Prometric No Longer Deliver Oracle/Sun examinations

Stench Blossoms

Dear Candidate,

This message is to advise that effective June 1, 2011 Prometric will no longer deliver Oracle/Sun examinations.

In preparation for the termination, we have noticed that you have an Oracle/Sun examination scheduled after June 1st. As such, we are contacting you to see if you would like to reschedule your exam prior to June 1st. If you would like to reschedule your exam prior to June 1st, please visit www.prometric.com to obtain the contact details for your Regional Contact Center. If you have not contacted Prometric on or before May 31, 2011, Prometric will be required to cancel your appointment and you will need to contact another vendor to schedule a new appointment.

While we do our very best to avoid any disruption to the appointments, from time to time cancellation of an appointment is unavoidable. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause you and wish to make the scheduling process as easy as possible.

Thank you for your business and good luck on your exam!

Best Regards,

Prometric

Got this email from Prometric this morning. Had planned to do my SCJP at the end of June.

Does anyone know who'll be taking over from them? I looked on the Oracle site and it still points to Prometric for registering for exams.

henryporter

Balls - I was hoping to do this mid-june - won't be ready with study til then :-(

Stench Blossoms

henryporter wrote: »

Balls - I was hoping to do this mid-june - won't be ready with study til then :-(

That's my problem as well.

Naikon

Good I say. These "Certifications" look like a complete scam anyway. Why pay someone else to give you a chance of memorising the Java API's? You can that on your own watch! It's the Algorithms that count. Save your money imo.

Stench Blossoms

Naikon wrote: »

Good I say. These "Certifications" look like a complete scam anyway. Why pay someone else to give you a chance of memorising the Java API's? You can that on your own watch! It's the algorithms that count. You can do anything once a solution to the problem is identified. I thought this is something programmers generally accept?

Pretty sure the certificate are still going to exist just another company will take over hosting the exams.

I don't care what programmers generally accept, this ''Certificate" will bank me an extra 5k a year.

Naikon

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Pretty sure the certificate are still going to exist just another company will take over hosting the exams.

I don't care what programmers generally accept, this ''Certificate" will bank me an extra 5k a year.

Fair enough. I guess these certs are just a means of convincing mindless HR drones. These exams seek to reinforce my perception that parts of the IT hiring industry are shambolic.

Naikon

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

5k a year.

:eek:

Any company official who justifies a 5k increase per person for memorising an API deserves to be charged with fraud. Good thing we live in western society.

henryporter

Speaking to a job consultant last week who said it was the minimum to have as a skill level - particularly as I'm making a career change from architect to developer so my cv isn't development oriented.

Naikon

henryporter wrote: »

Speaking to a job consultant last week who said it was the minimum to have as a skill level - particularly as I'm making a career change from architect to developer so my cv isn't development oriented.

Forget the certs. Contribute to an Open Source project. Documentation, code, comments, ideas, art, ANYTHING. Memorising an API will not develop actual development skills. What you are doing is akin to becoming a good writer by memorising famous literary quotes. Also, be very suspicous of any "advice" from an overpaid "job consultant". These certs are not generally required for a development role.

Stench Blossoms

Naikon wrote: »

Forget the certs. Contribute to an Open Source project. Documentation, code, comments, ideas, art, ANYTHING. Memorising an API will not develop actual development skills. What you are doing is akin to becoming a good writer by memorising famous literary quotes. Also, be very suspicous of any "advice" from an overpaid "job consultant". These certs are not generally required for a development role.

Yeh henryporter forgot the certs! The HR person who told you it was a minimum skill set is obviously talking out their bum hole. :rolleyes:

Seriously Naikon can you take this else where?

I didn't start this thread to discuss whether the Cert is beneficial to your development skills or not.

At the end of the day employers are willing to pay more money for someone who has a cert as opposed to someone who doesn't.

henryporter

Even as an architect I found certificates a good way of maintaining and progressing knowledge within the profession and I could see the damage uncertified mavericks were liable to inflict on unsuspecting customers. But that's an argument for another day!

In answer to the OP - here is what's happening http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=450 - seems prometric have gotten the heave-ho. Presumably you'll be able to get your money back OP, although there seems to be some mechanism for transferring over.

Also of interest is:

If you schedule your Java, Oracle Solaris (Cluster), MySQL, or NetBeans exam with Pearson VUE between May 16, 2011 and August 1, 2011, Pearson VUE will provide you access to a set of practice questions from the list below free! This is up to a $32 value!

- see: http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=450#2a for details,

The_B_Man

Good point actually. I'm in 3rd year going into 4th year, and I'm curious now if I'd be better off going for a loada these certs, while working, instead of wasting another year in college. This time next year I could have a few of those certs + 1 years experience, as opposed to a slightly better degree.
Either way, when I get working I'll probably have to go get these certs anyway! 5k per cert isnt something to be laughed at!!

Naikon

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Yeh henryporter forgot the certs! The HR person who told you it was a minimum skill set is obviously talking out their bum hole. :rolleyes:

Seriously Naikon can you take this else where?

I didn't start this thread to discuss whether the Cert is beneficial to your development skills or not.

At the end of the day employers are willing to pay more money for someone who has a cert as opposed to someone who doesn't.

Fair point. I should not derail the thread. I've never heard of a place not hiring someone without certs though. Degree, yeah. Not certs though. If it earns you an extra 5k, who I am to criticise you? I just think it's stupid that it's "required" over a portfolio or something.

Naikon

henryporter wrote: »

Even as an architect I found certificates a good way of maintaining and progressing knowledge within the profession and I could see the damage uncertified mavericks were liable to inflict on unsuspecting customers. But that's an argument for another day!

In answer to the OP - here is what's happening http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=450 - seems prometric have gotten the heave-ho. Presumably you'll be able to get your money back OP, although there seems to be some mechanism for transferring over.

Also of interest is: - see: http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=450#2a for details,

tl;dr - The cert criteria is used by HR as a form of risk mitigation. You don't need a Java certfication to learn best practices. I bet these "mavericks" code in APL or assembly. The poor customers.

If the project isn't earth shattering or anything, I suggest following the best practices outlined in this article: http://www.thc.org/root/phun/unmaintain.html

G-Money

Was half considering doing this at one point myself. Although I think I will probably end up focusing on C# and .Net.