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Kevin Kohut
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One Small Step for Certification… |
| Getting rid of braindump sites may be good for the industry, but in Kevin's opinion, much more needs to happen before most IT certifications can actually mean something again. |
| by Kevin Kohut |
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2/26/2003 -- So, Robert Keppel is going to jail for his criminal actions in operating a braindump site. Now that CheetSheets.com is no longer, other braindump sites are jumping for cover (at least the ones based in the U.S.). What will all the wannabe IT pros do now? How will they get their certifications? Who will guide them through the technical labyrinth of Microsoft's tricky exam questions and confusing scenarios?
I'm thrilled to see the braindump sites starting to disappear. While I don't necessarily support the criminal prosecution of such braindumpers (seems more like a civil issue), I must admit that I'm liking the results. There's a chance now that, someday, my hard-earned MCSE will mean something again. I can just see it -- potential clients actually impressed with my certifications. Maybe we're on the long road back to the good ole' days of IT consulting!
But to get there, more has to happen. Much, much more. First off, all you existing "paper" MCSEs would need to relinquish your certs, knowing that your sacrificial efforts will help restore prestige and value to your "real-world" compatriots. Go get an entry-level job, put in your time doing the grunt work, and then let's talk about your IT skills. Or at least show me that you've done something outside the lab in your garage.
But it can go even further. I'd like to see the "legitimate" purveyors of certification exam helps recall their offerings and agree to publish only traditional how-to and reference material. What we need on the bookshelves are step-by-step guides and easy-to-look-up references, example-laden configuration manuals and "let me tell you how I did this in the real world' books. Enough of the "cram with this book and pass the test" stuff.
And all you employers of IT professionals out there, you also need to join the fray. How many times have you hired someone for an IT position based on his myriad certifications? Replace all those richly certified but actual experience-lacking individuals with true IT professionals.
Next, I want to talk to the training providers, the bootcamps, the "we'll make you an MCSE, MCDBA, and MCSD in 8 weeks" folks. You guys need to start by truly screening potential students. Oh, I know you all claim to enforce prerequisite skills, but most of you accept anyone who qualifies for financial aid. You also need to change your curricula: Don't teach to the test, but rather provide real-world skills to address real-world situations. It'd be great if you couldn't collect tuition for a student until that student actually got hired and stayed on the job for at least 90 days.
And let's not forget the companies that started this whole thing: The software and hardware vendors that implemented certification programs in the first place. Microsoft, take a cue from Cisco and develop a lab-based exam that is virtually impossible to pass unless you truly know your stuff. In fact, why doesn't Microsoft (and other companies with certification programs) simply get out of the certification business altogether? Vendor-neutral certifications haven't completely established themselves as worthy alternatives to their vendor-specific cousins, but they are finding their way into acceptance as a valid measure of IT prowess. If these could evolve into higher-level programs that truly take a neutral yet comprehensive approach to vendor technology, then we'd be getting somewhere.
Yeah, I'm glad to see these braindump sites go. But even if they all disappear, it's only one small step towards reclaiming the glory, the prestige, the practical value of my MCSE. Maybe I'll actually hang my MCSE certificate back on the wall again! 
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Kevin Kohut has been involved with information technology in some form or another for over 18 years, and has a strong business management background as well. As a computer consultant Kevin has helped both small businesses and large corporations realize the benefits of applying technology to their business needs.
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More articles by Kevin Kohut:
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There are 73  user Comments for “One Small Step for Certification…”
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Page 1 of 8
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| 2/27/03: Jimmy T from uk says: |
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the mcse needs to be Lab tested. Surely training providers would clammer for the chance of extra business in their labs (Saturday or sunday tests?). The MCT would be judicator. I'm now thinking of dumping my mcse and heading towards RHCT then to RHCE. At least I can then have some pride. BTW, I've to upgrade to .net, yet the systems I'm working on are five years old or more! Win 95, Office97 and nt4. So why should I upgrade???? |
| 2/27/03: Net-guy from N/A says: |
Great article, I am a CCIE and did my MCSE back in 1998. I have taught for those "CCNA, MCSE, MCSA etc... In 7 days" schools, only two sessions, and I am not going to do it any longer due to the fact that they don’t screen students. These people except to be spoon feed this information, they cannot understand when I talk about CCIE skills needed for the lab and how somethings they might make you do aren’t in a Cisco Press book or the TAC answer is not the only valid answer. Most of the students don’t have the back ground or drive to really be a quality IT professional. I have no problems when somebody where I consult says “hey I know you know this stuff upside/downside, I have read the book or the RFC but can you explain it to me, I am still missing something”, I had no real world experience when I did my MCSE but I had been using PCs and playing with windows 3.11 for years before I did it. I was very driven to understand the technology so that no matter what question they gave me I could answer it. Also the schools and testing centers need to beef-up security, I know of a guy, another CCIE, that admitted to me that he and two other guys had access to the new CCIE written exam in a testing center, the three of them worked to together on the test at a Prometeric center. A big problem I see is that the schools sell a song and dance to the student. The co-founder of the school I used to teach for at asked me one day what a CCIE with no experience could make. I told him that I wouldn’t touch a lab rat with a ten-foot pole. They need to get into a helpdesk/desktop support role and then move up from there, that is how I did it. I showed my bosses that I could handle my normal daily tasks easily and then asked to work with the network analyst on the Cisco devices, that is how I got hands-on. I read books on network theory, routing principles, switching, firewalls, etc… not just the Todd Lamely (no that is not a typo) books. I wanted to know why and how a router routes and switches switch, how to design an IP scheme, how to use VLSM and CIDR correctly etc…. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that if you don’t understand the technology then all certs in the world wont mean a thing. Boson should be the last thing you do not the first. Understand the technology first, then get experience, and finally get the cert. It will be a sunny day when the testkings, cheat_test, pass-guaranteed, keen interactive etc… finally get nailed for what they do. |
