Microsoft certifications won't boost your pay much

shon541

Microsoft certifications won't boost your pay much

Link: Microsoft certifications won?t boost your pay much

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Devilsbane

Coincidence that an article from network world slaps Microsoft certifications and then immediately praises cisco?

bertieb

Almost everything is subjective and based on personal opinion, but nothing in that article surprises me seeing as almost everyone I know has completed a Microsoft certification at one point or another. This isn't surprising seeing as their products are everywhere, used at various levels and are well established within most organisations.

Also, it's not hard to establish that someone with 10 years of deep Exchange Server experience whom is holding the relevant certs will be on a much better deal than someone who is still trying to attract attention and expect a wage increase by waving his MCP in NT4 Workstation around.

There are so many factors involved with surveys like this, that I tend to read and then forget such articles almost immediately

eansdad

Compares Apples to Oranges. The idea of certification is to move up not stay were you are. If you are un certified you are more likely to be stuck in the same job role unless someone gives you a break. Where as with a certification in anything you are trying to move to the next level. You don't get an MCSE/MCSA to stay in help desk or desktop support.

jibbajabba

Funny that - every job I got so far I got without any Microsoft certifications ... only my current employer asked me to get them in order to renew the partnership - most companies I applied for was experience more important - having big corporate names on my CV probably helped too ..

chrisone

Education is never a negative. Unless you owe 100k in student loans lol

But seriously certs are never a negative thing.

za3bour

Well it did increase mine

Daniel333

Not sure what I think here. So just thinking out loud here.

1) But Microsoft knowingly destroyed the brand value of their certifications, MCSE specifically.
2) Microsoft does not give us a clear learning path to their higher end certifications such as MCM and MCA.
3) The disconnect from the training materials and the actual exams is HUGE. I most recently took their ISA 2006 exam and I couldn't believe how much was on there that was NOT on in the books. It was insane. Last Microsoft Exam I will ever take.
4) Cheaters, plain and simple. I can do a google search for 70-640 right now and find more **** sites than I will legit ones! So it's hard to get these guys over seas. I get that. And I respect it. Don't double the cost of my exams trying hunt theses guys down in Russia. BUT DO increase the size of your question pools! 1500 question pool and it won't matter if they **** or not, right? Also, VERY hard to **** a sim. Since, well.. they know it!
5) Value, as far as I know Microsoft doesn't provide discounts for having certified people on staff. Cisco we get support contracts and what not at massive discounts.
6) Everyone and their mother is a Microsoft admin. certifications or not, there is just too much competition. No one is gonna pay $50k for a desktop jockey when there are hundreds of people lining up willing to do it for half.

Zentraedi

Daniel333 wrote: »

2) Microsoft does not give us a clear learning path to their higher end certifications such as MCM and MCA.

I think that actually increases their value. Microsoft takes a more hollistic approach to assessing skills and avoids the problem with brain dumpers and paper admins.

Daniel333 wrote: »

3) The disconnect from the training materials and the actual exams is HUGE. I most recently took their ISA 2006 exam and I couldn't believe how much was on there that was NOT on in the books. It was insane. Last Microsoft Exam I will ever take.

To me that sounds like sour grapes. Seriously, there should be no problem as long as the scope is well defined. Whether or not the test prep material is up to snuff is an issue with the textbook/classroom trainers. The test makers and trainers are separate groups. You wouldn't complain to Cisco if Sybex produced some inadequate test prep books, would you?

Daniel333 wrote: »

4) Cheaters, plain and simple. I can do a google search for 70-640 right now and find more **** sites than I will legit ones! So it's hard to get these guys over seas. I get that. And I respect it. Don't double the cost of my exams trying hunt theses guys down in Russia. BUT DO increase the size of your question pools! 1500 question pool and it won't matter if they **** or not, right? Also, VERY hard to **** a sim. Since, well.. they know it!

MS exams definitely need sims. Not sure about question pool sizes, but if that really is an issue, they should definitely invest in bigger pools

Daniel333 wrote: »

5) Value, as far as I know Microsoft doesn't provide discounts for having certified people on staff. Cisco we get support contracts and what not at massive discounts.

Apparently there are still some benefits: https://partner.microsoft.com/US/program/memgettingstarted/gsbenefits

Daniel333 wrote: »

6) Everyone and their mother is a Microsoft admin. certifications or not, there is just too much competition. No one is gonna pay $50k for a desktop jockey when there are hundreds of people lining up willing to do it for half.

Seems like your expectations for these certifications are rather high. They're really just stepping stones or useful mile markers, not be-all end-all crowns.

mikedisd2

No need to over-think it; I've worked with Windows in every IT job I've ever had. It makes sense to have MS certs. I've never worked with Oracle or EMS so I wouldn't get those vendors' certs.

Certs have got me the jobs, which gets me the experience, which gets me the dollars. Other vendor certs aren't worth much without the experience to mutually support them. Can't see the point in this article.

za3bour

I don't think any cert worth much without the experience with very few exceptions. I do agree the MS should do something about the exams.

Last exam I had was just weird there were some really very very easy questions that should not be asked in an exam this level. I agree that Sims is an easy way to fix this but it seems implementation is what preventing MS from doing it.

You can read a lot of stories here about Prometric test center having very old PCs that are noisy and hangs a lot. I personally had a crapy exam last week the test center was plain disaster and the PC I was working on will never work if there is a simulation based exam. The freaking printer was not working too.

They should as well increase the pool of questions; there is no doubt about this. But that's being said the certs did help me a lot and they've helped me to gain more experience which like Mike said helped me eventually gaining more $

N2IT

It can and It can't. It just depends on your environment and how your company/organization has their business model/IT model set up.

Some organization 5-10 years ago would actually give employees bonuses if you could get an MCSE hired on to the company, the MCSE would get a 10,000 dollar bonus before stepping in the door.

Those days have gone I think, but you can still leverage yourself to make more with certification.

I think strategically getting certifications is more important than the sheer amount of them.

Pick one subject and really master it. A lot of people have a high level overview knowledge of IT, but few have a SME level expert of a specific technology.

peakbagger66

bertieb wrote: »

.

Also, it's not hard to establish that someone with 10 years of deep Exchange Server experience whom is holding the relevant certs will be on a much better deal than someone who is still trying to attract attention and expect a wage increase by waving his MCP in NT4 Workstation around.

Hey that's almost me! *waves his MCP in Wink2 pro around*

peakbagger66

Daniel333 wrote: »

Not sure what I think here. So just thinking out loud here.

5) Value, as far as I know Microsoft doesn't provide discounts for having certified people on staff. Cisco we get support contracts and what not at massive discounts.

Just have to add my .02 here. The MS Partner program requires that you have certified people on staff. With our small-ish company (about 60-70 employees), we stand to gain several hundred thousands of dollars in internal use software licenses and CALS by meeting requirements for a couple of Gold level competencies. That's pretty huge!