Discussion on:

Microsoft cert changes match expertise with real-world needs

The Internet is a telephone call no certification is required.

seems to be an advert !

Any vendor based learning is limited by definition.
Repackaging it six years doesn't solve the original issue, it's in no way a useful measure of what you may need to know.

Ok,

1. MSCE in Canada any how is Microsoft Certified Systems Expert, not Engineer and the actual Engineers get cranky and have mamanged to push it through their accosiation into some law that unless your a proper engineer or a power engineer you cannot use the title "Engineer".

2. I was one of the first MCSE 2000 courses through the Exams pulled information thin air, no where was the content covered. Not the Course, not the MOC, not the Practice Exams. MS said to become a MCSE 2000 you needed the course and 2yrs experience... Hard to have experiance in something that's only been release for a couple months.

3. In the course doing the labs, the MOC said to do it one way, oddly enough it didn't work. The instructor let us know that in the real world we would have to do it x or y way, but for the exam it would be the MS way.

4. $60,0000USD/year for MCSE 2000, I wish, I'm still only making $36,000/yr. Out of my course only 2 people got jobs with their cert, the rest of us ended up working $6/hour techie jobs or $10-$11/hour call centre jobs. Keep in mind I'm Canadian... so formy forst 6mo after my cert I was earning about $4USD/hour...

All I can say is I don't think I'm going to be getting another MS cert unless I really need it. I work at a University now, and a BA of Arts or History has more value to them than any MS cert.

Everyone from Bob, the corner grocer, to Vinny, the locksmith were getting MCSE certified in NT4 because the exams were too easy to pass when all one had to do was memorize the questions/answers by visiting websites with braindumps. These so called "paper certs" are what destroyed the true value of being certified during the 90s' dot com boom. I don't know if you have seen the latest Windows 2003 MCSE exams, but I have been taking them and I can tell you they simply memorizing answer/question combos will not help. You really have to know your stuff to pass them and MS has g9one to great lengths to weed out the memorizers from those who know their stuff.

Anyone who still walks around with an NT4 MCSE today should not call themselves "certified MCSEs'" because their credentials are no longer valid and would be questionable given what I described above.

I recall having been already Novell CNE certified in the 90s' and working with a so called "NT4 MCSE". The Windows NT4 server had crashed when the RAID controller failed, so this so called "MCSE" ran to get the NT4 CD to reinstall the O/S. I looked at the guy as if he were a comlete moron because he was about to reinstall NT4 on a system that practically had no working logical drives. When I explained about the RAID controller needing to be replaced, he looked at me with a blank stare as if I were talking in some alien language.

I remember the paper MCSE talk when I started my course.

My issue was they expected the students to know stuff that wasn't a feature on NT4, was new to W2K, w2k hadden't been around long enough for people to experiance those types of questions.

But yeah... my biggest issue was before I took the course the school had me do a career search thing, and everybody i talked to said "Oh yes, MCSE would be a great place to start, blah blah blah" But 4mo later when it came time to get a practicum, I called the same places back saying, hey you told me MCSE would be a good start, care to take me on for a practicum(here Practicum people have to do work related to the school, but aren't required to be paid, so they can get free labour for 2mo) they laughed at me and "said oh you actually went a head and took that...."
My course was $17,000 for 4mo of in class and 2 mo of Practicum....

Interesting you should say the cert is now worth the paper it's printed on. I did get told that by one other peer, but he's a bit too much of an MS fan boy for me to have any respect for his other opinions. I know you aren't !

I worked through the nineties as well (all of them ) so you can understand why I'm massively suspicious of MS certs. In my opinion they should have been printed on softer paper then the holder could have done something useful with it and wiped my arse.

Do you think you could pass one without experience or a heck of a lot of lab work?

Having recently gone through the MCSA 2003 Certifications I would say that while not impossible, going through all those certs especially the 70-290 and 70-291 exams without some real life experience would be damn hard. These exams feature simulations where you have to go through the steps to actually get specific goals accomplished and some of the questions on stuff like DNS and subnetting are too complex to guess at without a thorough understanding of how those technologies work in a Server 2003 environment.

I've got quite a bit of experience (though not nearly as much as some people on here) and I will say I still learned tons studying for these tests though. I think people should be open minded enough to analyze both the benefits and drawbacks of such certifications and also realize what they're supposed to represent.

The MCSE/MCSA track is MEANT for people with real world experience, Recruiters and HR drones SHOULD be highly suspicious of someone with these certifications who has no real life experience. I don't care if someone has an MCSE, if they're fresh out of school and have never worked in IT, they're still not ready for a senior level sysadmin position.

HOWEVER, they ARE very useful for people who are already in the field as a means of developing and testing their knowledge and skills. There are few admins I know who haven't learned something new from studying for these exams. IN real life very few administrators have jobs where they do EVERYTHING, and so studying for the exam can often help them learn sides of the job they may not do on a daily basis. I learned tons of stuff about Exchange from taking the 70-284 for instance, and this is knowledge that has made me better and more efficient at my job.

I have to agree that the XP 70-270, 70-271, and 70-272 exams were a piece of cake, but the 291 exam was a killer. I studied for over a month and still managed to mess up twice before passing the third time 2 months later. I just passed the 70-299 security exam recently and I can say that it was no walk in the park either.

The 70-291 was definitly the hardest for me too. There's a reason it's nicknamed "the beast". I hear the 70-293 is a nasty one too, which makes sense since it covers the more advanced planning aspects of the 291

So can I be rest assured that I will screw it up on first attempt as well? I think I'll wait a bit longer to study and take it when I am feeling confident I can pass.

Even though HR types and the clueless valued the old certs from a technical point of view, I definitely didn't. I learned stuff, yes but not ?1000s of pounds worth of stuff, and nothing that I couldn't have learnt using my mate google.

As a developer knowing it's there is usually more important than knowing the exact nuts and bolts. F1 will sort that bit out.

I'm more than happy to be certified as competent. No way was I going to shell out serious money and effort to look no different to a pratt who brain dumped and got lucky with his guesses on a multiple choice though.

This is a welcome turn around, perhaps Bill wasn't happy with supplying autographed toilet paper.

Serious certs, deserve serious thought.

and most of the people bragging about being MCSEs' back in the 90s' could have taken their certs and shoved them where the sun don't shine. I knew more about server hardware back in the 90s' than any MCSE did.

not many people feel I need them any more as a developer, but sometimes getting past the HR muppets is a chore.

I've thought about going DBA a few times and a cert or two would help me there. I was very reluctant to invest that sort of money for something some twit who would need training before he could be fit to wipe my arse could get after a brain dump.

I took the sql 2005 course late last year (firm paid for it). I might refresh now and take the exam.
Cheers.
I wasn't going to change my mind on the certs vs experience threads, but it would seem I will have to moderate my opinions on a cert's lack of value.
All in all a good thing, when they were toilet paper, they benefited no one but the IT training sector.

Pardon my language but.. "when they were toilet paper, they benefited no one but the IT training sector." Ya no ****, we had guys in my MCSE 2000 course, well one had to be tought how to turn the computer on and where the cd goes.... Another guy was a wannabe script kiddie, kept hoping we'd learn some hacking in a MCSE course....

Now 2000 was harder than NT, we had a couple old NT 4 guys who actually knew something and where just taking hte course cause their employers wanted them too.

Me, I know enough, but not everything, and really in MS world a little time, technet and google, you can figure almost anything out.