The overhype of professional I.T certifications.

For the past few days, I've been studying or should I say trying to study for a certain exam. This exam, if passed, would accord me the the privilege and honor (actually it's not that exclusive or superbly honorific lol) of being called an MCP, short for Microsoft® Certified Professional.

It's kind of a requirement, so much as I like to pass on it, I can't, unless I want to be fired, which I don't.

Understand though that I'm not against these so called professional certifications. The exams are tough and you really need to be experienced in the areas that you'll be tested on. Passing in these tests means only two things:

A. You really took the time to study and devote yourself to understanding the intricacies of the darn stuff.
or
B. You really took the time to learn the shortcuts to pass these type of exams.

What the?!

You might be saying. There's a shortcut???

Yes. Well... this applies for most of the exams. Y'see there are these "reviewers" or "sample exams" that have questions which are eerily similar to what would come out in the cert. exams.

Long a ago, stuff like these would probably be called "crib notes", "leakage", "cheat sheets" but today they're called "preparatory materials".

Granted, they don't all come free (you need to pay for the really good ones). But, a real net-savvy person knows how to work around these things. *wink*
Who wouldn't want to take the shortcut that's readily accessible.

Back to the point, so generally, all a person really needs to do is study these sample tests and he should be able to easily pass a certification exam. To prove this, I relate a story about a co-worker who did it.

He was able to get the highest certification, called MCSD, in less than 2 months. MCSD stands for Microsoft® Certified Solutions Developer. This type of cert. requires you to take at least 5 exams of a really broad coverage. You need to be really familiar with the whole strategy, design and implementation of the .NET Framework of Microsoft to get this certification. That means hands on experience, probably more than 1 year working with everything . NET. And here he takes 1 exam per week and he even aces a few of the exams. He has only been with company for less than half a year, only 2 or so months before me. He has not previously worked with .NET until coming into the company and yet he had gotten the highest certification ahead of other employees who have been with the company from the start.

Long story short, aside from bragging rights, what's the point of getting any certification. It doesn't really prove anything. It only means that you passed an exam. Society today is obsessed with names and recognition. They don't really care how you got them as long as it looks good in the C.V.