September 7, 2018 at 8:16 am
Jonathan AC Roberts - Friday, September 7, 2018 7:54 AMBrandie Tarvin - Friday, September 7, 2018 7:38 AMThe fact that they require a cert in addition to 5+ years makes me wonder if they think the cert makes the difference between Senior / Standard / Junior DBA.I don't have a lot of faith in certificates. We've interviewed candidates for C# jobs and the applicant has a certificate with over 90% scored and when probed about details they knew next to nothing. All the questions and answers for certificates can be downloaded from various braindump sites.
That was exactly my thought, even though I got my first job based on the certs I had. Of course, I needed them because my official job experience was all in the customer service industry.
September 7, 2018 at 8:17 am
Jonathan AC Roberts - Friday, September 7, 2018 7:54 AMBrandie Tarvin - Friday, September 7, 2018 7:38 AMThe fact that they require a cert in addition to 5+ years makes me wonder if they think the cert makes the difference between Senior / Standard / Junior DBA.I don't have a lot of faith in certificates. We've interviewed candidates for C# jobs and the applicant has a certificate with over 90% scored and when probed about details they knew next to nothing. All the questions and answers for certificates can be downloaded from various braindump sites.
I have a lot of faith in them. They have been a very consistent red flag that means you need to dig deeper into their knowledge to see if they actually know anything. 😀 Of course there are people with certs that are highly skilled but by and large it seems the people with them are not as qualified as many others.
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September 7, 2018 at 8:47 am
Sean Lange - Friday, September 7, 2018 8:17 AMI have a lot of faith in them. They have been a very consistent red flag that means you need to dig deeper into their knowledge to see if they actually know anything. 😀 Of course there are people with certs that are highly skilled but by and large it seems the people with them are not as qualified as many others.
In the MS SQL database world, there's only one cert that one can trust that a person with that cert knows / can do things. Unfortunately, MS stopped offering that one.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
September 7, 2018 at 8:50 am
Jonathan AC Roberts - Friday, September 7, 2018 7:54 AMI don't have a lot of faith in certificates. We've interviewed candidates for C# jobs and the applicant has a certificate with over 90% scored and when probed about details they knew next to nothing. All the questions and answers for certificates can be downloaded from various braindump sites.
There are two tiers to the certs. Those who have them because they work for a certified partner of Microsoft and usually seriously know what they are talking about (AKA, the minority). Those who got them because they thought it would show that they have the knowledge to do the job or would get them past HR and... well, the less said the better (AKA, almost every one else).
However, I'm a notorious certifications critique who has made quite a few people quite angry with my rants against certs, so what do I know.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
September 7, 2018 at 9:40 am
Grant Fritchey - Friday, September 7, 2018 8:50 AMThere are two tiers to the certs. Those who have them because they work for a certified partner of Microsoft and usually seriously know what they are talking about (AKA, the minority). Those who got them because they thought it would show that they have the knowledge to do the job or would get them past HR and... well, the less said the better (AKA, almost every one else).
However, I'm a notorious certifications critique who has made quite a few people quite angry with my rants against certs, so what do I know.
There is a third tier. That's the one I'm in. Tier 2 (got the cert because I thought it would show I had the knowledge) but then I worked my way to that cert with Dev editions and a SOHO while I was still answering phones for customer service job. I worked my butt off for the certs and the knowledge behind them so I could get into IT. I couldn't get in any other way. All my non-paid IT work "didn't count" when employers looked at my resume.
In 3 years I went from Help Desk to full-time employed DBA. It took me just as much time to study up for the job.
September 7, 2018 at 10:18 am
Grant Fritchey - Friday, September 7, 2018 8:50 AMThere are two tiers to the certs. Those who have them because they work for a certified partner of Microsoft and usually seriously know what they are talking about (AKA, the minority). Those who got them because they thought it would show that they have the knowledge to do the job or would get them past HR and... well, the less said the better (AKA, almost every one else).
However, I'm a notorious certifications critique who has made quite a few people quite angry with my rants against certs, so what do I know.
I'm not only a notorious certifications critic, I'm also a notorious critic of supposed "degrees". Just has been suggested, there are those that actually have learned enough where the degree does mean something and then there are those that "skated through". How can someone skate through a degree? Oh lordly, let me count the ways. Here's just one of many links that (to me, anyways) justifies my tone on the subject.
https://essaygooroo.com/
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
September 7, 2018 at 10:22 am
Brandie Tarvin - Friday, September 7, 2018 9:40 AMThere is a third tier. That's the one I'm in. Tier 2 (got the cert because I thought it would show I had the knowledge) but then I worked my way to that cert with Dev editions and a SOHO while I was still answering phones for customer service job. I worked my butt off for the certs and the knowledge behind them so I could get into IT. I couldn't get in any other way. All my non-paid IT work "didn't count" when employers looked at my resume.In 3 years I went from Help Desk to full-time employed DBA. It took me just as much time to study up for the job.