| 2/27/03: Anonymous says: |
I agree about the braindump sites, but c'mon, who's going to hire an MCSE or any other certified person without some kind of tech interview these days? Really, what kind of company is going to hire someone for anything other than tier-1 help desk without verifying that their certs mean that they know their stuff? I think Kevin Kohut, writing for these cert magazines and websites, is out of touch with reality, and this whole article is really whiny and negative towards people who want to get into this field. Should IT careers be some sort of exclusive club atmosphere? Yeah, people who braindump their way to an MCSE, CCNP, whatever, shouldn't be hired as systems administrators, but people who have the drive to get their certs through simulated lab environments, reading books and tech manuals, etc., and REALLY learning the material, and who have the drive to continuously learn and excel... well seems like these people deserve a shot, especially considering the sour lack of mentor-slash-intership-slash-entry level training programs for newbies. I think that letting new blood and talent to be given a shot over the jaded malcontents who think that they are owed the world because of their 20 years in mainframe programming or whatever archaic knowledge they have would be a jolt of fresh, positive energy for a lot of technology companies. Taking a chance on smart college grads or at least people with the inclination to branch out and get with new technology might not be a bad idea for companies currently stagnating in our mini-recession. |
| 2/28/03: Kevin Kohut says: |
Word to Anonymous - You're making my point! There was a time when just having the cert was testimony in and of itself that the person holding the cert was qualified and competent. What good is a cert if a hiring manager has to verify the person really knows his stuff? Isn't that, by definition, precisely what the cert is supposed to do? |
| 2/28/03: Anonymous says: |
The author is so clueless |
| 2/28/03: Best post I've seen says: |
"The general public who purchased exam guides from Braindump sites did so legally at the time of purchase. The exam guides were also copywrited by the distributers and sold as if they were legal content. Also the public who purchased the guides did not breach the non-disclosure agreement. If anything the people who purchased the guides did so thinking that it was legal to do so as neither Microsoft or law enforcement had announced that these sites were illegal until the recent court case and even then it is only illegal to sell or distribute the guides. Personally I'd like to see Microsoft bogged down for years in the courts trying to prosecute most likely hundreds of thousands of MCP's and IT employees who purchased guides in good faith or trying to penalise purchasers of guides as it would destroy the certification program altogether as a credible qualification. Obviously owners of websites that sell the guides committed fraud on the public by offering illegal content as legal exam study content. Many of these websites continue to sell the exam guides and only a small handfull have ceased operation." |
| 3/1/03: Net-guy says: |
I see Kevin’s point, in the beginning the cert meant that you know what you were doing with the technology. However once the MCSE became (Must Call Someone Else) mainly during the NT 4.0 days, all hope was lost. I have a problem with all the cheat websites; they ruin the industry and the cert in question. I see all these CCNA, CCNP, JAVA, etc… for dummies, well why don’t I see neurology for dummies or open-heart surgery for dummies? Because if don’t have any aptitude for technology then you need to find a new position. Dummies shouldn’t be responsible for critical systems weather they are people’s lives or enterprise networks that can cost a company millions per hour because apps and dbases are unavailable. In grammar school I always got bad grades in art and handwriting but I excelled in math and science. I understood how the Apple II e worked better then the teachers and librarians. I never went to get the dummies guide to drawing; I focused on what came natural. All the bootcamp schools etc… tell you that once you take there A+, N+, MCSE and CCNA classes then you can make 70-80k a year which is a lie when you have no experience. I know this for a fact I am finishing my last class in a school like that, it was big a waste of my time, I was paid well but I would rather sleep in on Saturday. The students just wanted the answers not the knowledge to understand the question. It is just very frustrating when people in the industry or wanting to get into the industry ask me about how much they can make with the some cert(s) and zero experience. Hopefully things will clear out once the masses have realized that the IT field is no longer the dot-com boom and that maybe other industries would suit them better. |
| 3/2/03: anonymous says: |
I have to agree with net-guy on this one, as a 20 plus year veteran of information technology, a lot of people simply aren't cut out to work in this field. When I started back in 1981 taking college computer courses (on punched cards and teletype, no less), if you weren't getting the course within the first month, you were filling out a drop slip and considering a change of major. Real skill in IT takes years to develop and hone, it cannot be accomplished in 3-6 months, and for those people who think it can, get a entry level job doing tech support for 12-18 months (I made a whopping $6.00 an hour on my first IT job), and then as you get more skills look at moving up the ladder. In my book, i'm not going to pay someone 50K a year because they have a CCNA or a MCSE. I might pay someone money like that if they have those certs and some real world experience to back it up (along with cont. education). Think about it, folks. Everyone is NOT cut out to be a IT professional (i'm not cut out to be a car mechanic, and i'm smart enough to realize this, and they probably make more than I do) :-) |
| 3/2/03: md says: |
I definitely agree about the simulations. One thing I truly don't understand about certifications is why the companies use a question pool that is so limited. I mean, these are some of the most sophisticated companies in the world yet they use a question pool that encompasses 250 questions? When you can buy a $6 study guide and have every single question represented word for word it sure makes you wonder about these megacorporations and their dedication to the certification process. Well, I guess as long as we, and worse yet Joe Newguy, continue to buy they will continue to sell. |
| 3/4/03: Net-Guy says: |
To Anonymous: Dumb*ss they have a script that submits the comments and on saturday the script was broken it must have submitted the comments multiple times. |
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