Re: MCSD certification - is it still necessary to land a job?

From: Samuel R. Neff (blinex_at_newsgroup.nospam)
Date: 02/08/05 

Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:58:33 -0500

Bruce,

I didn't mean to imply I wouldn't give someone an interview without
them--that's hardly the case especially as we haven't received a
single resume with a .NET certification. What I meant is that a
candidate that we normally would not have given an interview (say
someone with 2-3 years programming experience but zero .net
experience) would get an interview when that candidate otherwise would
not.

For me, personally, the biggest factor is when I talk to someone if
they can talk intelligently about their work. I'm amazed when I talk
to people and they have trouble explaining what it is they do and the
technologies they use. I'm not saying things like "explain what SOA
is" or "tell me about design patterns" when they have expressed no
previous knowledge in those areas. I'm saying people that list things
on their resumes but can't explain the things they list. I look for
someone that can hold a decent programming conversation about the
concepts and talk about technologies they've used.

I would definitely also agree that the MS certifications are worth a
lot less than other certifications. The Java ones, of which I have
none but have reviewed, are considerably better from my perspective.
I have several 5 Macromedia certifications and they are even better
than the MS certs.

To get a better understanding of this thread I went ahead and took a
practice exam for 70-306 (VB.NET WinForms) last night and was really
disappointed. It seemed about as bad as the old VB6 exam
concentrating on things that don't necessarily make someone a good
programmer and providing lots of questions that are fairly easy to
guess at without really knowing the material. Still better than
nothing, but not worth a lot.

My $0.02 only...

Sam

On 7 Feb 2005 17:19:12 -0800, "Bruce Wood" <brucewood@canada.com>
wrote:

>Sam,
>
>Just to give you another perspective, I have no .NET anything. No
>certs. No exams. I do, however, have 20 years experience doing
>object-oriented design and programming. While I'm by no means a guru in
>all things .NET, or even the myriad technologies that Microsoft offers,
>I am, after 1 year messing around with C#, helping out in this
>newsgroup. You can read my responses and judge for yourself my
>technical level.
>
B-Line is now hiring one VB.NET developer for WinForms + WebServices position with strong possibility of ASPX in future. Seaking mid to senior level developer. For information or to apply e-mail sam_blinex_com.

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