Cheaters are always the Winners

I’ve been in a long argument over the braindumps legality in one large IT groups on Facebook.
People have numerous justifications to **** at the certification exam and the majority doesn’t consider using braindumps as a cheating.
I am preparing for my 1st MCSA exam and I don’t want to use braindumps but those people and the ignorance and careless that Microsoft demonstrates against the website that advertises those **** make me lose motivation to sit for the exam.
Please don’t tell me that cheaters will gain certificate but not the knowledge, I’ve seen and knew many people who used braindumps at their exam preparation and yet they got the best job positions and income, and the honest people like me who chose not to **** still in a lower level position despite my 18 years of experience.

I am disappointed and sad.

Note: please accept my apologies for the bad English as it is not my mother language and if you find something wrong with it you are welcome to correct it.

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Comments

Ashenwelt

Here is the thing to know about brain ****.

They exist and are often wrong or only part of the test. You can never, ever, trust a brain ****.

I recommend against them. When people declare they have to use them, I tell them to learn the tech first. Those that learn the tech first... pass. Those that do not, normally don't.

All the vendors are up on brain ****. They rotate the answers. They adjust wording. And, more importantly, they change the questions in the pool rapidly. At one time this may have worked for people, but I literilly just had this discussion with a friend.

So, learn the tech. Study. And be able to pass the interview, not just a test. Or more likely pass the test instead of wasting money and time for a wrong ****. Be true to YOU.

malachi1612

Its true and is disappointing but I've learnt to accept this and get on with my studies.

I've got my MCSA in Windows 10, Server 2016 and its taken my nearly 2 years to get them. Money spent on MS Press Books, ITPro IT, CBT Nuggets, Sybex books. I have learnt so much over the past 2 years even though I've worked in IT for 14 years. Which was the whole point of me deciding to take these exams.

If I used brain **** I could of done them all in 6 months but I want to start my own technology company, be an IT Consultant. Doing brain **** would not help me as I need to know what I am talking about. This is what will benefit me over the others who use brain ****.

One thing I've noticed when looking on these forums. The amount of people who say,

"I work in XXX IT job and the boss has giving me XXX time to study for XXX exam"

This must be a US thing as here in the UK we never have anything like that, the certs help you get the job. Once you are in the job then if you are lucky enough to be offered to take an exam then its a blessing. If you don't then not a problem, you carry on with your job as normal.

If you have been told you have to pass an exam because of the job when you don't want take it then I can see why brain **** are popular.

PC509

What's your motivation for passing the exam? I know people with experience in the product and need the cert for an employment reason and use a **** to quickly get up to speed and pass the exam. Fine, I get it. I don't agree with it, but I get it. Yes, it's cheating. 100% cheating.

For me - these are very personal. They are goals for me as well as to help my employment. I'm proud when I pass an exam. I EARNED it. I know the material. I didn't ****.

My employer has a positive outlook on certifications. I think that helps, too. We aren't just collecting those certs for exposure. We're earning them as part of increasing our knowledge and improving ourselves. That's where the value comes in. We have all earned those certifications, we know the material, we continue to learn after we pass the exam, and they give us more exposure to the products we certified in to help them and us.

IMO, certifications are an investment in yourself by you and/or your company. Invest wisely.

november24

PC509 wrote: »

What's your motivation for passing the exam? I know people with experience in the product and need the cert for an employment reason and use a **** to quickly get up to speed and pass the exam. Fine, I get it. I don't agree with it, but I get it. Yes, it's cheating. 100% cheating.

For me - these are very personal. They are goals for me as well as to help my employment. I'm proud when I pass an exam. I EARNED it. I know the material. I didn't ****.

My employer has a positive outlook on certifications. I think that helps, too. We aren't just collecting those certs for exposure. We're earning them as part of increasing our knowledge and improving ourselves. That's where the value comes in. We have all earned those certifications, we know the material, we continue to learn after we pass the exam, and they give us more exposure to the products we certified in to help them and us.

IMO, certifications are an investment in yourself by you and/or your company. Invest wisely.

