Microsoft changes cert test providers, hints at fun new exams Microsoft will part ways with Prometric, the outfit that currently provides exams for some of Redmond's certifications. Prometric is on the outer as of December 31st, 2014 and Pearson Vue has the gig as of September 4th. The good news is that if you hold an unexpired, prepaid Prometric exam voucher you can use it at either …
Ever since someone pointed out to me (after I spent 3 weeks over xmas studying) that the answers can be downloaded I stopped giving my own money to Microsoft (via whatever test centre I was using at the time) for what I then considered to be a valueless piece of paper (the little enamel badge may have some recycle value). I still use the study materials on occasions as well as other online materials when working with new tech but I doubt I will give my(*) money to them again; the damage has been done. When interviewing we will give them a 1-on-1 coding session if they want to look something up via google they can (I do), I want to know how they think not what great memories they have for a piece of obscure/obsolete technology - anyone remember DataSets?
(*) if my employer wishes to waste their money then that is up to them.
"Ever since someone pointed out to me (after I spent 3 weeks over xmas studying) that the answers can be downloaded"
Not really true for any recent Microsoft exams - they randomly change the scenarios, questions, quantities, names, etc. and pull the questions from a large pool, so even armed with an idea of the answers a great deal of knowledge / application is usually required to pass.
nb - the exact same is true of pretty much all certification exams from any vendor - you can download the details online.
"I doubt I will give my(*) money to them again"
At least with Microsoft - thanks to Bill Bates - a good chunk of Microsoft's profits go straight to charity.
I remember learning a few useful skills and tricks* back when I did my MCSA (back in the XP/2003 era), but most of those were just things that the instructor shared, rather than anything on the curriculum.
Mind you, I wasn't paying for the course so I was happy. I was wondering about renewing my certs, but my current employer is mainly linux based, so it's not much use to me now. Do employers still looks for Microsoft certifications any more?
* eg, Windows key+e will open an Explorer window on pretty much any version of windows, handy that, and much quicker than finding My Computer.
I work in educational publishing. Pearson have a cosy little stitchup with schools where they offer both schoolbooks (as a huge publisher) and race-to-the-bottom easy exams which make teachers and pupils look better. Even better if Pearson can also sell the 'officiial' study guide - like they do with the driving theory test - which will pretty much give you all the answers up-front.
I've done plenty of HP exams and when they made the same move from Prometric to PearsonVue nothing changed - the exams are just as hard/easy as they were before. I'm not aware of Pearson offering study guides, HP offers their own study material and learning guides.
So I think it's up to Microsoft how they manage the certification processes.
Back when I was doing MCSE Win2000 exams there were TWO exam providers, and I'm sure one of them was Pearson/VUE? I was quite miffed when MS moved to just Prometric as the other one had a test location quite convenient to me at the time.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Lots of big companies go through this whenever a service contract is up -- they put it out for bid again and whoever is cheapest wins. Microsoft used to have 2 providers (Prometric and Vue) but something tells me they don't want to support that anymore. In the late 90s/early 00s, certification and training were huge businesses and made a lot of money for Microsoft. I don't have any data, but I doubt people are getting certified at the rates they once were, so they need to cut the costs. I know I haven't taken a cert exam in a while (since 2003 actually,) but I might end up doing it for the new Server 2012 R2 stuff just so I can keep it on the resume. People knock certs, but I know that lots of large companies use them as a first resume filter.
The other thing they could be doing (though I wonder about whether they would) is leveraging Azure to build up a full system environment for a test taker. So instead of the stupid memory tests you get now, you would just be told to complete a series of tasks within a given time allotment. If the environment resembles what they're looking for at the end of the test, you pass. I'd actually like this a lot more. My memory is awful and not having access to Google during a test makes me turn in (IMO) lower scores than I otherwise could have gotten.
I would love a test environment like that. As a developer, give me the specifications of something that tests my knowledge of the product and the operations needed to fulfil the requirements and let me prove that I can do it in the allotted time.
But I can understand that mass-certification cannot be done like that. You need a dev or server environment for every candidate, and for some admin tests you need more than one server and maybe servers in different states. Setting up such an environment would be a logistical nightmare and would be prohibitively costly, not to mention evaluating the result would have to be done by a committee instead of a test server automatically validating checkbox answers. And you would obviously have complaints about results.
I don't think that Azure will help in any way in this matter, but I sure wish somebody could make something like that work.
One thing is sure : nobody could criticize a cert like that anymore !
The idea that a worker can become qualified through multiple choice tests, is one of the greatest lies ever perpetrated on the tech sector. The company responsible for my M$ training routinely emailed me the answers from an outside address. I told them to stop, but they kept doing it anyway. That's the secret behind the 90% pass rate!
But hey, everyone's happy right? ... The student, the training company and of course the companies direct profiting. But its all illusion! If I owned a tech company would I want workers from this CHEAT system? Its simply amazing to me how this type of test system has being going on for so long. It just beggars belief. Aren't hiring companies aware that they're being cheated? If so, why aren't they demanding something better?
I'm old enough to remember Microsoft-University where you had to complete practical exercises in a tense atmosphere in front of the instructor in order to pass. It stood me well, and probably why I got more of those lucrative 200k jobs that others couldn't get.
When I needed to brush up, where were the choices? Everything is DVD or Streaming Service. Live teaching and exams are dead! And so like a lemming I paid mucho deniro to up-skill using this cheat system. Never again! Beyond the answers, the training materials themselves can often be found on YouTube or from a Torrent. So don't pay a penny folks as it won't be worth it
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