Microsoft can't give away beta cert exams, so starts charging Microsoft can't give away enough of its beta exams, so it will start charging for them. That odd state of affairs was revealed in a post from Microsoft Learning that brought us news that the “No show rate is at historic highs” for beta exams. That's a problem for Microsoft because the company uses beta exams to secure a pool …
Yep.
Never had one.
Have been offered training for them several times, I tell my employers not to waste their money. Of course, if they want to send me on something, there are courses I'd like to take but none of them involve MS.
All the jobs I've ever taken over, I've had the conversation in interview and got responses like "You have no certs? Great, maybe you actually KNOW what you're doing rather than the last guy who just read about it."
As you say, certs are an HR checkbox exercise when there's no-one enough able to judge actual ability. I'm much more inclined towards the "Come in, do the job for half a day, let's see how you get on" method rather than looking down a line of MS certs that I *KNOW* you can pass as a spotty 17-year-old with absolutely no idea about managing computers. Apprenticeship programs love them and, for some reason, I've yet to find a worse place IT-wise than Apprenticeship course training rooms.
Ironic, because I have a degree, so I'm not afraid of intellectual advancement, theory, studying things that are completely worthless in practical terms, etc. Fact is, even my degree is only ever mentioned along the lines of "It proves he can work at learning something hard for three years without giving up", rather than anything to do with actual acquired skills, experience, talent, etc.
To be honest, I'm amazed they can even give them away - but in this instance it looks like they can't.
There are two reasons to get industry certs (of any variety):
1). Personal - it gets you past the job pimps/HR form filling tick boxes *and* if you work for a large organization it helps you show you've done something in the last year for your appraisal.
2). Organization - The vendors like to work with organizations with certified people and often offer better/cheaper support deals and partnerships with those that can show this.
You may or may not want to do them, but they are there and are not going away anytime soon.
I got one a few years ago, due to some company policy (I think to get them better deals/contracts... I don't know). I would have preferred to be trained on something I didn't know (or was actually interested in), but "policy".
I've never advertised it (nor the ZCE cert I have), and I still get job offers.
If I ever came across a company that stipulated them, then I wouldn't want to work for them (even though I could).
When I'm reviewing CVs, these certs have zero impact (positive or otherwise)... it's kinda like saying you have GCSEs ('O' levels; you attended high school).
Reminds me of Scientology and its endless course material whose real purpose is to subliminally condition the minds of the unwary student.
“Starting with our next beta, Exam 537: Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack"
.. must use Azure Hybrid Stack .. Azure Hybrid Stack is the only authentic stack .. all the rest are flawed ...
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