the real reason certs aren't worth more?!??

[A lot of times my company hires contractors to come in and do odd jobs that isn't in the job requirements for full time IT guys. Today they brought in some twenty-something guy to clean out our stock room. He was kind of picking my brain about how i got my job, what certs i had ect. It turns out he goes to Porter and Chester institute and has a few microsoft certs, A+ and Security+. I asked him why he never bothered to get Network+ and if he found Security+ hard to obtain without knowing the networking stuff. This is what he told me....

He said, "well, i had this GREAT brain ****." So, I was thinking "oh man, another lazy guy looking me for a shortcut. It turns out I was wrong. He got the brain **** from his teacher!!!! Apparently porter and chester (who is also a liscenced view exam location) garuntees X percentage amount of their students pass whateve exam they take a class to learn about. They way they make sure they pass is to provide them with brain ****!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!! I was absolutely FURIOUS!! People like me and others on these forums work hard to pass these tests and have trouble getting breaks in our careers because morons like these take short cuts. Did anyone else out there know this goes on? Is it legal? Anyone else as mad as I am? It makes me want to report them!! GRRRRRR

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Comments

elover_jm

Settle down....

But i definitely think microsoft and other IT cert vendors should start looking at other avenues to deliver training and exams for pple in IT..........

i'm thinking privatising that all vendor training programmes by setting up ms, cisc etc training centres worldwide .......ran by professionals chosen by them.......... and at the same time doing regular site visits and analysis to ensure maximum integrity of it's training and testing programmes.....

just my view wut do you others guys think?

royal

I would report them to Microsoft. The more and more people who ****, the more it hurts the IT industry due to individuals who did real questions/answers.

sthomas

I believe it, I know in the past some of the instructors at a couple Community Colleges in the the area I live in either gave out braindumps or recommended them. I heard this from a friend who went to one of the schools and the other I know because I was a tech there for awhile. It is kinda depressing.

bighornsheep

not surprised at all,

a few testing centres that I have heard of even offer them as "study guides". I know for a fact that one of them is "closed for maintainece"

thank goodness...yes, keep on reporting them....it's just about all we can do.

johnnyg5646

how do you go about reporting such a thing?

bighornsheep

johnnyg5646 wrote:

how do you go about reporting such a thing?

send an email to tctips@microsoft.com

Kaminsky

Surely it's just heresy though? Anyone could make a statement like that for whatever reason, including malicious false claims.

It's very understandable for them to do what they are doing and I see adverts even in my local paper guaranteeing a pass in this or that cert or your money back. It's just business for them. However, having the same business associated with an official testing centre is definitely wrong and shouldn't be allowed.

It does need investigating and the lazy teacher rapped over the knuckles for doing it. Those IT lecturers make a fortune and should be up to scratch.

elover_jm

no matter how much complaints ya'll make......it's stilll not gonna prevent stuff like this from happening..

just so u know

tibul

In the end its the idiots that actually use the Brain **** that will be worst off, they'll be lucky to last a week in a job when they realise they dont actually know anything about what was tested on the cert they took.

Gabe7055

I believe it. My bro in law recently went to a boot camp in Atlanta and the books they used were actually brain **** bought from the site. The instructor actually read the questions and gave the answers to the questions to the students before they went in to take the tests.

No my bro in law is MCSE 2K3 with a security specialization from taking a two week class and now he just knows he can go out and get a job making 90K a year

emmajoyce

My question is why would a college have to recommend brain-****. Arent you paying them to teach you?? So what they are saying is that they will not teach you enough to do your job when you graduate. What kind of college is that. At my school, they are down on these places. They stress the point to know as much as you can, so that you can be an asset to a company. I dare someone to mention one of these places at my school, less you want a long lecture

LukeQuake

People who braindump like this will soon hit rock bottom when they come up against some real issues....

sthomas

emmajoyce wrote:

My question is why would a college have to recommend brain-****. Arent you paying them to teach you?? So what they are saying is that they will not teach you enough to do your job when you graduate. What kind of college is that. At my school, they are down on these places. They stress the point to know as much as you can, so that you can be an asset to a company. I dare someone to mention one of these places at my school, less you want a long lecture

From what I have seen it is usually an instructor who recommended the ****, not the College. The College (and other instructors) may not really know that it is happening for whatever reason. The people who do **** on there certs will be found out sooner or later. With that said I still thinks certification has a lot of value.

