Dealing with cheaters/braindump users in real life

draught

I met a relative this weekend that had worked in IT for several years as a server admin. He wasn't really talkative about his job and I soon found why. Once I mentioned I was working on my CCNA the first thing out of his mouth was go to (popular well known braindump site) and I'd pass easily. He told me that's how he was able to earn his 3 Microsoft certifications one of which was the MSCE.

I obviously couldn't give him my actual opinion as this is a relative I've just met so I just nodded politely. I'm not surprised this loser lost his job and I hope he stays out of the IT field. What bothers me is I can't get other people to understand why braindumps are wrong and why it's basically cheating. I've been told straight-faced by friends that getting to see an exam before a test isn't cheating it's just "reviewing".

Am I explaining braindumps poorly to people? Even if you know nothing about IT it's obvious cheating period. I get annoyed because I've worked hard on what I have so far and I'm working extremely hard right now. It isn't right to say it's ok for people to ****.

I needed vent, I just wish more people would understand cheating is wrong. Anyone have similar experiences? I don't mean just online where you can get the person banned, but in life where you have to deal with them; where it would you look bad, and impolite to call them out on it.

networker050184

If people want to **** they will find a way to justify it. This isn't something IT certification specific, it's just a fact of life.

prtech

I interviewed a candidate not too long ago and he mentioned using **** to pass his CCNA. He didn't make it through though it really didn't matter since I've already made up my mind before he mentioned it. But, I was shocked that somebody would mention that in an interview like there's nothing wrong with it.

My advice for you is to not get caught up on what others do. Just keep pursuing your certifications the right way. Brain dumpers are usually weeded out during a technical interview.

biggene

draught wrote: »

I obviously couldn't give him my actual opinion as this is a relative I've just met so I just nodded politely. I'm not surprised this loser lost his job and I hope he stays out of the IT field. What bothers me is I can't get other people to understand why braindumps are wrong and why it's basically cheating. I've been told straight-faced by friends that getting to see an exam before a test isn't cheating it's just "reviewing".

I get annoyed because I've worked hard on what I have so far and I'm working extremely hard right now. It isn't right to say it's ok for people to ****.

I needed vent, I just wish more people would understand cheating is wrong. Anyone have similar experiences? I don't mean just online where you can get the person banned, but in life where you have to deal with them; where it would you look bad, and impolite to call them out on it.

I understand where you are coming from, but the bolded portion above I do not get. If someone goes against the principles that you stand for, why do you think it is wrong to stand up for those principles and tell them that. I am not trying to be high-handed or anything. I guess my wife is right when she says I was born without the brain-to-mouth filter that most people have. If someone is doing something I feel is wrong, I have no problem at all calling them out on it, even if it is a relative, someone I just met, or some jack*** trying to get me to use brain **** for my exams. To me that shows that all they are doing is looking down their noses at me for learning my trade the correct way, as opposed to cheating.

Hypntick

I've worked with a few people like that actually. While I steadily move up, they stay in the same spots and wonder why.

olaHalo

One of my old coworkers (later became friends) was very talented and knowledgable when it came to networking and IT in general. He has the basic entry level certs from comptia, cisco and MS.
He was always studying, even at work. I went to his house and he was studying. His girlfriend told me all he did was study, read books, had a decent home lab etc.
So I was naturally always impressed and inspired by him

Then one day he showed me a folder on his external drive that contained a bunch of pdfs of actual tests.
He admitted it was wrong and didnt really try to justify it morally at all. He simply said once he believes he is ready for a test he goes through the files on his external. He would take them like real test, and if he passed, thats how he gauged if he was ready.

This kinda through me off because he was so smart. Everytime we had an issue he'd be the one to ask how to solve it.

I guess there is no real point Im trying to get across, just telling about my experience...

blargoe

If I encounter one on the job, I usually end up making them look really, really foolish in a backhanded way. Usually it's not intentional, but they shouldn't have cheated and trumpeted their awesomeness to the masses.

Anonymouse

I don't think I've met any yet. If I did I wouldn't care. It's up to their management to can them if they can't do the job properly when they don't even have the proper knowledge to back up the cert..

Zartanasaurus

I was in a training class with a very well known IT training company. He had his laptop hooked up to a projector with his work email client open. At one point during the class he got an email notification from one of the **** vendors. I just kind of chuckled to myself. He really knew his stuff though, so you can't assume that everyone who uses them doesn't know anything. I'd be willing to bet there's a lot of highly respected, well known icons in the industry that use them.

