Do the certifications add value?
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To answer the original question - "What is the value of certification ?" There is certainly a value to having the logo on your resume, as other responses have confirmed.
However, there is also a personal value for me. Anyone who takes their career seriously and considers themselves a professional needs to examine their strengths and weaknesses. I need to keep my strengths and work on improving my weaknesses. Most jobs are not going to expose you to all of the features of SQL Server. You might never implement replication or OLAP or any of the other technology that is part of the product, which then becomes your weakness.
Certification lets me identify and improve on my weaknesses. It helps me answer those tough questions in the next job interview about parts of SQL Server that I don't use everyday.
I think that people who are so quick to deny the benefits of certification are at the same time denying their own weaknesses. I have yet to see someone who has achieved the MCDBA declare it a totally worthless achievement. You really get out of it the same effort you put into certification. There is real value in certification, both personal and professional.
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quote:
Certification lets me identify and improve on my weaknesses. It helps me answer those tough questions in the next job interview about parts of SQL Server that I don't use everyday.I view obtaining certifications in much the same way. Achieving a cert is something I do to verify I've acquired the requisite knowledge that cert says I should have. As a result, I steer clear of braindumps, etc.
However, this isn't to say I ignore the value certifications have in the marketplace. Quite honestly, they get you a second look by some HR folks, all others things being equal. Also, they matter for some folks' job reviews.
When I was helping hire DBAs, we liked the certs, but we didn't rest there. They were given a couple of technical interviews. That determined whether or not they got a job offer.
K. Brian Kelley, GSEC
http://www.truthsolutions.com/
Author: Start to Finish Guide to SQL Server Performance Monitoring
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley -
Hey, did I ever mention that I hold a certification, too??
Not?
Well, actually I am a MCM
Microsoft Certified Mouser
Frank
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Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url] -
I work on certifications more for me than anything else. If forces me to learn the depth and breadth of the product, esp. true with Microsoft's exams.
What has impressed me from reading is the RedHat certification (I know, this is a SQLServer forum, sorry!). If I understand the new RH exam, the technician cert has you fixed a screwed up RH box within a couple of hours, and the engineer cert has you install and configure RH from a set of specs -- as if you walked in the door of some company and were going to set up a Linux server, etc.
So at least when you get an application from someone with the RH cert, you know they have a base set of real-world, hands-on knowledge. vs. the old paper CNE/MCSE/OCP/etc.
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Resident DBMS fence sitter.
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Resident DBMS fence sitter. -
That's the nice thing about the Red Hat certifications. Much like the CCIE, there is a lab exam, meaning you have to demonstrate compentency with the actual product.
K. Brian Kelley, GSEC
http://www.truthsolutions.com/
Author: Start to Finish Guide to SQL Server Performance Monitoring
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley -
If you would like some scientific evidence of the value of the MCDBA certification, a professor named Jack McKillip of the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale published a detailed study in 2001. You can read the full study here:
http://www.siu.edu/departments/cola/psycho/faculty/mckillip.html
Some of his findings were:
quote:
·MCDBA from around the world rated Microsoft’s revised certification was “useful” to “very useful” for all important areas of MCDBAs’ jobs.·MCDBAs also rated the certification process as reliably and notably more useful for job tasks important for database professionals than those for other computer professionals, such as those concerned with hardware installation and maintenance or network infrastructures.
·MCDBA from around the world rated Microsoft revised certification as “very useful” for professional credibility with customer and employers.
The research paper is named "Criterion Validity of Microsoft’s Database Administrator Certification: Report to Participants (MCDBA)" at the above web site.
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I have hired people and I don't look at certifications; I look for experience. Yes, we received 250 resumes the last time we advertised and, easily, 200 were not qualified. That left about 50 to sift through and after some time we had it down to ten people. We sifted through them with a technical interview. Several did not make that cut because, while they were technically proficient, they were unable to explain the whys and when they should do tasks. If you can not explain to another technical person, how could you explain it to a client?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.
Patrick
Quand on parle du loup, on en voit la queue
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I am pointing out that the study was from the happier 2000 - 2001 years. I might have participated in it, and had all of the optimism of the boom years.
I know many DBAs who have been surprisingly unemployed since that time. I know my responses would be very different if asked today.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.
Patrick
Quand on parle du loup, on en voit la queue
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Ah yes, the year 2000 - the good old days. When SQL Server 2000 was new and we were full of optimism about the product and Microsoft's potential to gain market share from Oracle and IBM. Well that has happened and now we are full of optimism at the potential of SQL Server Yukon to become the standard storage platform for all Microsoft server products, which means us DBA's will be in even greater demand.