What is my motivation for passing the exam?
I don't have one, maybe I just want to prove something to my self or doing something to keep myself busy, my boss would not care whether I get certified or not, I work as an IT in a small office and for the last 18 years of my career I've never been exposed to a position that makes me deal with real high-end gears like Servers or Network equipment. maybe you or someone would advise me to get certified and look for a new challenging IT position, well now I am almost 42 years old with 3 kids and wife, This is my 3rd year for me here in the US, and I can't take the risk to switch to another job.

kbreitsprecher

I have had this discussion before on other sites.

My issue with alot of the exams they have now is the way they ask the question and almost try to trick you into a wrong answer.

An example is blah blah hyper-v cluster, hyper-v cluster, blah blah hyper-v, blah blah hyper-v cluster, one obscure tiny nugget of information, blah blah hyper-v , hyper-v, hyper-v,hyper-v,hyper-v?

hyper-v option 1
something obviously wrong
hyper-v option 2
correct answer because of obscure nugget

There is nothing that bothers me more than not coming out and asking someone a straight question... I don't condone brain ****, not at all, but I can see why people reach for them.

Jon_Cisco

There are a lot of people with 4 year college degrees that did not learn a thing while they were there. The same goes for certifications.

There are a lot of non cheaters that worked hard and are also successful but my guess is they are less incline to brag about cheating because they are busy doing real work.

Good Luck!

lucky0977

"Just do you".
You just have to worry about yourself. You're going to meet these types of people not only in IT, but in all walks of life. Just keep doing things the right way because eventually most of them will get exposed in the long run. You will get those bastards that slip through the cracks but that is life. I hear the same excuses all the time "I'll just **** it now and learn on the job later".

- Personal story -
Me an another co-worker were competing for an ISSM position which required CISSP or CISM. The fellow co-worker, who would openly talk about their reliance on **** used them for every cert he's taken but when it came time to take the CISSP, he was out of luck and who do you think got the ISSM position? Lets just say my co-worker has failed for the 5th time and eventually gave up. Last I heard, he dumped the CASP exam but he hasn't moved up the ladder and I don't know if he ever will.

malachi1612

kbreitsprecher wrote: »

I have had this discussion before on other sites.

My issue with alot of the exams they have now is the way they ask the question and almost try to trick you into a wrong answer.

An example is blah blah hyper-v cluster, hyper-v cluster, blah blah hyper-v, blah blah hyper-v cluster, one obscure tiny nugget of information, blah blah hyper-v , hyper-v, hyper-v,hyper-v,hyper-v?

hyper-v option 1
something obviously wrong
hyper-v option 2
correct answer because of obscure nugget

There is nothing that bothers me more than not coming out and asking someone a straight question... I don't condone brain ****, not at all, but I can see why people reach for them.

This is very true, You need to read the questions very carefully but at the sametime the exams will try to trip you up on purpose. If you fail, you have to pay for the retake so its a good business model for them to make more money.

I have lost count how many times I see videos for studying saying "XXX vendor exam do not try to catch you on questions" Well from my experience this DEFINITELY NOT TRUE! Microsoft and AXELOS are well known for doing this.

Tekn0logy

november24 wrote: »

I’ve seen and knew many people who used braindumps at their exam preparation and yet they got the best job positions and income, and the honest people like me who chose not to **** still in a lower level position despite my 18 years of experience.

I am disappointed and sad.

Don't be sad, If you are in a shop that rewards cheaters, there are probably a million other things wrong there. The cheaters will always get exposed, during interview or somewhere down the road. Do something to set yourself apart from the others that you think are cheaters. There are really too many resources including free to not be able to study and certify. If you have 18 years experience, you should be able to waltz through some of the exams. What are you waiting for?

Ashenwelt wrote: »

Be true to YOU.

Well said...

PC509

november24 wrote: »

What is my motivation for passing the exam?
I don't have one, maybe I just want to prove something to my self or doing something to keep myself busy, my boss would not care whether I get certified or not, I work as an IT in a small office and for the last 18 years of my career I've never been exposed to a position that makes me deal with real high-end gears like Servers or Network equipment. maybe you or someone would advise me to get certified and look for a new challenging IT position, well now I am almost 42 years old with 3 kids and wife, This is my 3rd year for me here in the US, and I can't take the risk to switch to another job.