DoubleNNs

I've talked to people who are incredibly intelligent and in high-level positions that do their job extremely well and have dumped. Managers who hire other people have dumped, and the ironic thing is they look down on other people who study their asses off to get multiple certs and pass the candidates off as "probably just dumped them."

At the other end of the spectrum: since I'm not technically in IT yet, while talking to colleagues about my studies I've met many people who don't know anything and dumped. They fail CompTIA tests after multiple tries even after having used every **** out there.

Just because someone used a braindump, it's not indicative of their intelligence or their ability to get the job done. Whereas it IS wrong, so many different people will find justifications for using them and think about their individual instance as not being as bad as other people. Or claim that since so many people use them, they're simply leveling the playing field.

It's unfortunate, but that's how it is. It's like that in IT, school, and most other industries as well.

cisco_trooper

I've seen this at every single job I have held. Don't get too caught up in it. If they know the stuff they will be successful in their job and if they don't they won't be successful in their job. That statement stands with or without the certification behind their name. Certifications are no longer a qualification in my mind. Their value has been degraded as it is now commonplace to brain **** the exams. The real value comes in studying the material and only the individual can know that. It generally shows in their ability to properly implement high tech solutions to business problems. I used to get enraged by this stuff, especially when I first started pursuing certifications trying to build a resume. I don't care much anymore. I've got 10 years of experience and make more bank than most. The reason - I actually studied. Plain and simple. It's no skin off your back if they are cheating. The more they **** the better you are going to look when you are outperforming the CCNP or MCSE or (fill-in-the-blank) Certified individuals. Just keep studying bro. You'll be alright.

DoubleNNs

A perfect response by cisco_trooper.

spicy ahi

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

I was in a training class with a very well known IT training company. He had his laptop hooked up to a projector with his work email client open. At one point during the class he got an email notification from one of the **** vendors. I just kind of chuckled to myself. He really knew his stuff though, so you can't assume that everyone who uses them doesn't know anything. I'd be willing to bet there's a lot of highly respected, well known icons in the industry that use them.

I have a funny story about this. I started getting spam from [ **** vendor ] for some reason and a former coworker of mine saw it once and proceeded to spread the rumor about me being a paper cert tiger. Luckily for me, a couple of the other guys on the team were getting the same spam (it came from a site we all registered to for work that started spamming us with that and other random questionable IT sites) and basically told him that we must all be paper tigers. He eventually left, probably because he couldn't keep up with the general speed of the group, and spread the rumors at his new job that we were all paper tigers. Which came as a surprise to some of his new coworkers since some of them had previously worked with us and were mentored by the team which lead to them getting new jobs. Suffice it to say that he didn't last very long in that job either. I'm not sure if he was a cheater or not as he had a few certs under his belt as well but I to this day can't figure out what his motive was to spread rumors like that.

TheNewITGuy

Most of the Senior guys I know dumped their exams. They have a job to do and cant be bothered with studying.. besides when you work for a cisco partner its all about getting certified fast.

N2IT

I don't get hung up on dumping. If you **** the CCNA and get into a job and you can't even configure a router then you will get exposed. Either you can do the job or you can't.

wweboy

Some what like Cisco_Trooper stated I've been working on my ICND2 and I've spoken to my WAN team members at work and they all have many years of experience and they all treat them like resume fodder, one person told me that they just collect dust and just become another piece of paper in a cabinet. Pretty much saying the cert will get your foot in the door the experience will more then make up for it.

DPG

This doesn't bother me as much as it did when I was new to IT certification. In the end, all certifications prove is that you know how to pass the test. There are so many other factors that decide who is "going to make bank" and most of them have nothing to do with intelligence or skills.

There are many cultures out there that believe in "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying hard enough."

draught

biggene wrote: »

I understand where you are coming from, but the bolded portion above I do not get. If someone goes against the principles that you stand for, why do you think it is wrong to stand up for those principles and tell them that. I am not trying to be high-handed or anything. I guess my wife is right when she says I was born without the brain-to-mouth filter that most people have. If someone is doing something I feel is wrong, I have no problem at all calling them out on it, even if it is a relative, someone I just met, or some jack*** trying to get me to use brain **** for my exams. To me that shows that all they are doing is looking down their noses at me for learning my trade the correct way, as opposed to cheating.

