back to article Microsoft creates a new kind of credential: the 'Applied Skill'

When The Register writes about vendor certification programs, readers often comment that the credentials aren't worth the pixels they're printed on because they don't reflect real-world skills. Microsoft appears to agree with that idea, to an extent. On Wednesday it introduced an "Applied Skill" credential that sits alongside …

  1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    As much as I like the idea, I doubt it will really catch on

    As far as certs are concerned, I've heard the gamut from "they're useless" to "I won't work with someone who is not certified".

    I doubt that anyone on either side of this fence is going to change their minds. The ones who think certs are useless will not be impressed by an applied skill, and people who are pro-cert will ask "well why aren't they certified then ?".

    But for those in the middle, it might be a good calling card.

    1. Bebu
      Windows

      Re: As much as I like the idea, I doubt it will really catch on

      "I won't work with someone who is not certified".

      Not too keen to work with someone who *is* actually "certified" at least as defined in a relevant mental health act (section-ed/-able... thinking BOFH class here. :)

      Certifications and qualifications generally are pretty much a case of "gate keeping" which in some domains might have some utility but really, in the absence of verifible experience and credible referees, they don't amount to much.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: As much as I like the idea, I doubt it will really catch on

        As always, holding a cert gets you past the HR blockade where someone in management has decided they need a specific cert for the job.

        And yes, the certs themselves could be a lot better - Novell certs used to have interactive elements where you had to do certain tasks but had several ways of doing it (create a user, add them to a group, etc.), so there is no excuse for MS and others not to do that now.

  2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Not certified

    - So you claim you know Excel, is that right?

    - Yes, you see I've got an Applied Skill credential

    - Okay, but... you are not certified?

    - It's like a certificate, you know?

    - The ones you get at a car boot sale from the back of the van?

    - No, it's real!

    - Right.

    1. Dr Who

      Re: Not certified

      I kind of like the idea, especially relating to Excel. You can make them specific, for example =VLOOKUP(), and targeted, for example at Welsh NHS recruitment staff.

  3. disgruntled yank Silver badge

    Maybe

    I can see the contracting officers' world looking favorably on these, which would lead to government contractors urging their employees to go get one.

    Years ago, I had the impression that the Cisco certifications really meant something. (I know very little about networking, though, so it could have been the leather jackets.) I did have an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) card back in the Oracle 7 or 8 days; after I went to Open World and found what esteem grizzled DBAs found the OCP credential, I lost interest in keeping it current. (I lost even more interest when, Oracle being Oracle, it revised the requirements so that one had to keep taking classes in order to take the exams.)

  4. trevorde Silver badge

    Digital certificate not worth than the paper it's written on

    Worked with a lot of devs who had various MS/AWS/Azure certifications. Invariably, they were the worst devs on the team. The best devs were always the ones *without* any of the vendor certifications.

    1. druck Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: Digital certificate not worth than the paper it's written on

      All the certificates mean is; you've paid.

  5. TRT

    Much joy and fun...

    for my friend who named their child Alexa.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Say again !!!???

    "Would you do one ?"

    Response as spoken to Microsoft, "Would you do one !!!"

    [UK, North-West, British English :) ]

    Stupid idea whose only reason to exist is to get more money for Microsoft by encouraging you to get a 'proper' certification when no-one accepts your 'applied skill' !!!

    Vendor certification is mainly useless in terms of real skills BUT will often get past the keyword filters / HR !!!

    :)

  7. Curious

    Yes, definitely will. It will likely be useful by keeping up-to-date, precisely why a cert becomes un-useful.

    Some of the modules are using automation to create them, then they are reviewed.

    6 hours to get an up to date walkthrough of where the key menus for a task are in the ever-morphing labyrinth of M365, in a format similar to the guided Microsoft learn tutorials.

    e.g. Secure Azure storage

    As this site shows time and again, there are plenty of Azure developers that shy away from studying that sort of "IT janitorial stuff".

    And Microsoft's technical pages aren't the nicest to digest.

    1. TRT

      Re: And Microsoft's technical pages aren't the nicest to digest.

      They're soft, strong and very very long.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The entire "education industry" is a massive scam. Kids are being scammed out of upwards of £50,000 for a degree which turns out to be no more than an entry ticket to the HR doorkeepers. I've worked with people with loads of scraps of paper that "proved their worth" to HR but proved to be utterly useless on the job.

    I got the BCS qualification half a century ago (but baled out of ongoing membership after a few years). To get that scrap of paper I learned Fortran (not very well and swore never to go near program code again); I learnt design of digital circuits (using logic gates to design a half-adder); I can explain how core memory works in detail (all that useful stuff about ferrite core hysteresis curves); I can even tell you about older alternative storage technologies like mercury delay lines. Has any of it proved useful?

    The HR gatekeepers liked it, apart from that not even the bit about "programming: never again" came in useful although later I made a reasonable career from a handful of other languages.

    At an earlier time I'd been studying accounts, the tutor eventually said "I don't know why you're coming to the classes, there's no way you'll ever pass the exam" so I stopped going, bought a good text-book on the subject and did very well in the exam.

    At school 15 years ago my son did computer studies. Came home and "teacher said" he'd need a copy of Dreamweaver (because it's what the professional use - an argument similar to "want to learn to fly?" ... "OK jump into this fast-jet fighter" I would content that starting in a little propellor 2-seat trainer might be a better starting point). At the time Dreamweaver was priced at about £400 but it had been suggested that "it might be possible to find a copy free on the internet" so at least they were teaching software piracy as a useful skill...

    Dreamweaver was already beginning to look like a dead end and didn't even deliver any worthwhile transferable skills. A homework task involved building a web page with a form, specifying that the submit button should be implemented using Flash! They also "learned" Microsoft Office - not in any depth and not generic "spreadsheets" but MS specific Excel - at least that has come in useful now he's an accountant, unlike what he learned about particle physics which I suspect has resulted in vanishingly few careers in particle physics.

    I'm in favour of a far more versatile system of learning - on the job training, small modules, kept up-to-date by an involved practitioner and relevant to an upcoming task.

    Being married to a university professor my opinions are "contentious" in our household!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like