April 10, 2014 at 3:48 am
Personally, having written more cert exams than is probably wise (and a lot of them as betas, so complete with poor spelling, grammar errors, confusing questions and nonsensical answers), I can't see a low-level cert giving anyone piece of mind. They're just not comprehensive enough. 461 is 30-odd questions. They're great for the test-taker to use to force them to study the odder areas that they don't work with, but they cannot prove knowledge of the entire area they cover.
I hold certs in network admin (Server 2003), Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services and BI (SSIS, DQS, MDS). I've never installed sharepoint, I break networks by looking at them and I can't spell BI. No, I didn't cheat, I guessed my way through them taking the most logical-looking answers.
If anyone gets piece of mind from the presence of those certs and decides to hire me for one of those tasks, they need their head examining.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
April 10, 2014 at 4:58 am
I have to agree with a lot of whats already been said. On their own these low level certificates are not going to get you a job as a DBA unless you have something else to back it up. I don't mean to discourage you from progressing further, but I'm pretty sure my wife, a nurse, could guess her way to a pass on the 70-461 after a few practice exams.
I've interviewed hundreds of people both with and without certificates. I'd have to say unless its a junior position I wouldn't hire a newly certified "DBA" with no proven SQL Server experience in a production environment. I wouldn't necessarily be looking for DBA in a job title either. There are plenty of reasonably skilled accidental DBA's working as network or system admins who decide to take the plunge and backup their experience with some certifications.
I would suggest continuing with your training by bolstering you SQL Skills with further certification and look to volunteering as well as proving your skills on forums. Keep your eyes open for Junior jobs too but your going to have accept the bottom of the ladder pay scale as realistic.
April 10, 2014 at 5:13 am
MysteryJimbo (4/10/2014)
I have to agree with a lot of whats already been said. On their own these low level certificates are not going to get you a job as a DBA unless you have something else to back it up. I don't mean to discourage you from progressing further, but I'm pretty sure my wife, a nurse, could guess her way to a pass on the 70-461 after a few practice exams.I've interviewed hundreds of people both with and without certificates. I'd have to say unless its a junior position I wouldn't hire a newly certified "DBA" with no proven SQL Server experience in a production environment. I wouldn't necessarily be looking for DBA in a job title either. There are plenty of reasonably skilled accidental DBA's working as network or system admins who decide to take the plunge and backup their experience with some certifications.
I would suggest continuing with your training by bolstering you SQL Skills with further certification and look to volunteering as well as proving your skills on forums. Keep your eyes open for Junior jobs too but your going to have accept the bottom of the ladder pay scale as realistic.
Agree 100% for a DBA, but for junior SQL developers a certification but no expertise shouldn't be such a drama. You can train developers; just don't give them access to production from day 1. A DBA is a totally different story.
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My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP
April 10, 2014 at 9:07 am
j.b.shteyn (4/9/2014)
lptech (4/9/2014)
So I gave them a quick spiel about creating clustered indexes on the column they join on most frequently and non-clustered on columns in where clause, looking at the actual execution plan to see the bottlenecks and so on.
That reminds me of an old parable... "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is actualy a fruit and not a vegetable... wisdom is knowing that you probably shouldn't use it in a fruit salad." 🙂
While what you say can be true, there can be some huge problems that arise from such things as what you've suggested and this is why employers are looking for experienced people even if they don't have certs. As a couple of simple examples, if the column that you most frequently join on is a GUID, is it actually a wise thing to put the clustered index on that column? If you have an ORM that passes NVARCHAR literals as parameters for an ORM generated query and the column the parameter to be found is in a VARCHAR column, what will happen with and without a non-clustered index on the column?
If you know these things just from your studies for the exam, then my hat is definitely off to you and I humbly bow to someone that actually gets it. The next thing that you have to do is to get an interview where you can show your stuff and some of the things I recommended for the cover letter and objective could help you get that interview (or, hopefully, interviews).
If you can't answer and discuss the questions above to some good length, then I still have respect for your studies and passing the exam but the difference is the experience that employers are looking for in a DBA. You could, however, break into the field as an SQL Developer especially with the math background you have. If that's true, then maybe changing your resume and job search to look for that would be more fruitful.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
April 10, 2014 at 9:43 am
j.b.shteyn (4/9/2014)
So I gave them a quick spiel about creating clustered indexes on the column they join on most frequently and non-clustered on columns in where clause
While that's what a lot of the training material says, it's often a poor choice in reality (knowledge vs experience).
SQL will usually only use one index per table for a query, so your option is forcing the optimiser to choose whether to use an index for the joins or one for the where clause, which can easily lead to a sub-optimal execution plan and poor performance.
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Indexing/68439/
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Indexing/68563/
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Indexing/68636/
So I didn't even mention indexed views, in-line functions and stored procedures to improve performance
Good, because stored procs aren't there for performance reasons, functions can degrade performance severely depending on what type you use and indexed views are something that you have to test carefully if your view even meets the laundry list of requirements. 😉
From an interviewer's perspective, you'll probably find things easier if you keep an 'I have a lot to learn' attitude.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
April 15, 2014 at 3:41 pm
I am exactly in the OP position. This is an excellent thread. I got out of school studying economics and math and I wanted to be some sort of analyst. While I have an excellent knowledge of Access and Excel, everyone is turning toward SQL Server and Oracle, and in my attempt to move into a position that uses one of those database systems, I tried to simply study for and pass exams without having a great deal of knowledge about them.
