Dealing with cheaters/braindump users in real life

DPG

DevilWAH wrote: »

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?

When working on a live network, you want to have ALL available resources to make sure things are done right.

linuxlover

Not just brain dumping, lying on your resume as well. If I was ever a hiring manager, I would ignore the CVs completely but instead set-up a heavy technical testing interview instead, which I would warn candidates about beforehand (on job board). About an hour or two of practical based scenarios is enough to determine who's right for the job and who isn't. Certainly does a lot more good than playing mind games with all those stupid questions. You came here for a technical job, let's see what you can do. And then all the certificates and college diplomas and years of work experience show their faces right there and then. I bet more than half of people that apply for jobs today wouldn't be applying at all. What the hell do you have to ask moronic mind-fsck questions looking for perfect answers? Give them some work to do.

And then you read all kinds of horror stories about people with CISCO certificates not knowing how to configure a router because they bought their way out. What's management doing? Are they really that incompetent? I would leave that company first chance I get. I wouldn't want to work in a place that can't tell a cheater from an expert, to me that raises a red flag. Obviously they're sloppy and not doing their job properly. Even worse, if the hiring manager and CEO or whatnot took brain **** as well, what the hell do you expect from such a company? And to the guy who said "they don't have time to study", that such a bulls*it! It's like saying "I don't have money, so I'll just use warez instead and that's perfectly okay". What the hell? How can anyone with a gram of brain cell that consider themselves intelligent human being defends cheating?

Another thing, the reason why people **** is because they can. Choice based Q&A are not appropriate because people can memorize them. Certificates have to be earned by performance based scenarios! Instead of coming up with a 100 questions, come up with 10 scenarios. First of all, it's a lot easier to change them and a lot heavier to memorize/****.

Certificates are not what they used to be and I'm taking them only because employers won't look at your resume without them and I don't have 10 years or work experience. Otherwise I wouldn't be taking them for they have lost their purpose long time ago. You certainly don't need a certificate to show you know your stuff and whoever is hiring certainly doesn't need to look into CV to see if someone knows their stuff or not.

Knowledge is power and sooner or later losers will be weeded out and hard workers will be rewarded. That's how life works.

docrice

While it's convenient to have access to Google to do your job (and I use it regularly), you can't always rely on external sources. If you're in a datacenter with spotty / non-existent cell coverage and in a tight maintenance window, you better know what you're doing.

DevilWAH

DPG wrote: »

When working on a live network, you want to have ALL available resources to make sure things are done right.

Of course, but as others have said "all resorces available" if the network is down might be only the information you hold between your ears.

petedude

DevilWAH wrote: »

Of course, but as others have said "all resorces available" if the network is down might be only the information you hold between your ears.

Certainly true, but. . . one place where experience pays is knowing what you have to carry around in your head for the times where there might not be a network available. This way, you're retaining the most critical and useful info, not just gobs of trivia.

WafflesAndRootbeer

prtech wrote: »

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.

**** have been officially sanctioned by the industry for years. They have to have certified workers to get and keep contracts and every single IT service provider I have ever worked for as an employee or contractor not only emphasized the importance of using **** but provided them to employees to pass certification tests since they cannot and will not provide on-the-job training. In the 90's, you got an entry level job in the IT department, learned the trade, got your certs, and moved up. That changed about ten years ago when everyone moved to "best practices" and IT departments got decimated by down-sizing with the work going to MSPs, who require you to be certified at various levels before you work for them. I've never used them myself, having come up the old way, but every single person I've met who is a ladder climber around here got ahead by using massive amounts of **** and a little bit of labs.

swild

There are no excuses for using ****. None. Zero. Zilch.

If your company is required to have so many workers certified in order to keep a contract and then they just have the workers **** the exams, you haven't actually earned the contract. All you have done is made the only metric that the government has available totally useless, and therefore devalued the entire industry due to government now having to create a new way to measure competency since all these certified individuals are not able to perform in the workplace.

