April 1, 2011 at 8:45 am
Right, thanks Steve. My whole motive behind getting a certification is simply to learn and at the end feel like I know more than I do now. I didn't want to get one when I started my career because I didn't want to give the impression I took the certification and think that that's enough expierence, obviously it's not. Now that I have a few years under my belt, I view a certification as a good supplement because I'll learn a lot in the process. I'm happy at my current job and not in the market for a job, but I didn't want to inadvertently raise a red a flag to a potential manager in the future.
April 1, 2011 at 8:58 am
CheeseheadDBA (4/1/2011)
My whole motive behind getting a certification is simply to learn and at the end feel like I know more than I do now.
That's certainly valid and a good reason to do them. They won't hurt your CV/Resumé, but they also don't hold a lot of sway either.
April 6, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (4/1/2011)
I will say that my take on the exams is that they don't prove a lot, and if you use Transcender exams or other quiz items and brain dumps to pass the exam, you are wasting your time, devaluing the ceritifcation, and to a large extent, annoying people.
I would have to disagree. The Transcender, MeasureUp, and even the practice exams provided on CD along with Microsoft Press exam prep books are a definitely not a form of wasting your time...nor do I think they devalue the certification in any way. There is a line between using brain dumps (which are actual questions from an administered exam that people post online from memory immediately after taking an exam) and using practice exams as a way to test the negative space in your knowledge...i.e. to find what you not done enough of in your learning travels to be able to answer a scenario-driven question on a given topic. They are just another form of a study material.
I also agree with CirquedeSQLeil, it proves that a person can start and complete something...and that they care about improving themselves and expanding their knowledge.
I have evaluated many resumes and a certification does not guarantee a person will be competent or that they will make a good employee, nor is the converse true. However all things being equal, if I had to pick one of two candidates to interview based on resume evaluation only, if the two people had the exact same level of experience, skills and secondary education listed save for one had a cert and one did not, I would choose to interview the person with the certification.
There are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community.
--Plato
April 6, 2011 at 2:08 pm
The Transcender practice exams I have seen in the past used to contain the actual questions on the MS exams. There was a time when Transcender, or at least someone working there, was getting questions from people after the exam, changing a number or a name, and publishing them.
To me, that breaks NDA and devalues the exam and is the equivalent of a braindump.
A practice test, built in the style, but not the content, of the MS exam would be fine and I do agree these can help you learn.
April 6, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (4/6/2011)
The Transcender practice exams I have seen in the past used to contain the actual questions on the MS exams. There was a time when Transcender, or at least someone working there, was getting questions from people after the exam, changing a number or a name, and publishing them.To me, that breaks NDA and devalues the exam and is the equivalent of a braindump.
A practice test, built in the style, but not the content, of the MS exam would be fine and I do agree these can help you learn.
I agree, that would definitely violate the NDA. I did not know that was taking place. That is really bad and I hope they have cleaned it up and got said persons out of the certification industry! I was speaking In General about practice exams, in that they are another study tool that can be valuable during the prep process, and it sounds like we're on the same page as far as that goes.
There are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community.
--Plato
April 6, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Re Transcender breaking NDA - I don't believe this is true anymore. They are now owned by Kaplan and show as safe from CertGuard.com. I've been using them along with the MeasureUp exams included in the MS Exam Kit and doing the Vlabs the MS provides online. My experience with Transcender is that they are better than the exams included w/MS exam kit. The wording is clearer and there were less errors. They also are much more focused on the T-SQL way of performing a task than the Measure Up exam. The MeasureUp exam would be much improved if they updated their UI and cleaned up the incorrect or poorly written exam questions.
I've also read the MS exam prep book, used some online CBTs, BOL and doing my regular day job as a DBA. There are just so many features that I don't use that you need to know for the exam: Merge replication sp's and their parameters, adding alerts and operators via T-SQL, resource governor, etc. The self tests are useful in pointing out that you may have read the chapter, but you didn't retain the info. I've also found that the labs are nice for working through setting up clustering or replication especially if you don't have the hardware available on your own.
Side note: All in all, I've found every product has had its own errors or issues which is really fustrating. The errors that I know about are fine...it's the ones that I don't. I understand learning for learning's sake, but after putting in the hours(okay months), I'd like to pass the darn test and not fail because my sources were incorrect.
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