I'll throw my opinion into the pool - I agree that you need to verify the knowledge if someone presents with certs, but I like certs. Most certifications provide an outline that you can use as a study program to ensure you cover a breadth of material, and when you are done you have something that validates your study. I use them to help me create a structured study plan, and once I'm done I have something I can show my boss I've accomplished. I don't think they stand on their own well - if someone applied for a job and all they had was a cert, it wouldn't count for much. But a cert and 5 years experience, or a cert, degree, and experience would tend to convince me that something was there. Throw in a blog, speaking engagements, or some other social/community activity and it would be pretty hard for all of it to be pure smoke. Sure - they might not be as senior as they say they are, but there has to be some skill in there somewhere. Any one of those doesn't stand on it's own well - if you have 5 years experience but no degree, no certs, and no community involvement, then I really don't know if you have what it takes. Perhaps DB work was really only 10% of your job, or you never had to do anything very complex, or you just did the same one thing over and over for 5 years - I don't know and I'm going to have to check and see what you have. But if you have 2 of the 4 (experience/certs) or 3 of the 4 (experience/degree/community), then I start to think that you might have something there.
I know I won't change anyone's opinion and that's ok. But I felt it was important to provide a counterpoint for you to consider.
Chad
September 7, 2018 at 10:44 am
Jeff Moden - Friday, September 7, 2018 10:18 AMI'm not only a notorious certifications critic, I'm also a notorious critic of supposed "degrees". Just has been suggested, there are those that actually have learned enough where the degree does mean something and then there are those that "skated through". How can someone skate through a degree? Oh lordly, let me count the ways. Here's just one of many links that (to me, anyways) justifies my tone on the subject.
https://essaygooroo.com/
Yes, you can even order the pass mark you want but have to pay more for a 1st than a 2:1. I've also heard that the writing of the essay answers is often done as a sideline by some University lecturers.
September 7, 2018 at 10:59 am
TomThomson - Thursday, September 6, 2018 6:04 PMJeff Moden - Thursday, September 6, 2018 5:32 PMWhat's even more frightening is the lack of knowledge about things like what constitute PII and other security measures. I "love" when someone posts a table example and there's an "SSN" column in it, for example.What?! People post tables with SSN columns? Surely they are protected by the table being restricted access and they have somehow made the posted copy similarly restricted? And the column is masked column?
On second thoughts perhaps people are just as stupid in the USA as they are in the UK and everywhere else in the world.? While only 80% of people handling databases are too stupid to handle straightforward data, I guess more than 90% haven't a clue how to handle PII.
let's be fair, everyone's SSN has been compromised for years now, so maybe we should stop considering it PII anyway...
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September 7, 2018 at 1:03 pm
Grant Fritchey - Friday, September 7, 2018 8:50 AMThere are two tiers to the certs. Those who have them because they work for a certified partner of Microsoft and usually seriously know what they are talking about (AKA, the minority). Those who got them because they thought it would show that they have the knowledge to do the job or would get them past HR and... well, the less said the better (AKA, almost every one else).
However, I'm a notorious certifications critique who has made quite a few people quite angry with my rants against certs, so what do I know.
so you're.....certifiable?
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September 7, 2018 at 1:06 pm
Chad Crawford - Friday, September 7, 2018 10:22 AMI'll throw my opinion into the pool - I agree that you need to verify the knowledge if someone presents with certs, but I like certs. Most certifications provide an outline that you can use as a study program to ensure you cover a breadth of material, and when you are done you have something that validates your study. I use them to help me create a structured study plan, and once I'm done I have something I can show my boss I've accomplished. I don't think they stand on their own well - if someone applied for a job and all they had was a cert, it wouldn't count for much. But a cert and 5 years experience, or a cert, degree, and experience would tend to convince me that something was there. Throw in a blog, speaking engagements, or some other social/community activity and it would be pretty hard for all of it to be pure smoke. Sure - they might not be as senior as they say they are, but there has to be some skill in there somewhere. Any one of those doesn't stand on it's own well - if you have 5 years experience but no degree, no certs, and no community involvement, then I really don't know if you have what it takes. Perhaps DB work was really only 10% of your job, or you never had to do anything very complex, or you just did the same one thing over and over for 5 years - I don't know and I'm going to have to check and see what you have. But if you have 2 of the 4 (experience/certs) or 3 of the 4 (experience/degree/community), then I start to think that you might have something there.I know I won't change anyone's opinion and that's ok. But I felt it was important to provide a counterpoint for you to consider.
Chad
And certs are cheaper. I went for the degree, since I didn't have one, and wanted to be able to eat when the government decides to pull out of our business completely. Almost happened while my wife and I both worked there. That was a fun month before we successfully argued the contract awards.