If you're doing it for yourself and not your job, then there really is no reason to ****. You'd be cheating yourself. Certifications are a great learning tool, and the certification can come with a raise and/or respect among your peers. But, the best feeling for me is passing it legitimately and knowing that I know that information and am just plain awesome! If I cheated, I'd walk out pretty emotionless. Yay, I passed on an exam I cheated on.

If you want to get certified and find a better position, you're going to want to learn the material for that certification. Otherwise, you'll fail the interview or on the job.

Bluer_team

I passed the trifecta tests, and as much as I have learned, I can't figure how braindumps are of any value.
As the other poster says, the test questions ask for specific info, and part of the test is figuring out what info is given vs what is needed.

NOC-Ninja

I wouldnt even say cheaters always wins because people that can tech always shines on implementing and troubleshooting.
Everything catches up on cheaters. Id say being in the "click" makes you a winner. Kissing ass and being a cheerleaders of the people at the top makes you a winner. Those close door talk that my "boy" is the next guy for the C level position. Its not all about tech, its about who you know and how well you are connected to the top. Those guys makes bank!

E Double U

november24 wrote: »

I’ve been in a long argument over the braindumps legality in one large IT groups on Facebook.
People have numerous justifications to **** at the certification exam and the majority doesn’t consider using braindumps as a cheating.
I am preparing for my 1st MCSA exam and I don’t want to use braindumps but those people and the ignorance and careless that Microsoft demonstrates against the website that advertises those **** make me lose motivation to sit for the exam.
Please don’t tell me that cheaters will gain certificate but not the knowledge, I’ve seen and knew many people who used braindumps at their exam preparation and yet they got the best job positions and income, and the honest people like me who chose not to **** still in a lower level position despite my 18 years of experience.

I am disappointed and sad.

If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin' lol. Ok jokes aside:

1. I do not see the point of your long argument about ****. There is no need for you to try to convince people that they are wrong because you will not succeed. People can always find justification for their actions in their own minds so you are wasting energy.

2. If the fact that cheaters exist demotivates you from continuing with your goal then I think you are going to have a hard time in life. You may see a certification as a major, life-changing accomplishment while some others may simply view it as a checkbox job requirement item to quickly tackle and move on from. I work hard and do well. What others do is not my concern and I recommend you adopt the same attitude.

3. I think your disappointment and sadness has less to do with cheaters and more to do with your age, experience, and position. Feeling like you're in a lower level position after 18 years must be a tough. Then to add insult to injury you are watching people blow past you and I guess you feel they don't deserve it. If I'm correct, then maybe you think those people are only getting by because of certs. Almost all of the people that I've worked with in high positions with matching incomes really knew their stuff and demonstrated it to the decision makers. People are not compensated for what they know, but for the value they bring to the organization. Honest, non-cheaters like yourself don't move up because you probably stay in your hole working hard simply waiting to be noticed. You need to be more of a risk taker just like those cert dumpers that are leaving you in the dust.

4. When interviewing people to join our team, we focus on scenarios relevant to what we do to gauge the extent of their relevant experience hoping to find the right fit. We hire for skills, not certs. We don't try to test the extent of their knowledge based on a cert because we don't care. I assume others have the same approach. I care about if you can do the job and not how you obtained the alphabet soup on your resume.

iBrokeIT

november24 wrote: »

What is my motivation for passing the exam?
I don't have one, maybe I just want to prove something to my self or doing something to keep myself busy, my boss would not care whether I get certified or not, I work as an IT in a small office and for the last 18 years of my career I've never been exposed to a position that makes me deal with real high-end gears like Servers or Network equipment. maybe you or someone would advise me to get certified and look for a new challenging IT position, well now I am almost 42 years old with 3 kids and wife, This is my 3rd year for me here in the US, and I can't take the risk to switch to another job.

There's your problem, you are focusing too much of your time and energy on things you can't control(dumpers) and unwilling to address the areas you can control(job change) to achieve a higher salary.

trojin

This is the reason why I love beta exams...

