Time for Microsoft to up the ante?

ntlbell

It seems that MCSE's MCSA's MCP's are two to a penny.

It would also seem a lot of people with these exams are usually pretty poor technically.

So is it time Microsoft brought in some hands on testing.

What I would like to see is a two hour hands on exam held in maybe a server room.

Each student is given a different task to carry out over the two hours.

Much like the RHCE.

This would give back some crediability to the exam make it harder for the morons to pass and would allow IT professionals to start demanding a lot more money.

Or are we happy with the way it is?

layke

I agree, when I left school the computer boom was in full swing so naturally everone who couldn't even switch on a PC went for an IT cert to pull some cash in.

These same people today call themselves IT consultants yet wouldn't know half the stuff most technically gifted people know. Imo you have to have a knack for It or be very willing to learn. I have found the MSP exams are kind of entry level. The real cash is when you enter a company and specialise in certain areas like for exmple IT security.

mick.fr

Yeah this has been discussed in other threads.

But that is the truth, the problem with exams (And not only MCP) is that all the answers are available from different websites. So you have got morrons learning the questions by heart an passing exams. But this is exactly the same with Redhat and any otehr certification.

Anyway the MCP exams have a lot of simulations nowadays and they are pretty good and hard technically, covering a lot of things.

As I said on a previous post, the difference is on the field and on the daily rate.

Do not worry the monkeys calling themself "consultants" don't get called back again. When you ask a consultant to remove a DC from a domain and that you see the guy removing the electricity plug as a solution...you can really ask yourself some questions about his MCPs or whatever certifications he has.

So I am not really worry about those mokeys, cause they don't get far.

Static M.e.

Do not worry the monkeys calling themself "consultants" don't get called back again. When you ask a consultant to remove a DC from a domain and that you see the guy removing the electricity plug as a solution...you can really ask yourself some questions about his MCPs or whatever certifications he has

.

One of my first jobs in my current company was fixing the above. The DC had been plugged out and scraped.. had to manually go in and remove it, which was a pain the bottom

Even if the MS exams were more simulation based they would still just learn all the sims...

As for bringing a guy into a server room and telling him to fix a fault, that might be a solution for perhaps a higher end exam akin to cisco's CCIE (For those that don't know you have a 1day Q+A exam and 1 day in a room stcked with routers/switchs etc supposedly they tell "Ok we might have a problem here or we might not... see what you find" Thats how they test you but taking the exam costs over 5k a go so its quite pricey.)
Besides all of which the MS exams are a massive money spinner so the really have no reason to change them (from their point of view) untill they really are useless and thats a long way off. It will be interesting to see if anything changes for the new longhorn/vista exams.

Personnally I find the MS exams tough enough, Ive been working on the 292+296 for ages now and im STILL not ready to chance it.. perhaps Im not as SAMRT as I think I am

mick.fr

Static M.e. wrote:

.
Ive been working on the 292+296 for ages now and im STILL not ready to chance it.. perhaps Im not as SAMRT as I think I am

I am sure you are Smart enough, you are just lazy like a lot of us lol

far2gud

Emplyoers should be assisted by Microsoft in regard to questioning potential employees regarding the the validity of there MCSE. I have a friend in IT recruitment who talks of IT geniuses from India and how they all have MCSE Qualifications

I wonder how many of these people are paper MCSE and how many actually know how to apply a GPO or configure IIS. I am currently studying for 70-290 and would like to move into field service. The difference is that when I do I will actually know how to do the job.

Pisses me off how people devalue these certs. :mad:

mick.fr

far2gud wrote:

Emplyoers should be assisted by Microsoft in regard to questioning potential employees regarding the the validity of there MCSE. I have a friend in IT recruitment who talks of IT geniuses from India and how they all have MCSE Qualifications

I wonder how many of these people are paper MCSE and how many actually know how to apply a GPO or configure IIS. I am currently studying for 70-290 and would like to move into field service. The difference is that when I do I will actually know how to do the job.

Pisses me off how people devalue these certs. :mad:

Yeah, as I said before, the only way to make the difference is to prove you are better. The other way is to try to pass as many as possible, because the cheaters usually stop at MCSA/MCSE, they do not go further in the specialisations, they are lazy.

I have 18 MCP, and I can tell you technical questions during interviews, are really really rare, and when they begin, they stop quiet quickly :-)

I do not know everything of course, but a bit more than the usual candidates, so that makes a huge difference.

Raekwon

far2gud wrote:

I have a friend in IT recruitment who talks of IT geniuses from India and how they all have MCSE Qualifications

Yeah there are a hell of a lot of MCSE's from India & Pakistan (*cough* braindumps?) The latter even boast the youngest MCP in the world at the ripe ol' age of 9! :eek:

Arfa Karim of Multan has officially become the youngest MCP in Pakistan, and one of the youngest in the world. Karim, now 10, met with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last week--an experience she later described as second only to visiting Disneyland. To attain the credential--at any age--a person has to display technical proficiency in areas such as .Net, Visual Studio 6.0 and Windows Server 2003.