Look at the current state of IT Sec in the US. They are having to totally recreate competency measurements because DoDD 8570 isn't doing it. There are many reasons why this isn't working, **** being just one of the issues. But they are now considering that Cyber Security workers be trained in a similar fashion as doctors and lawyers. I have to say that this isn't totally unwarranted. Now the educational costs involved would be insurmountable for many, but employers want to hire grads that don't need additional training. Someone has to shoulder the costs of education.

If my employer told me I had to **** an exam or they would lose a contract, I would quit on the spot. That is not the kind of company that I will work for.

/end rant

DevilWAH

petedude wrote: »

Certainly true, but. . . one place where experience pays is knowing what you have to carry around in your head for the times where there might not be a network available. This way, you're retaining the most critical and useful info, not just gobs of trivia.

The idea is that by understanding the theory you do not have to carry around the facts. Indeed as far as cisco certs go. The airm is to test an understanding of implementing technologies not to test specific facts. Having to use brain **** shows an inability to take away the from the course material the esential fundamental of topics that can be used to rebuild the topic in full detail within ones mind, and needing instead to rely on the "gobs of trivia" to pass the exam.

DevilWAH

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

**** have been officially sanctioned by the industry for years. They have to have certified workers to get and keep contracts and every single IT service provider I have ever worked for as an employee or contractor not only emphasized the importance of using **** but provided them to employees to pass certification tests since they cannot and will not provide on-the-job training. In the 90's, you got an entry level job in the IT department, learned the trade, got your certs, and moved up. That changed about ten years ago when everyone moved to "best practices" and IT departments got decimated by down-sizing with the work going to MSPs, who require you to be certified at various levels before you work for them. I've never used them myself, having come up the old way, but every single person I've met who is a ladder climber around here got ahead by using massive amounts of **** and a little bit of labs.

having worked for one of ciscos only 4 global partners. I can tell you that they do not sanction brain ****! Brain dumping will get you shown the door. They provided server rooms full of equipment for study, course materials and exam costs.
Yes there are service companies that do turn a blind eye to staff using them. But not all do, many companies are very proud of there staffs certifications and understand the need to invest real time and money to provided there customers with high quilting services.

shodown

I don't think you should let this grind your gears so much. This is just something that goes on. This happens in every field and walk of life. Setup basic tech screen's with HR that ask 10 basic networking questions. This should add 5 min to a initial HR talk. If they can pass that have the real tech screen where you find out what they are about. Then add the lab. You would be surprised at Originull how many people refused to take the lab or came up with excuses when we posted the Sr Network Engineer position. You can smoke out a lot of these people with proper hiring practice and management support.

YuckTheFankees

Completely agree with Shodown. I do not understand why people get all up in arms from people cheating/using brain ****. Are you going to tell their boss they cheated? Are you going to confront them about it? Is it affecting you in any way?

Majority of the time you are not going to say anything to anyone if you find out someone used a brain ****, so why let it bug you? Yes, cheating is bad and a lot of people put a lot of time into studying for certs the "right" way but the people who cheated might be exposed as a fraud or might keep moving up the ranks..there nothing you can do about it either way.

I worked for a company where all our "network" engineers were using brain **** to pass Cisco/Juniper certifications and even their managers knew. At best, those guys were maybe a mid-senior NOC tech and they knew that, that's why they will never leave that company. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Just keeping studying hard and giving 100% at work, you'll get where you need to be.

Iristheangel

I can see the biggest reason and way it would affect me is being that it devalues the certification. As one poster said above, it's a justification for companies to pay less if there are 2,000,000+ CCNPs out there which cheated vs. 200,000 legitimate ones. Due to the large prevalent use of braindumps and them being pushed by instructors, I would dare to say there are more "braindumped" paper certs out there than real certified professionals. And it definitely affects me if I have to carry their workload because they don't understand simple things they should have learned. In a well greased operation, we all want to pretend like they'd be weeded out in a technical interview or on the job, but a lot of the time, this isn't the case. Sucks but true. And I doubt many of us would leave a good job that we enjoy just because the company hires a few idiots, right? But it does make our professional life harder and our pay lower. Not to mention that disillusioned IT managers may not hold as much stock in a certification after interviewing 10 braindumped idiots so when they see my resume, I may not stand out as much. So yes, it does affect me and I discourage it whenever I see it.