My extended family is Armenian and there were at least four gossipy old ladies nearby. It would make my close family look bad for me to be "rude" as a guest. Other family factors too which I can't address here.


Anyway I found this thread interesting. Seems like the reality is like high school or college and well and like work. People will **** but it's not your problem unless it directly affects you in someway. I've had people try to sell me exams, and cute girls try to bum test answers off me. I didn't get upset I just ignored them. At jobs there are some people that live to be as lazy as possible. Human nature it is. Still if I'm ever in a hiring position they are out the door if I catch that.

Mrock4

I have fought this for a long time, and it's a losing battle. While it's true that if they know their stuff they'll be good at the job and if they don't, they'll be found out..but this isn't always the case.

I have a colleague who openly brags about his use of braindumps. He's technically not bad at his job- so he's not going to get fired, yet he holds 20+ certifications which he admits to cheating for a majority of them.

At the end of the day, I feel an obligation to be somewhat vocal about the damage braindumps do to our certs..they DO impact us. Just because a guy who used a braindump doesn't get the job, does NOT mean it doesn't affect you..it does. If there are suddenly 2 million CCNP's, you're now a dime a dozen, and as a result you will not be able to bill a client the same as you would if there were only 200,000 CCNP's (just some random numbers to illustrate a point).

SteveLord

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

I was in a training class with a very well known IT training company. He had his laptop hooked up to a projector with his work email client open. At one point during the class he got an email notification from one of the **** vendors. I just kind of chuckled to myself. He really knew his stuff though, so you can't assume that everyone who uses them doesn't know anything. I'd be willing to bet there's a lot of highly respected, well known icons in the industry that use them.

I encountered the same thing. And yes, with a well known company. Except he was actually providing it. He did know his stuff though.

Architect192

One of my coworkers had no experience with Vmware so he was sent for training (fine with me). When he came back he was told by the manager to simply use a brain **** and take the exam. When he came back he was so proud of having passed the exam... I let him manage the environment since he was "certified"... Within a week he had deleted the vCenter server files "by accident"...

Practice exams used to be that... Practice exams... Now with actual exam questions, it's kind of a gray area... Yes some people use them without studying (lame...). Some people study and use them to guarantee a pass (sort of ok...) Some people actually use them as practice exam and dive deeper in the topics they messed up.

Exams with hands-on labs/tasks to do are better than the multiple choice questions IMHO. If they made all exams that way, we would probably have better skilled people getting certified.

Between you and me, do we need to know by heart how many VMs you can have in a VMFS lun? Or can you look it up when you need the information?

j23evan

I interviewed with a company that asked me if I used Braindumps. I was insulted. I ended up getting a job with them, and the hiring manager told me that people who use braindumps showed "resourcefulness." I don't put a lot of emphasis on certifications exactly because of cheaters out there. I told the hiring manager who asked me the question that I would not have paid $20,000 for classes just to **** on exams. It's sad that it is so common place, and I feel it detracts from everyone who spent long hours in labs, missed sleep to study active directory (70-640 was the worst 3 months of my life) or genuinely care. Though I have noticed that people who hold certs with no knowledge of the area quickly fizzle out in the workplace.

NotHackingYou

It's against the agreement you sign when you take the exam, so there is no exception - braindumps are cheating. Any time I hear someone discussing using brain ****, I tell them that exactly what I think about it.

If you **** and then take an exam you are lying when you sign the agreement and you are cheating on that exam.

joey3k

guys I have a bit of a different perspective on the issue. hope i don't get flamed for this but i think the idea behind "brain ****" are ok.

it's similar if you attend college or university, authors of books usually post mock exams and sample questions on the publishers website. these are sometimes seen on tests/exams as it is up to the professors discretion whether they use the test bank or not.

i am not advocating strictly only using brain ****, but I feel if you've not only studied months on the particular material you should also reference brain **** in order to be adequately prepared for the exam. In the real world, you're not locked in a room with only a pen and piece of paper for an hour to answer a question. In the real world, you're still allowed to use google to look up certain facts. our brains are finite. yes it is nice to be able to have a complete understanding of every little command known to exist in Windows, but is it truly practical?

I will repeat what has been said here as well, the people who rely strictly on brain **** definitely don't last long as they're eventually seen as useless (if they can't apply the concepts.) but i wouldn't crap on the idea of using brain **** to prepare once you've also studied all materials and put in the lab time.

that's just my opinion.