Smallguy

Gabe7055 wrote:

No my bro in law is MCSE 2K3 with a security specialization from taking a two week class

and this is why these boot camps are crap IMO because I do not care how intelligent someone is it is pretty damn impossiable to absorb that much info and pass MS tests

They're not easy they are not like Comptia A+ where you juse spew out facts( which can be memorized) and figures you need an understanding of how differnet things interact which can not be taught in 2 weeks and guarentee you a pass..it tkaes time and mroe importantly soem hands on Exp (lab or rela world) which you just can not get enough of in 2 weeks

SRTMCSE

icroyal wrote:

I would report them to Microsoft. The more and more people who ****, the more it hurts the IT industry due to individuals who did real questions/answers.

bighornsheep wrote:

send an email to tctips@microsoft.com

Unfortunately Microsoft will do zero. I reported a testing/it bootcamp that I knew for a fact was doing unethical things and all I got was a nice "Thank you for your ethical behavior." Nothing every happened (I know ppl that work, pretty high up, the company is not that large employee wise but have a global presence) and the company is more financially successful than ever.

Unless something like this effects Microsoft's public image (like that braindump issue a few months back) I'm sure they could care less. So long as people pay for the tests and Microsoft Training Partners pay their fees the value the tests have after they've been taken is the least of their concerns. If this isn't true than perhaps they should take these reports a bit more serious.

garv221

Don't let it bother you. Certs are not even close to what defines a good employee.

crap I forgot my old pwd

I've said this before and I shall say it again...Somehow (don't ask me how, its not my job to find out) companies need to incorporate more hands on to the exams. This would be to potentially weed out brain dumpers. How much will it? I don't know. Is it possible to do this? Yes but it could cost a lot (oh well, the price of progress). The other thing needed is some sort of "process-oriented" section. Like the simulators on cisco exams. What is also needed is some sort of "national blacklist database" where the names of all people found to have been cheating on such exams can be found by employers. That is definately something that would help. That way if you have been listed, it serves you right. Just my 2 cents.

Kaminsky

crap I forgot my old pwd wrote:

I've said this before and I shall say it again...Somehow (don't ask me how, its not my job to find out) companies need to incorporate more hands on to the exams. This would be to potentially weed out brain dumpers. How much will it? I don't know. Is it possible to do this? Yes but it could cost a lot (oh well, the price of progress).

What has it got to do with the companies? I don't understand. Cisco certs (and all other forms of general certification/qualification for that matter) are there so that employers can figure out a certain level of knowledge of their candidate. Without these certifications/qualifications, hiring someone would be a complete nightmare and probably mean that company growth would be very limited.

Now, whether the cert was gained by braindump memorisation or studied vigourously is down to the interviewers technical questions as to how the candidate would go about carrying out certain tasks. Unfortunately many people are interviewed by managers and personnel reps rather than the people in the job already who would have a much better idea. The more vigorous the questioning and the more time they actually put into questioning the background and experience of the candidate, the better chance they have of weeding out those that can and those that can't.

crap I forgot my old pwd wrote:

The other thing needed is some sort of "process-oriented" section. Like the simulators on cisco exams.

If there were many more simms one the test it might mean less dumpers but not necessarily. It would also mean a lot more time allotted to the exam and sitting it would be a biatch unless it was broken up into smaller tests like they are currently planning to do. /shudder

crap I forgot my old pwd wrote:

What is also needed is some sort of "national blacklist database" where the names of all people found to have been cheating on such exams can be found by employers. That is definitely something that would help. That way if you have been listed, it serves you right. Just my 2 cents.

This would be so open to abuse and defamation / harrassment lawsuits as to be unworkable. You could effectively be blackmailed into anything in your work for fear that if you left, your boss would blacklist you whether it was justified or not.

Just some thoughts on what you wrote. When I hear of a company discovering a "paper" cert I put it down to a fault with hiring process. Thats partly what the job interview is for. To make sure the person can do what they say they can do.

JDMurray

Kaminsky wrote:

This would be so open to abuse and defamation / harrassment lawsuits as to be unworkable. You could effectively be blackmailed into anything in your work for fear that if you left, your boss would blacklist you whether it was justified or not.

No, only the certification organization could blacklist you, not your employer. Your employer could report you to the certification organization, but I doubt it would have the resources to formally investigate if you did ****. Right now, the only way to be blacklisted is if the certification organization or testing center caught you cheating.

I see no need for a central, national database for such blacklists, as each certification organization can maintain their own. SANS currently maintains a blacklist for people that plagiarize on the essay portion of the SANS certifications, but I don't think this list is made public. I would assume that a blacklist is considered proprietary business information to the certification organization, and only a legal warrant could cause information it contains to be publicly divulged.

taktsoi

no offense..i just brainfart coz i believe certain factors cause the value of certs going down.