YuckTheFankees

I understand where you are coming from but this happens in every profession (sports/people doping, finance/cheating on CFA. etc, most profession/people exaggerating their background and past duties). If people are cheating, then managers do have the right to devalue the certifications, which would suck, don't get me wrong. It's a part of life now, we deal with it, try harder, and we move onto bigger and better things. There are a lot of positives to certifications but there also has to be negatives.

I see this sort of thread come up every 6 months or so, and I completely agree with most your points...but we are all so busy with work, school, studying for certifications, and family...do you really have enough time to care what other people are doing, especially in regards to stuff you can't help?

Personally, I think adding some type of lab to most certifications would be nice (example: Red Hat). Yes people could **** for those as well but it would be a lot harder than remembering 500+ answers. Also, having a lot of people flood these companies with our complaints/concerns might help..?


Edit: I would like to point out, that braindumpers will not hinder how many certifications I go after.

sratakhin

I'm against using the brain **** for ethical reasons, but I'm always surprised that people think that braindumps is what makes their certifications less valuable. There are many books, classes, workshops, whatever that people use when they prepare for exams. Do any of these also make the certifications less valuable? Imagine how much CCIEs would be paid if there was only a handful of them because there was no training material available. That's absurd.

P.S. Heck, even this forum contributes to devaluing certifications by helping other people attain them.

Mrock4

A certification is not any less valuable because more people hold it- it's less valuable because of the TYPE of people who hold it. 8 years ago, I heard people talk about the CCNA as if it was a big accomplishment. I believe it still is, BUT- the masses have come to view it as "a nice starting point" - when it reality, a well-studied CCNA can be a damn good engineer.

I guess what I'm saying is the devaluation part comes not from the quantity but the quality. If employers see less and less skilled CCNA's, they might start to say "maybe this position is more of a CCNP position" simply because they cannot find qualified engineers. It's similar to how a few years ago an Associate degree was OK, whereas now a Bachelors is the status quo...granted with the degree's it's not attributed to braindumps, but you get the idea.

My life will not change if people use braindumps, but anyone who thinks braindumping does not impact their own certification/salary in some shape or another- is only fooling themselves. I'm still young in this industry with about 9 years in this career, but I have already seen a huge impact in those 9 years. Of course in all fairness, it's almost impossible to quantify the impact it does have, so all we can really do is say "it's bad."

I think at the end of the day it would move our industry forward as a whole if we encouraged a more ethical approach to certification and made that the norm, instead of the minority. If we collectively all did that, I think we'd all be better off. It wouldn't end braindumping, but being afraid to talk about it with people isn't going to end it either. I'm not the type to attack someone in public over it, but as a senior engineer I also won't support someone who freely admits braindumping, so they're not only hurting the industry, but themselves.

Edit: I take no responsibility for anything in this post, I've slept 2 hours in 2 days, and just got done flying for a total of 14 hours today..and am now going to eat my first meal

DevilWAH

sratakhin wrote: »

I'm against using the brain **** for ethical reasons, but I'm always surprised that people think that braindumps is what makes their certifications less valuable. There are many books, classes, workshops, whatever that people use when they prepare for exams. Do any of these also make the certifications less valuable? Imagine how much CCIEs would be paid if there was only a handful of them because there was no training material available. That's absurd.

P.S. Heck, even this forum contributes to devaluing certifications by helping other people attain them.

Books, and training material don't make certs less valuable? reading around a topic so you understand it is what the certification is what a certification is trying to demonstrate. And its what this forum tries to help with. Explaining topic points when people ask so they understand and are able to trouble shoot issues in the real world.

if you have 50 or 50,000 certified engineers if they are all at the same level then the value of the cert is kept. However if 70% of the people holding the certification have used brain **** and actually know nothing of the topics, then this will be reflected in the expectations from employers and in turn what pay they will give.

for example in technology the price of an IPAD will fall with the number being produced. but the quality of the product remains high. This is one type of devulation, and one that is accepted.
On the other hand brain dumping would be like Apple selling two identical looking IPADS for the same price, 30% high quality and 70% low quality but with out informing the buyer which one they will get. This will also force down the cost, but in this case not due to an incress in productivity but an over all drop in average quality.

