The MCA which Microsoft recently announced, sounds like a Certification that is truly prestigious. In order to even qualify for candidacy for the certification, one needs to provide evidence of 10 years IT experience, including references from projects that he/she performed an Architect role.

Once approved, the candidate must provide documentation on a project architected by him/her, including reasoning behind decisions made(Somewhat like a thesis). If the initial documentation is acceptable, the candidate is brought up for an interview in which a panel of architects asks the candidate questions regarding the project, and decisions made by the candidate in performing the Architect role.

There is no multiple choice for this Certification, and I believe it will be very prestigious and sought after once it gains momentum.

I think the higher level developer exams are actual practicums rather than multiple guess tests on the nuances of the framework. For the most part I agree with you about certifications, but I think Microsoft is trying to change the perception (well actually the mechanics) of their certification paths.

I agree that certification does not reflect quality and the ability to solve problems.

I have been in the IT industry for a long time and never felt the need to be certified. However, just recently I am finding that employers look favorably to people with certificate which give me a proglem acquring a new job.

My experience with the MCSD was that in the course of memorizing the facts for the exams, it forced me to be exposed to many facets of the .NET Framework that otherwise I could have easily missed. It also gives the student exposure to the preferred method of doing things. Many people have real-world experience doing projects with new technology, but still do many tasks the "old" way. Preparing yourself for the exams forces exposure to a variety of concepts and the guidelines around using them.

It certainly does not guarantee in-depth understanding of a topic nor does it guarantee the ability to practically apply the concepts. But then again, neither does a degree.

The idea that you would have to grill someone harder BECAUSE they have a certification is just an artifact of bias, however. Obtaining a cert does not make you dumber. I have met many who claim to be professional developers, yet still do things like unnecessary loops, repeated string concatenations, and leaving a host of null reference exceptions behind.

Thanks Stephanie,

I guess I should clarify the certifications red flag for harder grilling. Only 1 out of 5 resumes make to us from management. Certifications plastered all over the resume guarantee they make it through. When I look at the real world experience and it is lacking, that means its harder grilling time.

I don’t think Certifications make you dumber, but I think they get you through the filtering out process that you normally would not get through. This is good for the person applying, but bad for those of us who need experience on our team. I also find memorized facts don’t stay embedded in the mind as long as worked through techniques. I want to know where the person has applied what they learned during the certification process, especially if the certifications are the main reason for the company considering them for the position. I hold little value in the ability of certification’s process to actually teach in a way that material is retained. I also hold little value in learning things that are not used in the field, and from what I have seen there is a lot that in the certification's content.

When I go back to management and say he is a no go, I need to have my ducks in a row, because they are under the impression certifications = real world experience. That along with the fact that it adds to the company’s number of certified employees, which gets them a better shot at a Microsoft Gold Partnership, makes it hard to get through to them that the experience is not there and that we should not hire them.

One of my friends that prefer to stay anonymous gave me permission to post his feedback he sent to me via email:

I’m with you on this one. I can speak from experience here. During my first year as an MCS consultant, my manager asked me to set getting certified as one of goals – so I did. A few other consultants recommended that I use Trascender practice exams to prepare for the tests – so I picked up the practice test for Windows programming with C++ and off I went. This is back in ’99 so at the time I used to live, breathe and eat ATL in C++, and I just finished a couple years worth of hardcore MFC prior to that. So I was expecting to walk all over that exam. I was shocked when I got my ass handed to me by the Transcender practice exam – I think I scored somewhere in the ballpark of 50%. There were tons of questions about installation, deployment and tools that are part of Visual Studio that may be nice for a small side project, but aren’t useful when building an enterprise application. So I brushed up on these esoteric areas, retook the practice exam, aced it and signed up for the real one. I was surprised at how similar the actual exam was to the practice test – some questions were practically verbatim, concentration of questions on things like building an installer for your ATL app. I aced the exam – but I would have gotten slapped if I hadn’t practiced with the transcender exam. Was I that much smarter when I took the exam thanks to the practice test – not really, I just brushed up on some small areas that the exam asked a bunch of questions on and then forgot it afterwards – b/c they were areas that I didn’t use in my day-to-day programming, and if I needed to accomplish such things, I opened the book and read up on it at that time. I went through a similar experience with respect to tests about database design – just learn the pattern that they want you to regurgitate and then perform. Same situation – wasn’t too hot one the first practice exam, learned the patterns they were expecting, then aced the exam. Big change in scores, but not much smarter. Plus – nowadays, they’ve got these web sites where folks just donate “braindumps” of what they recall after just taking the exam – so you don’t even have to memorize the arcane topics that are on the exams, you can memorize the questions/answers themselves…worthless.

Now, that new architect certification may be different, but that looks like the only one I see. And I can also agree that when I see lots of acronyms after person’s name I’m usually under impressed when we have a technical interview…well at least I used to be, now I don’t raise my expectations – I lower them ;-)

It is funny how the individuals who criticize certifications are usually the same ones who are not certified. While I agree that experience is far more important than certifications, it has been my experience that individuals that strive to obtain certifications are more ambitious, curious and interested in their own education. On resumes, besides experience I check for professional training and degrees. I work for a consulting company, we interview candidates the same regardless of certifications but all things equal, I value the certified candidate more because he/she at least took the initiative to get certified. Sure you forget the exact answers after exams but you remember that certain concepts exist. I work for a technology consulting company and certifications matter to our MS partnership and to our clients who are looking at us to be experts. While certifications do not prove expertise in one area, they prove to me that you cared enough about your career to get certified in the first place. The truth is that I learned more in the first six months on the job then I ever did in 4 years of college. Does that mean that degrees are worthless? No, but it does mean that I cared enough about my career that I thought it important to get.

