep in mind that these tend to be pass/fail. How well you do doesn't matter. So the lower percentage you have to hit to succeed the harder the test. You can scout the tests ahead of time and choose to take them in an order that makes you most comfortable. In retrospect I'd take my hardest test as the middle test of the set (we had 5, I had to retake 2). When I work with gu

[rastaVnuce]

No, resistance is the ratio of voltage to current :)

Where it seems there are only borderlines, Where others turn and sigh, You shall rise!

[Hunuman]

My experience of MS Certification has been very positive to my contract rate. I am a dual MCAD.Net and dual MCSD.Net with scores of over 95% in all the vb.net exams and 100% in all of the C# exams. It took me 8 weeks fulltime, to achieve this with Koenig, and I paid for it out of my own pocket. http://www.koenig-solutions.com/training/featured-student-puneet.htm[^] I managed to recoup my costs very quickly because certification immediatly enabled me to increase my daily rate by over 20%. I particular I have found most hiring managers more willing to pay better rates, and more likely to hire/renew. (I plan to take the MCPD in 2010).

if (ToErr == Human.Nature) { Forgive = Divine; }

[Lost User]

TREKKIE! ;P

Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.

[Bob1000]

I'm sure there must be some sort of oxymoron meaning in MCPD. The idea of Microsoft actually offering exams so that others can reach their own level of incompetence always amazes me. Get a decent University degree in engineering or science (media studies don't count!)- once you have leant to learn, you have all you need! Having said that - it won't do any harm, but what a waste of money and time!

[smcnulty2000]

I thought Resistance was Feudal. Okay, that clarifies a lot of those Borg episodes.

_____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day Teach a man to mug... -Scott M.

[Russell Jones]

and you will be ass laminated

[Simon P Stevens]

I have an MCPD in .net. It took 3 exams. 2 to get the MCTS, then 1 more to get the MCPD. I did no formal course or lectures for any of them. My employer brought the self paced learning guide for each exam, I read the book and passed with no problems. If you are experienced with .net, you should have no trouble. As far as value is concerned - No, I don't think having these has directly furthered my career or helped me get jobs or anything like that. From a practical point of view though, I did learn some stuff that I didn't know while reading the books. 70-526 - Basics[^] 70-536 - App development[^] 70-548 - Designing and developing[^] [Edit: These are .net2.0 books, I think 3.5 exams/books might be out now] If your employer is prepared to pay for the books/exam (and training if you feel you need it) then it can barely hurt. Like others have said perhaps just get him to delay it a bit if you feel you are too busy now. (One small note. In my personally opinion, the books are rather badly written, have seem to have a few glaring mistakes - They do however cover exactly what you need to know so as far as that is concerned they worked fine for me) Having certified people on your dev team does give you points towards Microsoft partner status, so it can occasionally be desirable for an employer to take someone with a cert over someone who doesn't have the cert if they need the points.

Simon

[JHubSharp]

I hate cert tests because they do extra time and the certs themselves have an artificial value thanks to the large number of developers that are certified in everything but can't sit down at a computer and write code to save their lives (which leads me to why I hhate outsourcing, but a topic for another day...) I have MCTS Web 2.0 and MCTS WCF. Studying materials are accessible via the MS Press books (which comes with a practice test if you buy the hardcopy, and the practice test questions are sometimes duplicated on the actual exam (!!!)) and if you really wanna be certain, Transcender or something similar. As long as MS is doing the second-shot promotion, this is a perfect time to get it out of the way. I can say begrudgingly that the WCF studying gave me the knowledge I needed to successfully convert our ASMX web service over to POX/REST for a specific client. Lot less googling and trial/error to build. And yes, if you are doing it I would request reimbursement on your expenses (book, exam fee, maybe Transcender?) Good luck!