If I passed beta (no study materials, no books, and of course no ****) - this mean I know the stuff

E Double U

iBrokeIT wrote: »

There's your problem, you are focusing too much of your time and energy on things you can't control(dumpers) and unwilling to address the areas you can control(job change) to achieve a higher salary.

This basically sums up my long post lol

AakashNT

Let me tell you my recent experience..

I was appearing for CFR310 Beta in august. Obviously you wont find any material for it unless you purchase it.
I didn't want to spend $99 on $20 exam, so was just browsing if I can get any notes or someone's experience, and bumped across a "****" of older exam.

I never used it before for any exam, so out of curiosity and lack of other material specific to Exam, I started going through it just to get an idea.

Man.. what a lousy **** it was.. almost every Q&A I looked was literally wrong and I felt if I am really that dumb or what? and never reached halfway of that **** and aborted right there.

And you know, in actual exam..there was no questions from it (till whatever point I left reading it from that "dumb").. and I passed with my own knowledge and experience, and I enjoyed it as I applied my own thoughts and experience in it.

So, even if you got **** from anywhere, don't even open it and go with your skills, you'll do good. Never think of people who use them, they will never able to make it in longer run. BTW I have seen a lot many people who dont have even one cert are just doing fine by their experience.

paul78

I've never looked at Facebook groups and maybe I'm not getting something.

Do people actually saying that they advocate cheating or do **** on their certifications? Using their real identities? They must not be too bright. Oh wait....

DatabaseHead

paul78 wrote: »

I've never looked at Facebook groups and maybe I'm not getting something.

Do people actually saying that they advocate cheating or do **** on their certifications? Using their real identities? They must not be too bright. Oh wait....

Most people could careless if you dumped..... From my experiences it makes little to no difference how you obtain the certification. I've walked by senior network engineers at a former companies with PDF **** up on their monitors. It was a non issues to be honest. That's just one instance.

H-bomb

I've worked for organizations that brought in training consultants for so called "bootcamps". These were nothing more than an instructor going over braindump questions for three 8-hour days. I suppose they get a bonus based upon how many people pass the exam and not whether it was done ethically or not. In the end, your only cheating yourself. That's why I LOVE the CISSP. There are no braindumps. You either know your stuff or you don't. S*%t or get off the pot.

E Double U

DatabaseHead wrote: »

I've walked by senior network engineers at a former companies with PDF **** up on their monitors.

Some years ago I was on a team that demanded that we all get the CCSA. I recall a senior engineer stating he was the best engineer across all of our regions (which he was) and that certs were a complete joke to him because they don't prove your skills when the exam can be dumped. He said he would just go over the **** the day before the deadline, pass the stupid exam, and get back to real work. If anyone had a problem with him dumping, they sure didn't call him out on it because they knew this guy could run circles around them lol.

LionelTeo

Getting a piece of certification does not necessary means they win. On the contrary, obtaining a cert because of brain **** do more harm than good during the interview process. A good interviewer will know hows to weed out those with real knowledge by giving an explicit example of a real world scenario that requires real problem solving skills to solve them. These are the interviewers you should definitely work for, and only doing the right thing in the pursue of knowledge will help u to pass this kind of interview. To elaborate an example, if I will to see a candidate listed having CEH, I will build some of the interview questions surrounding that particular cert. If getting a cert is merely to tick off a HR checkbox, then these candidates probably will find themselves working for interviewers who isn't good enough to identify great candidates. Indirectly, its both the candidate who using the brain **** being on the losing end.

Legacy User

november24 wrote: »

I am preparing for my 1st MCSA exam and I don’t want to use braindumps but those people and the ignorance and careless that Microsoft demonstrates against the website that advertises those **** make me lose motivation to sit for the exam.

From what I got from your posting that you are studying to take your 1ST MCSA exam and you are frustrated that other people that **** the exam without studying passed the exam and got a better paying job.