PS. i've been in the I.T. field for the past 10 yrs, the best prep I find has been the hands on experience, by far.

Iristheangel

I'm the same as CarlSaiyed. I am very against the idea of cheating for two reasons: 1) It lowers the value of the certifications and 2) How much can they *really* know if they had to **** their way through the material? I'm being very serious about the second one. I understand that there might be some small exceptions out there where people just wanted a guaranteed pass and they studied the material but what does that say about their confidence level if the only way they will take an exam is if they've cheated their way into a pass? The majority of braindumpers I've met aren't usually worth the paper their certs are printed on. I'd like to say that they always get weeded out during the internet process or after being hired but that isn't always the case depending on how competent management is, how much they keep their head low, etc. They add more work for the rest of us and devalue our certifications and credentials in the process.

For these reasons, I'm not only against braindumping/cheating on a moral level but also on a self-serving selfish level where I want my credentials to mean something and hold some value in the industry

Iristheangel

joey3k wrote: »

i am not advocating strictly only using brain ****, but I feel if you've not only studied months on the particular material you should also reference brain **** in order to be adequately prepared for the exam.

I get what you're saying but if you've been preparing and studying for months, wouldn't the best way to be prepared adequately is to actually know the material? Google is great when you have access to it but if it was that easy then we wouldn't need trained engineers to do the job. Most of these exams are teaching the theory and very basic syntax. If you don't understand those things after "months of studying," then you simply aren't prepared for the exam. If you choose to **** to fill those gaps, why bother studying in the first place if you're filling knowledge gaps with test answers?

There's some knowledge fade to be expected after the exam and things will be rusty after years of non-use but it's important to understand the fundamentals and be sharp in those. Especially if that is your career. Google isn't there in the middle of an interview. Google doesn't have all the magical answers or sometimes it takes time to find the answers while you're in the midst of an outage and you have the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company yelling at you. Also, if you're configuring network equipment and you don't understand how routing fundamentally works between protocols, you're going to plug in the commands from the Cisco configuration page and possibly break something. Also, if you plan on going for expert-level exams such as the CCIE, then you won't be able to braindump the lab exam and you'll waste a LOT of money retaking that exam over and over again.

I've taken a lot of certification exams in the last five years and to be fair, I remember crap about my MCSE, L+, A+, and all those CIWs. I don't include them on my resume for that reason. I don't plan on being a Microsoft or Linux expert either or applying for such jobs. I want to be an expert in networking so I make damn sure that I remember what I learned and when I apply for those jobs, I pass the technical interviews with flying colors.

Xyro

I had never heard of "braindumps" before coming on this forum. Their existence has answered a lot of questions I've pondered since entering school though.

I was tossed between a lot of the people I've known & met, who have passed these exams, having either cheated or the exams, themselves, being "dumbed-down". I leaned towards the former; however, I wondered how so many achieved this.

I now know.

Mrock4

Xyro- I think you hit the nail on the head in a roundabout way- MANY in this field don't even know what braindumps are. I've known people who used them and were shocked when I told them they're not legit study materials. I know some people KNOW what they're doing, but a lot don't. I encountered an ISC(2) partner who was instructing with braindump materials- not the class I was in, but disturbing regardless.

Xyro

Ok, great Mrock ... because I was considering myself quite ignorant at the discovery of this information. At least I know I'm not alone here.

DevilWAH

I don't get why any one would defend brain ****. They rely on up front knowledge of the questions you will be asked. Some thing that is aginst almost every IT exam I have taken. It is stated very clearly that the questions are not to be removed from the exam and or disclosed to other people. Even describing a question in an forum such as this can be seen as violating this rule and result in loss of certification.

there are plenty of exam simulators out there, that give a good feel of the exam and level of questions you will be expected to answer. So there is no need to and no excuse for seeking out real exam paper to memories. If you need these to pass the test then you that says to me you do not unserstand the topics well enough to hold the certification.

People say its "just to check" and they know it all but want to be sure. You don't get to "look at the answers" when working on a live network.. why should an exam be any different?

Iristheangel

You're completely right, DevilWAH. Also, it's a bad practice to get into during your career to say, "Oh, it's not important that I know 100% of what's on the exam because I can always Google it later in the field or I'll just forget it anyways." This mentality will not lead to success or advancement