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September 7, 2018 at 1:12 pm
jonathan.crawford - Friday, September 7, 2018 1:06 PMChad Crawford - Friday, September 7, 2018 10:22 AMI'll throw my opinion into the pool - I agree that you need to verify the knowledge if someone presents with certs, but I like certs. Most certifications provide an outline that you can use as a study program to ensure you cover a breadth of material, and when you are done you have something that validates your study. I use them to help me create a structured study plan, and once I'm done I have something I can show my boss I've accomplished. I don't think they stand on their own well - if someone applied for a job and all they had was a cert, it wouldn't count for much. But a cert and 5 years experience, or a cert, degree, and experience would tend to convince me that something was there. Throw in a blog, speaking engagements, or some other social/community activity and it would be pretty hard for all of it to be pure smoke. Sure - they might not be as senior as they say they are, but there has to be some skill in there somewhere. Any one of those doesn't stand on it's own well - if you have 5 years experience but no degree, no certs, and no community involvement, then I really don't know if you have what it takes. Perhaps DB work was really only 10% of your job, or you never had to do anything very complex, or you just did the same one thing over and over for 5 years - I don't know and I'm going to have to check and see what you have. But if you have 2 of the 4 (experience/certs) or 3 of the 4 (experience/degree/community), then I start to think that you might have something there.I know I won't change anyone's opinion and that's ok. But I felt it was important to provide a counterpoint for you to consider.
ChadAnd certs are cheaper. I went for the degree, since I didn't have one, and wanted to be able to eat when the government decides to pull out of our business completely. Almost happened while my wife and I both worked there. That was a fun month before we successfully argued the contract awards.
That is the world of government contracts.
September 7, 2018 at 2:39 pm
Oh goodness...I was just finishing up an application and ran into even more fun. This project is cleaning up sloppy code from a third party vendor. They call a number of webservices and store every single xml request and response in separate folders. This gets called hundreds of times a day and they had absolutely nothing to do any cleanup. Now instead of taking their approach which was to create a console application to just delete any file more than 2 days old and run it every night I decided that since the data really is somewhat important to store the data in the database (also theirs). After being told by them that the database can't store xml (sql server 2014) I told them I would write this myself. I created a new table to hold the xml and various other identifying information because we use this for analysis from time to time. I simply have to parse their horrific file names into something sensible and insert the data. All is fine except it took FOREVER to run the first time because they had accumulated over 400,000 xml files in a single folder. I just pushed to production earlier this week and it ran for hours and hours and hours. But the amount of daily load will be barely a few seconds to clean up.
All was good until i poked around a little more and stumbled across a folder I hadn't noticed prior. There inside was one of the more shocking sights I have seen in a long time. There are 1.5 million files in that folder. Each a 2kb xml file which made up a total of about 6.5GB on disc. Keep in mind I already cleaned out three other folders at the level of insanity with the process I wrote. They put this in place less than 3 months ago. Who says third party software vendors are incompetent??? How does anybody consider this to be ok to just drop files in a folder like that with no intent whatsoever to go clean it up. At least it is Friday!!!
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Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/
September 7, 2018 at 3:02 pm
WayneS - Friday, September 7, 2018 8:47 AMIn the MS SQL database world, there's only one cert that one can trust that a person with that cert knows / can do things. Unfortunately, MS stopped offering that one.
After looking into MS shipped databases, like msdb, SharePoint, etc., you can say with absolute certainty: people at Microsoft don't know how to do things themselves.
What knowledge can they offer to others?
_____________
Code for TallyGenerator
September 7, 2018 at 3:17 pm
Sean Lange - Friday, September 7, 2018 2:39 PMOh goodness...I was just finishing up an application and ran into even more fun. This project is cleaning up sloppy code from a third party vendor. They call a number of webservices and store every single xml request and response in separate folders. This gets called hundreds of times a day and they had absolutely nothing to do any cleanup. Now instead of taking their approach which was to create a console application to just delete any file more than 2 days old and run it every night I decided that since the data really is somewhat important to store the data in the database (also theirs). After being told by them that the database can't store xml (sql server 2014) I told them I would write this myself. I created a new table to hold the xml and various other identifying information because we use this for analysis from time to time. I simply have to parse their horrific file names into something sensible and insert the data. All is fine except it took FOREVER to run the first time because they had accumulated over 400,000 xml files in a single folder. I just pushed to production earlier this week and it ran for hours and hours and hours. But the amount of daily load will be barely a few seconds to clean up.All was good until i poked around a little more and stumbled across a folder I hadn't noticed prior. There inside was one of the more shocking sights I have seen in a long time. There are 1.5 million files in that folder. Each a 2kb xml file which made up a total of about 6.5GB on disc. Keep in mind I already cleaned out three other folders at the level of insanity with the process I wrote. They put this in place less than 3 months ago. Who says third party software vendors are incompetent??? How does anybody consider this to be ok to just drop files in a folder like that with no intent whatsoever to go clean it up. At least it is Friday!!!
I'm reminded of something a prior vendor did. I once wanted to "merge" two records both of which had child records. It should have been as simple as updating the foreign key on the child records to the new foreign key, but, no. I started investigating when the "merge" never seemed to complete. In my investigation, I found that the vendor had written this as a CURSOR and that within the loop they were calling FETCH FIRST instead of FETCH NEXT, so it kept updating the same record over and over and over again.
Drew
J. Drew Allen
Business Intelligence Analyst
Philadelphia, PA
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