If your skills are not strong enough yet you are still MCSE certified, will those be considered less values coz they are MCSE so they are over-weighted?

If people study, learn the materials, get some hands-on, thus they have knowledges, so they are able to pass the exams. hence they are certified .....but in the test world. however, as you may know, you may have difficult times to apply your knowledges for your jobs.

It is often times in times, your employers ask you to perform the jobs more than people who are not certified because you are weighted more. However, if you are not strong enough to handle and perform the task, your employers believe you are incapble. As a result, your employers may think you cheated thus you are paper certified.

what do you think?

zebra-3

I dont believe cheats exist for MCP.

cheating to me is passing an exam without effort studying and not knowing the subject.

In order to **** a MCP exam you would have to memorise more than 400 questions and answers.

try doing that, I think it would take tremendous time. you would need to read at least 3 or 4 times the questions to memorise them, 3 minutes by questions =
3 minutes X 400 = 1200 minutes
1200 minutes x 3 time reading = 3600 minutes
3600 minutes = 60 hours = 2,5 days of non stop studying.
I dont call this cheating, I would call it bad way of studying.

also you are somehow learning when cheating that way...

if I am totally wrong and have better explanation please let me know.

Kaminsky

You have to remeber that the more people with certain certifications will also cause the salaries to go down as well on the grounds that there will always be someone who will do the job for a little less.

So where you see lower and lower salaries for jobs requiring say MCSE, it's not necessarily an indication that employers value the cert less and less but more likely that there are simply more qualified MCSEs out there to choose from and someone will always take a lower salaried job for whatever reason.

sprkymrk

zebra-3 wrote:

I dont believe cheats exist for MCP.

cheating to me is passing an exam without effort studying and not knowing the subject.

In order to **** a MCP exam you would have to memorise more than 400 questions and answers.

try doing that, I think it would take tremendous time. you would need to read at least 3 or 4 times the questions to memorise them, 3 minutes by questions =
3 minutes X 400 = 1200 minutes
1200 minutes x 3 time reading = 3600 minutes
3600 minutes = 60 hours = 2,5 days of non stop studying.
I dont call this cheating, I would call it bad way of studying.

also you are somehow learning when cheating that way...

if I am totally wrong and have better explanation please let me know.

Hi zebra-3:

I am going to start by saying I disagree with you, but I intend no offence and just wanted to let you know how I see it. I'll take no offence if you disagree with me or would like to reply with any additional thoughts.

Actually, you can test your theory by using the practice exams that come with Exam Cram, or Transcender or something else. Don't take the 6-12 weeks it takes to study the material presented in the books. Instead, just take the practice questions that come with the book. If you take the practice exam twice a day for a week, even with a question pool of 300-400 questions, I almost guarentee you that at the end of the week you will be scoring 75% or likely higher. Now if those had been the ACTUAL exam questions, you could walk into a testing center, sit the exam, crank out the answers by simply reading the first 8-10 words of a question and pass the exam in less than an hour. But did you learn anything that might make you a valuable addition to an IT department? Only when it comes time to play "IT Trivial Pursuit".

So I would have to respectfully disagree with your mathematical formula because the premise is flawed. The "recognition" factor is all you need, not memorising verbose every question presented and be able to recite it on demand. So I also respectfully disagree with your conclusion that it is not cheating and simply a bad way of studying as well.

I hope I worded that w/o sounding too critical.

remyforbes777

I wouldn't worry about it. In this field the best people will eventually weed themselves out of a job by doing stupid stuff. I work help desk right now and there is a guy that is MCSE CCNA and A+ certified. I have seen some of his tickets and heard him try and explain things to people and he is as dumb as they come. I look at his certs and think immediately bootcamp or braindumb, and no that is not a typo. He will never move up because his knowledge is really limited. If you want to be good at anything, you need to have a passion for it and make your life. I see a lot of guys in IT that don't do that and it shows.

petedude

Smallguy wrote:

and this is why these boot camps are crap IMO because I do not care how intelligent someone is it is pretty damn impossiable to absorb that much info and pass MS tests

It's funny. . . I remember when I went to Texas to wrap up a Windows 2000 MCSE boot camp I had gotten partway through and been stalling on.

There was a guy in there who came in without having studied at all, and expected to be able to pass the tests-- contrary to what the boot camp company had been telling us all along (namely study, study, study).

Boot camps are great for last minute touch up and to help fill in the gaps where the information is difficult to absorb. They're really no longer of value for trying to get a certification "cold", except for maybe the CompTIA stuff.