And this is what annoys a lot people, a certification should be able to be used by potential employees to gauge at an early point the skills some one might have. people who brain **** take this away and if a high enough percentage of people use them, they make the entire certifications meanness.

shodown

There are arguments on both sides of the coin for devaluation. If companies hire correctly they know what they are getting. A skilled IT professional is going to cost $$$. Thats just the way it is. There are ways around this by using H1B and other methods, but just because someone has some letters behind there name its up to employers to screen correctly. 1 thing that maybe swaying my argument a little off from everyone else is that I have only worked in a consultant role and not in to many enterprises where i can see people sneaking through the cracks with HR and less skilled management. At consulting firms I've never seen a dumper get past tech screen.

Iristheangel

sratakhin wrote: »

I'm against using the brain **** for ethical reasons, but I'm always surprised that people think that braindumps is what makes their certifications less valuable. There are many books, classes, workshops, whatever that people use when they prepare for exams. Do any of these also make the certifications less valuable? Imagine how much CCIEs would be paid if there was only a handful of them because there was no training material available. That's absurd.

P.S. Heck, even this forum contributes to devaluing certifications by helping other people attain them.

It's not the overall number of certified people that devalue it. It's the overwhelming amount of people that hold it that cheated that do. Look at how the perception of the MCSE/MCSA changed between the 90's and now. Back in the day, you could get a great paying job with a MCSE right out the gate but due to how many people cheated their way through and the perception that an MCSE doesn't really know that much, an MCSE pretty much qualifies you for a help desk job starting out. I'm not against anyone learning the material and passing the exam.

@YuckTheYankees - You're right. I am busy. Way too busy to be doing someone's work for them or be called into the 5th interview in a row to evaluate someone who had XYZ certifications on their resume only to find out that they couldn't tell the difference between an access port and trunk port (Yes, this happened). I would love it if certifications were all lab based but I doubt Pearson Vue and Prometric would be able to handle it and most of the major vendors won't set up centers all across the country to accommodate so I'm fairly sure we're out of luck there. I would be happy though if they would increase their bank of questions to about 2000+ per exam instead of 100 to 150 and constantly retire questions after 6 months or so. That's part of what ISC2 does for the CISSP and for the most part, it really works well.

The bottom line is that we work very hard to be where we are and I would hope we all take our jobs and education seriously. I'd like to think that I act with integrity in my professional life and I hope people to that same standard. If someone tells me that they are using braindumps and start bragging to me about how they have 10+ certifications, I have no problem telling them that they cheated. If they had no idea, I hope they don't use them in the future. If they did know, well... that usually stops them from bragging about their bazillion certifications or talking about braindumps in front of me. It certainly affects how I see the person professionally and whether or not I will give them work or recommend them for a position in the future. I try to be fair and test their skill a little but most of the time I don't see much skill from a braindumper and I won't put them in charge of enterprise-critical piece of network equipment.

sratakhin

DevilWAH, that's not what I meant. Having training classes and books to prepare for an exam makes it much easier than if there was nothing available and the only way to gain the knowledge would be through work experience. It doesn't make the certification less valuable, although it makes passing exams much easier. Braindumps make it even easier, in addition to being illegal and unethical.

I don't care if some random person used braindumps to pass exams. It may be ok if he/she has the knowledge and simply needs to become certified without spending too much time learning obscure things that nobody uses. How many of you use RRAS on Server 2003/2008? How about Frame Relay?

If somebody doesn't know anything yet passes MCSE-level exams, then... well, they deserve to work as a helpdesk for a long, long time.

shodown

@Iris Once again I will state that is the person was brought in for a 5th interview that is a problem on HR and management. The fact that it took them that long to figure this out should make you wonder what materials they used the prep for there careers. Dumpers can be shaken out in a 10 min phone screen and if you bring them in a 30 min GNS3 lab. If management is constantly letting these types through you should be looking to work for a place that has higher standards if you don't want to be around it. Wasting energy on these types is pointless.