Excellent post and responses to this post.
April 15, 2014 at 3:47 pm
leohelfer0868 (4/15/2014)
I am exactly in the OP position. This is an excellent thread. I got out of school studying economics and math and I wanted to be some sort of analyst. While I have an excellent knowledge of Access and Excel, everyone is turning toward SQL Server and Oracle, and in my attempt to move into a position that uses one of those database systems, I tried to simply study for and pass exams without having a great deal of knowledge about them.
Did you end up getting a SQL job or just the cold shoulder?
April 15, 2014 at 3:56 pm
I don't have a job yet, but I am waiting until after I pass 70-461 to try again.
I used SQL in access before (with zero certifications or exams passed), but nobody cares about that apparently).
I passed database fundamentals (the Technology Associate one) because I have literally never used SQL Server before and I figured it would be easier to start with that one.
As I study for 70-461, the MTA database fundamental exam definitely made me feel more comfortable about studying for it. I'm glad I did it.
I plan on taking 70-461 next Tuesday. After I pass it (I've been studying my *** off and taking a zillion practice tests using measureup.com) or hopefully pass it, I'll start trying to get volunteer/non-paid work.
My original plan was to just muscle through all of the exams, but now I see that this isn't going to work and I need to get some sort of experience.
April 15, 2014 at 4:11 pm
It definitely seems like HR/employers do not even consider your previous quant background or the fact that you can learn things quickly and on your own. Someone coming from soc. scie background can actually understand what data mean, not just able to manipulate it.
So far I am only looking at one potential interview through parents' acquaintance.
Best of luck next Tuesday. I found the actual test somewhat harder than any of the practice ones that I did.
Don't skip any of the material in the books and do as many practice exercises as you can.
I have done a bunch of exercises (68 of them actually) on sql-ex.ru. They could be a little tricky (sometimes direct translation from Russian does not work well) but they get you thinking about data from SQL point of view.
April 15, 2014 at 4:17 pm
I have a friend who works for an IT company.
Everyone at this company studied IT related things, but he studied philosophy (I'm not joking and yes, you read that correctly).
He has a very small IT background and is not very gifted mathematically (i.e. I had to explain to him what a median is for example and using a median vs using an average).
But . . . he comes from a sales background and is very gifted as communicating and exaggerating a little.
Somehow, he got the job as a technology analyst. He uses a massive amount of SQL; but he had a fire under his *** sortaspeak. He exaggerated about knowing what to do and then studied his *** off after work each night.
He has been there for three months so far.
I think not having any experience will definitely work negatively, but I think it also boils down to being able to sell yourself (like any other job).
My local chapter for PASS (I think that's what it is called) meets at an IT company (or at least it has been) once every month or every other month, maybe I'll just stop in and try to network that way.
May 13, 2014 at 1:22 pm
Just to finish up the topic...
Got an offer for Software Developer and accepted it!
After applying for between 20 to 30 jobs, I got 4 responses.
First, got a rejection during phone interview when HR said that they needed at least 6 months SQL experience.
Second, went through all interview rounds, but never heard back. Answered all SQL questions correctly, but I think the manager did not think I was a good fit for the position and I wouldn't stay long (he was probably right, but still would have been nice to at least hear back).
Third, I submitted my resume through a family friend. I passed a grueling one-hour phone interview, where an interviewer had me set up an imaginary database in my head (using star schema design, which I did not know at the time) and then had me run imaginary queries against it. Then during in-house interview had to know principles of OOP and relational database design, which I studied up on beforehand. As I heard later, I passed that as well, but got a rejection because I told them I got an offer from another place and they were not interested in me enough to get into the whole offer-counteroffer dance.
The place where I will be starting a job had me first complete two rounds of tests online (one was general SQL, VB and ASP.NET questions and the other was an IQ test). Then two interviews with middle managers and team members and then two more interviews with upper management. They actually appreciate certification exams and give promotions and bonuses to their employees for passing exams. I actually mentioned during one of the interview that I hear people being very dismissive about the exams and the manager disagreed completely, saying that those exams are much tougher and more detailed than people realize.
Of course, I will have to study up on web design and OOP before starting the job, but I appreciate the fact that they realize that if a person can learn SQL by himself to high enough degree of breadth and understanding, then he can certainly pick up other languages and technologies on the job, which is a large part of what being a developer is about!
Thank you to everyone for your comments and suggestions!
May 13, 2014 at 1:58 pm
j.b.shteyn (5/13/2014)
...Thank you to everyone for your comments and suggestions!
Congrats!
Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP
May 13, 2014 at 2:20 pm
Congratulations! That great!
Persistence pays off, I guess.
Thanks for coming back and letting us know.
Tom
May 13, 2014 at 5:21 pm
Well done. That's great to hear.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
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SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
May 14, 2014 at 1:42 pm
Most organizational employers expect data analysts to be subject matter experts with some background in SQL, and they expect DBAs to be database/network/ETL/Windows/Linux experts. An exception would be startups, who often have more charisma and venture capital than technical expertise or even common sense.
Given your background with social sciences degree, no professional experience with SQL Server, but having passed certification exams, you would have more luck acquiring a job as data analyst. That would leverage your existing skillset while providing you with the couple of years experience that hiring managers and recruiters would expect for a developer or DBA. Day by day you'll find ways to expand your knowledge and experience into other database related areas.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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