In my experience people who don't know the content get weeded out from the interview process regardless what they are certified in. So there is no reason for you to get frustrated just study and practice in a virtual environment. Having the knowledge and the certification would do you wonders versus having the certifcation but not being able to pass any technical interview

november24

E Double U wrote: »

3. I think your disappointment and sadness has less to do with cheaters and more to do with your age, experience, and position. Feeling like you're in a lower level position after 18 years must be a tough. Then to add insult to injury you are watching people blow past you and I guess you feel they don't deserve it. If I'm correct, then maybe you think those people are only getting by because of certs. Almost all of the people that I've worked with in high positions with matching incomes really knew their stuff and demonstrated it to the decision makers. People are not compensated for what they know, but for the value they bring to the organization. Honest, non-cheaters like yourself don't move up because you probably stay in your hole working hard simply waiting to be noticed. You need to be more of a risk taker just like those cert dumpers that are leaving you in the dust.
.

You are right in most of this point, but I don't think those successful people don't deserve what they achieved, the only thing is I feel lost, in short, I have lived most of my life in my original country and I worked hard to nail the position in one of the largest organizations, I used to earn double what I used to spend, the job security was somehow high, but the country overall situation was awful and getting worse, back there staying alive at the end of the day considered an achievement, and I have had the chance to move to the US, and I did'tit, and then I discovered that my knowledge is not matching or is not aligned with my age, and here where the struggle began..

I am pursuing the Certification because I haven't had the chance to work in a real datacenter or so, sometimes I think that my lack with communication skills (my limited English language) what holding me back in my career and I tried everything to improve it but the improvement is so slow.

november24

paul78 wrote: »

I've never looked at Facebook groups and maybe I'm not getting something.

Do people actually saying that they advocate cheating or do **** on their certifications? Using their real identities? They must not be too bright. Oh wait....

They are using their real names and pictures and they even share the **** not just advocating them.

Jon_Cisco

november24 wrote: »

I tried everything to improve it but the improvement is so slow.

Take pride in doing what you can to improve your life. So many times people compare themselves to other people but we are all unique.

DatabaseHead

E Double U wrote: »

Some years ago I was on a team that demanded that we all get the CCSA. I recall a senior engineer stating he was the best engineer across all of our regions (which he was) and that certs were a complete joke to him because they don't prove your skills when the exam can be dumped. He said he would just go over the **** the day before the deadline, pass the stupid exam, and get back to real work. If anyone had a problem with him dumping, they sure didn't call him out on it because they knew this guy could run circles around them lol.

Funny you mention this. The engineer I am referring too was the best on the team as well. He was consistently slammed with work that other engineers couldn't handle so he was the blow back valve.

EagerDinosaur

I think I would try to avoid working for companies where (suspected) brain-dumped certifications are valued more than proven on-the-job skills.

I don't think Microsoft should be blamed for the behaviour of brain dumpers. In my experience, Microsoft make more effort than most companies to make their exams ****-resistant and relevant to the tasks people do in their day jobs.

paul78

november24 wrote: »

They are using their real names and pictures and they even share the **** not just advocating them.

So basically, these are stupid people who **** and also steal. It's probably not a stretch to assume that they probably are liars as well. I would be skeptical about any successes they claim to have reaped from dumping exams.

Since you already recognize that cheating isn't an answer, that makes you a winner compared to those losers. Maybe you should hang out in this forum instead of that other one.

I work in financial services, it's common to have to agree to an ethics pledge. If I ever found out that someone in my org cheated on a cert and they claimed it on their resume, they would be terminated or sanctioned. And even if the individual is not in my org, I would force the issue.

Maybe I'm just old-fashion but I believe in personal integrity and honesty.

DatabaseHead

H-bomb wrote: »

I've worked for organizations that brought in training consultants for so called "bootcamps". These were nothing more than an instructor going over braindump questions for three 8-hour days. I suppose they get a bonus based upon how many people pass the exam and not whether it was done ethically or not. In the end, your only cheating yourself. That's why I LOVE the CISSP. There are no braindumps. You either know your stuff or you don't. S*%t or get off the pot.

Management is the worst about this. I've seen a whole IT department go through "ITIL" training and all get ****, the senior leaders went through additional training, the intermediate exams and they had "study guides". We are talking over 20 leaders......

I'd rather not have a certification than **** one. I agree with Trojin my last certification is an invite only beta. Passed. Feels good and you can't **** it, no material, only white pages and experience.