I think the future is better now than it was in 2000 for anyone seeking the Yukon MCDBA certification. Yukon will mark the emergence of the "dedicated DBA" role in many companies that previously expected SQL Server DBA's to have a mixed role of DBA/network admininstration.
Certainly experience is a primary factor in reviewing 250 resumes. But education is always a prerequisite, too.
Associate's or less than Bachelor's degree = underqualified
Master's or PhD degree = overqualified
Bachelor's degree = qualified
Bachelor's plus MCDBA = well qualified
I have a hard time believing that education was NOT used to make the cut from 250 resumes to 50 resumes. Then how did you narrow the 50 down to 10 ? You couldn't have technically interviewed all 50 candidates because that would have taken months.
I think you posed the original question because you were looking for validation of your process to narrow the field of 50 candidates. If you didn't use certification as a factor along with experience and education, then you are in the miniority. Most people do consider certification when hiring for a position.
If you are looking for reasons to not renew your MCDBA on SQL Server Yukon, then I think you are making a mistake. Since you have multiple certifications (MCT, MCSE, MCDBA, MCSD) you might think that you can drop the MCDBA and still compete against Yukon MCDBA's. This is a dilema many MCSE's will face because the Yukon MCDBA will be more difficult for a dual MCSE/MCDBA to obtain. However, I don't think you will be a top candidate for a DBA job on SQL Server Yukon if you are competing against others who have passed the seven exams on Yukon. The dual MCSE/MCDBA's will have to make a choice and that choice will certainly affect your career with SQL Server.
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Very good points - but I have not been in a hiring position for over two years.
The example was from the fall of 2000 when I spent time in the land of Project Managers. And no we did not go through 50 technical interviews.
The original question was about using certifications to make judgements. It has been said that "most people" do use certifications.
Does anyone been involved in interviews where the hiring person said "I'm giving you this job because of your certifications?"
I opened this thread to see what the responses might be. Curious. Not looking for other's reasons not to be certified or to be certified. That's up to the person. Cuirious if those who are certified can say that the certification has given them a better job, position or leverage when it comes to asking for a raise.
Can it be said that someone with years of experience in SQL Server will be in a bad position because they choose not to spend the time to take seven tests?
I know many DBAs who have never taken a Microsoft test. It has not hurt their careers nor are they interested in the Microsoft test.
The certifications are a handy way to open the door, but I don't see much value in it besides that.
The certifications are based on the new features of the Microsoft product. They are not designed to be comprehensive. Someone who has studied SQL to pass the Designing test will probably not sit down that afternoon and write the code to find the median in a group.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.
Patrick
Quand on parle du loup, on en voit la queue
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quote:
I have a hard time believing that education was NOT used to make the cut from 250 resumes to 50 resumes. Then how did you narrow the 50 down to 10 ? You couldn't have technically interviewed all 50 candidates because that would have taken months.Education is a check mark, so far as I'm concerned, because there are too many good people walking around without the degrees.
The person I turn to about any .NET programming question never completed his degree and he's usually spot on. Two of my Incident Response teammates where I work don't have a degree. One of those is the strongest member of the IRT. My degrees, while related, don't necessarily scream computers (physics, mathematics). One of our top DBAs never finished college either. If we weed out on education requirements, these people would have never made the cut.
K. Brian Kelley, GSEC
http://www.truthsolutions.com/
Author: Start to Finish Guide to SQL Server Performance Monitoring
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley -
Brian, How do you weed out resumes?
My hat is off to anyone who carefully reads each one. That's the "right" way. But it isn't practical with resume mills like the internet sites.
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We spread them out. We looked for relevant details that showed for work experience similar to what we were hiring for. We looked for folks who weren't jumping jobs.
K. Brian Kelley, GSEC
http://www.truthsolutions.com/
Author: Start to Finish Guide to SQL Server Performance Monitoring
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley -
To land the position I now have, I was one of about 5 DBA's to pass a technical test that was much harder than any MCDBA exam. Certification or not, I expected to take a technical exam as the first step in the interview process. In my opinion a difficult test is to my advantage as well as my potential employer. It showed a good technical fit between us. As long as the test is relevant to the duties and responsibilities of the position.
-Isaiah
-Isaiah -
I'm very interested in the idea that you expected to take a test. Is that common?
I've frequently sat an interviewee down in front of a terminal and asked them to show me around a database - not to see if they understood THAT database, but if they could navigate and tell me what they were seeing.
But I have never tried to structure an actual test. Or do others use some kind of canned test?
Was this a very large organization?
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