First off let me say that yes I'm certified (MCSD .NET). I bought all the materials myself, paid for all the exams and studied most evenings and weekends. My wife will attest to how hard I studied for these exams. I haven't plastered my resume with logos... I proudly display them because of how damned hard I worked to earn them. It makes me mad that most of the people showing disinterest towards the certifications are indeed those that haven't got the guts (or indeed knowledge) to sit them themselves. When I studied for the .NET stuff I'd already worked in it from the early Betas. Studying for the exam gives you the breadth of knowing what a technology is capable of not just the specific areas which you use day-to-day. It makes you diverge into other areas that you may never touch. I often found that I'd start looking into one subject and then go off at tangents at two, maybe three times before going back to where I was originally. Then, later when I came across a 'new' subject I already had a healthy appreciation for it because I'd come across it previously. I didn't take my certs for anyone except me. If they help me get a better paid job for a more repected employer then fine, that's a bonus. Incidentally, I got through to the third round of interviews at Microsoft in reading and the feedback that I got from them was that I clearly knew a fantastic amount about Microsoft development technologies. My only problem, they said, was that I didn't know that I knew as much as I did.

Guess it depends on what level of developers you're looking for. I'll concede that certs can help filter out low-level from no-level candidates, but they fail to effectively filter out high-level or even mid-level devs from low-level candidates.

Having the ability to correctly answer a majority of multiple choice questions about language syntax, tool interfaces, and development best practices does not correlate to being able to efficiently develop software that is flexible, easy to maintain and meets customer requirements.

Bottom line – either you can provide services that have value or you can’t...education, certs, and/or degrees notwithstanding. The sharpest developers I know are too concerned with providing valuable software services to worry about certifications – and they don’t have to be – they have people beating down their doors asking them to write software. If you want to get ahead in software development, re-focus the energy you exert on cert exams into writing better software for your customers – it’ll take your farther. My .02.

Here's my second round of feedback. I too have seen many cases of people who have certs but couldn't code a string tokenizer. (Or back when I was doing system administration, MCSEs who couldn't configure trusted domains without help.) However, making a generalization about certifications is not fair.

Here is my view. Certification (or education) is NEVER a substitute for real world experience.

Again, I think the MCA is a certification that has the potential to help identify high-level candidates. Of course one of the requirements for the exam is 10 years experience with client references, so basically you don't really NEED the MCA if you qualify for it. It's more of a trophy than anything.

I leave you with one thought. If getting a certification is as easy as memorizing a few facts, what is keeping you from getting it?

To Michael: 3 things- Time, Memorization, and ROI

Time- I can spend time satisfying my customers, like Jerry talks about, which is what I hold as a priority when I get to career in my personal priority list, or educating myself. I choose a different route for educating myself. I search out institutionalized industry standards (meaning they have been repeatedly successful) to use as a baseline education for satisfying my customers.

Memorization- I need to have more resources available to me than are available through memorization. Several times during interviews I have told the guys who like to sit with a list in front of them, or if they are phone interviews a pile of books in front of them (which I have seen several times now), that I would like them to tell me where on my resume I say I know how to do what they are asking, or I will tell them that if I need to know something as trivial as they are asking (usually related to language syntax or tool interfaces, again like Jerry mentioned), I would hit F1 or grab a book.

ROI- Like I said above, someone would need to pay me for my time and pay for the Certifications for me to take them. I would love to take the SEI certifications because I view them as an educational process (they teach you, test you, and then evaluate you at work before giving them to you), but the cost would need to come out of my pocket. Instead I spend the money on equipment and software (MSDN, Macromedia's Studio, etc.) and Books. My girlfriend just happens to be a Software Project Manager, and she has the same view on certifications as I do when it comes to employees and experience. She understands the amount of money I need to spend to keep up to speed when it comes to the list I mentioned, but there is no way she would allow me to spend it on certifications. I haven't found an employer who says it is worth paying for the SEI certifications yet, although I have tried to convince a few they are worth it. MS certifications they are willing to pay for their employees to take, but not mine as a consultant. Some of my consulting firms I go through have approached me about it, but I would only do it on the clock. Keep in mind my time spent learning and working for my client is already maxed out at 60-70 hours a week, which goes back to time. Right now the ROI for me career wise would be zero, even if an employer paid for them. I never was not given or considered for an assignment because of not having them. College degrees are a different story, I have been told I couldn't be considered without a Computer Science Bachelors or Masters degree before. My degree is Electronic Engineer. But that was only twice so the ROI for those isn't worth it either.

I have to go back to what Jerry said, "certs can help filter out low-level from no-level candidates,". I think they are a good avenue for people who want to get into this industry and help them get low-level (entry level) positions, and from there they can begin to gain experience. If the person I would have been looking (mentioned at the beginning of this Blog) for was simply a code cruncher, then I would have considered them, but the position was for an Architect level individual. Maybe the new MCA cert. from MS will turn out to be good for qualifying Architect level individuals. Right now, I agree with you. It looks more like a trophy than anything else.

I think they're getting harder. I used to work with someone who got his MCSD as the 'best way to learn to program'. I'm not sure when he got it (VB6, pre .NET), but he still hadn't learnt to code. I got my MCSD.NET so tghe company could be a Partner. It was harder than I thought it would be: some of it was just learn about this little area you've never needed, but I don't think you could get it easily without real actual experience.

The new Architecture one looks *really* hard. I haven't looked at MCSD details lately (I think there are changes there also?).

Making them harder can only be a good thing. Oh yes, and less like the Transcenders :)