I personally decided against Microsoft exams because as well as beginning to learn T-SQL and SQL Server, I also wanted to learn programming languages and widen my experience in applications and IT, so needed to divide my time according to my own needs. Unfortunately, I haven't been writing T-SQL as long as you but am just building up my experience bit by bit.

There seems to be a gap between training and what an employer can actually ask you (which can be anything!). What I am finding good though is downloading videos from youtube and have learnt a lot from these on technical subjects. I am wondering if there are any good and downloadable video resources you can recommend in terms of a series of videos? (I know joes2pros do some but these are pay products!). I have some from learnvisualstudio.net but these are for SQL Server 2005.

What I am finding interesting is actually getting explanations of coding from videos rather than going through vast amounts of written and poorly or unexplained code or heavy texts that are not realistic based on the time frame required to learn a particular subject. Technical writing has improved but many books are still not up to scratch.

I guess though that if you learn something over a number of years and get good experience in what you are doing, that is the best thing.