Also one last thing I do wanna way is this. I've been at a lot of places where they had people **** to get certifications to sell material. While we want to look at the world in right and wrong there is a lot of $$$ on the line in some orgs and if they have to send people to **** they will. Business always comes 1st unless you become the owner then you can make your own rules. Get your stock up in the company by becoming a serious performer and you will have some say in the way things go is the best advice I can give you.

Mrock4

I completely agree organizations should exercise due diligence when hiring BUT- isn't that the point of the certification? You take a test, the vendor "certifies" that you know the items on the test. Theoretically, if you hold a certification you should know the bulk of the material. If the organization has to double-back and "re" certify that you know your stuff, then what's the point getting certified at all? Certifications were never meant for us, the engineers/admins/techs, they're there so organizations can show customers/regulatory bodies/etc that they have qualified staff based on those exams.

Iristheangel

It's unrealistic to say "I'm going to quit to work somewhere that has better hiring practices because some bad apple slipped through." I have a great job that pays well and exposes me to great technology with people I love and respect. We do a pretty great job of hiring some great people but sometimes some dummies slip through. It happens. I'm not going to throw a hissy fit about it and blame my boss. Instead, I'm going to adapt and not let the idiot braindumper bring down my network. I'll voice my concerns to my boss and since he respects me, he's listened in the past. You're argument is circular at this point and you're not going to convince me anymore than I'm going to convince you. The OP wanted to know how we dealt with cheaters/braindumpers in real life. If this thread and the answers is any indication, then I would say most of us either call them on it or are cautious to give them any real responsibility. A few don't care and even fewer don't see a problem morally or otherwise with braindumps. At this point in the debate, it's probably not even worth commenting more. It's like arguing about sports teams. In the end, neither one is going to rip off their jersey and put on the other team's jersey. We're on the TechExams forums and we're not here to condone braindumping. I would like to think that most of us are here to help people pass exams the ethical way and promote ethical professional conduct. That includes respect for ours and our peers credentials.

Xyro

draught wrote: »

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.

As stated prior, I had never heard of "braindumps" until reading this thread; however, since I'm in school, I deal with cheating on a daily basis. I have for years. It's part of college-life. Almost everyone cheats. The instructors actively encourage cheating. This is what has made even degrees less valuable over the years.

I, mistakenly, attempted to change this when I first arrived (in college). It was a waste of time & almost caused me some damage. People don't want to hear that what they are doing is "wrong" & unless you are in some type of position of power ... telling them will usually only affect you negatively.

I've been in school for a while. This is no longer an issue for me because I don't allow it to be. I've found it's best not to sweat items I have no power over... & the energy is best spent on maintaining my own ethical code.

In your own best interest & respectfully, I suggest you do the same.

shodown

I will bow out as well. The goal was to state that there are ways to combat them and also state that this is a business as well. Which in a since I was saying "don't hate the player/hate the game".

RanMic

Architect192 wrote: »

Within a week he had deleted the vCenter server files "by accident"...

Wow! You have to be pretty stupid to do that. My rule of thumb has always been, "if you dont know what it does, figure it out or leave it alone."

timesvan32

I believe this may be the best answer to all of your questions...

cisco_trooper wrote: »

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.

the_hutch

Working for the DOD where you've got a bunch of people that don't like their job but are required to maintain certs to be compliant with the 8570 directive, those **** get passed around like candy. People be like...Yo main...use dis and you will pass fo sho!!!

the_hutch

Okay, so the last statement was just me seeing if I could Pr0n my way through the **** filter. Don't judge, lol. But seriously...like candy.

petedude

Iristheangel wrote: »

It's unrealistic to say "I'm going to quit to work somewhere that has better hiring practices because some bad apple slipped through."

True, but-- if management is made aware of issues created by the one bad apple later that they refuse to address, it may be worth taking action if those behaviors/issues affect your ability to be productive. I can cut people slack on hiring practices, but refusing to deal with unethical behaviors long after the employee has been aboard simply irks me.

jfitzg

I have never seen so many white knights before that apparently have never cheated at anything before and have no problem tearing others down... Its amazing since some statistics show that 75% to 98% of students ****. Good to see we have the 2% that dont in here!