dan-572483 (7/24/2014)

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If you're just starting with certifications, why not start with an exam on a product you have experience with already? Since these exams assume 1-2 years of experience, you'll have a better chance of passing an exam in an area you've been working with, such as Windows 7 or Office.

Frankly, the attitude of some employers where someone must have a certification before they are allowed into a job that works with a certain technology is backward. None of the training materials, including those published by Microsoft, is guaranteed to cover all exam questions. The people who write books and training materials don't have access to the pool of questions used in the exams and even if they have taken the exams themselves, they are not permitted to reveal actual questions. Microsoft does not want people to pass exams unless they have had actual experience and the exams are designed that way. As a result, the actual exams contain questions that no one would know unless they had come across that specific situation in an actual environment.

So starting with an exam in an area you have already have work experience, you'll have a greater chance of passing, obtaining a certification to add to your resume, and you will have exposure to how exams you take in the future will work.

Here's a good place to start:

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/certification-overview.aspx