Certification tests need to change across the board
Posted by CrownVicDude@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 60 comments
Currently trying to get one, 15 years into a successful IT career (I know, very late in the game, but I've talked my way around it so many times in interviews).
Certifications seem to fail to capture the most important aspect of using any application, and that's being able to apply the technology to the business. There is such a huge difference between knowing the technology and being able to use it. OK, so you've memorized the admin section of an app (which is often what cert exams test on), I have a user with xyz request, what's the best way to do it? Massive gap between those two.
Exams should not be multiple choice or true/false. They should all be scenario based. This request came in, execute it in this sbx environment. This will show that you can use the technology, not just memorize facts. I can figure out where a setting is in an app I have very little experience with very quickly, that's not where the valuable skill set is. It's being able to do the job.
I've heard some certs behave this way, but most don't, which is why I've always said most certs are basically useless.
ceantuco@reddit
i read the certification books but I never take the tests lol 20+ years in IT
GalacticForest@reddit
I'm the same way. Tests and memorizing things to do quickly under pressure is not my strong feat. I like to learn the material, lab it and apply it in the real world as OP states, which I have been doing for 15+ years as well. Having the experience has landed me my jobs, not an employer caring about certifications. Some people go crazy and get a bunch of certs with no experience and then wonder why they can't land a job
ceantuco@reddit
yeah that is true! I got my A+ cert back in 02'... I got an unpaid internship with a local computer repair shop... let me tell you... anything I memorized for the test was useless lol my first big mistake was to plug in a USB printer to a Win 98SE machine before installing the drivers lol messed it up real good lol oh those were the days!
MuffinEclipse@reddit
25 years in IT and I've never encountered a cert I found to be remotely useful and I ignore them in people's resumes
ridiculusvermiculous@reddit
20 here and i've never even been asked
thecravenone@reddit
Are you prepared to pay 200% more for the manual grading this will require?
CrownVicDude@reddit (OP)
Absolutely, you get what you pay for. Which partially explains the current state or certs.
thecravenone@reddit
The primary cert in my section of the industry is seven thousand american dollars. Can't wait for my cert to cost more than my car.
obviousboy@reddit
Take a real certification exam and you will find everything you’re mentioning. My CCIE was a 2 hour written exam with an 8 hour lab. Also cost close to 2k back in 2014-15.
Lower end certainly can’t have every one of your requests as the cost for them would go through the roof.
thortgot@reddit
Lower end certs absolutely could be scenario hosted challenges, open book with time limits (rather than prioritizing memorization) with interactivity via AI.
Depending on the scale and complexity of the challenges I could see selling a test solution for less \~$100.
As a hiring manager A+ level knowledge tells me literally nothing about what you can do.
Putting you in the seat of an administrator of a plausible environment and solving challenges? That's useful.
Rather than a set of virtual "steps" that are checked off as you go, it simply validates the end conditions are achieved.
sitesurfer253@reddit
Microsoft is moving to (or at least expanding into) skills based certification which is great. You complete labs instead of regurgitating exam questions. These are the only type of cert that I would trust.
lewis_943@reddit
A senior engineer once said to me "There are three ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way and the Microsoft way."
The gripe I have with the idea of a Microsoft-based skills lab is that there's still going to be a significant portion of either missing knowledge or_useless_ knowledge. At a certain point their curriculums are being dictated by what they want to sell, not what people want to learn.
VirtualDenzel@reddit
Microsoft is one of the reasons certificates are a joke.
And then they last for a year and you need to redo them?
Biggest joke in the world. I'd rather hire a person with real experience then a bookworm who got hits certs but never uses the tech
teriaavibes@reddit
You don't.
Once a year you take a free short openbook quiz that contains changes that happened since you took the exam originally, you know, because stuff has changed.
Stop spreading lies please.
VirtualDenzel@reddit
Short openbook quiz is a retest in a way. Its not a lie. If you do not take it your cert is invalidated. Just ahole practicians.
teriaavibes@reddit
You literally said "redo them". That implies doing them all over again which is not true.
VirtualDenzel@reddit
Ye whatever. They are still a joke. And be it redo or append the new knowledge. 50% of the exam is stuff you never need to use or know or offload it to the correct party (lets say sales team). Or even better. The what powershell cmdlet will you use for this or that. I laughed my ass off when i got those questions the first time.
They need to look at rhel exams. At least that is a proper one.
teriaavibes@reddit
Then don't take them, but don't spread lies about them. Jesus
VirtualDenzel@reddit
I dont spread lies about it. Its still the same. They are only valid for a year and if you do not do the supplement then they are invalid.
You can whine about it all day long and bring in jesus. But that wont help. Go bother someone else.
teriaavibes@reddit
You might want to read a dictionary and examine what the word lie means before you engage online :)
asintado08@reddit
Microsoft Certs are already open book right now, Microsoft Learn. Renewals are almost unlimited tries and open book as well.
Anyone who is using the product on a daily basis should pass it.
haksaw1962@reddit
Yes. I see all these posts on LinkedIn where they are posting that they just achieved their 24th certificate this year. I ask if they have ever actually worked with the technology.
sitesurfer253@reddit
Same. Most certs in general just show you can hang onto information long enough to be tested on it. Doesn't prove you can actually do the job.
Just saying it's nice that they are moving to a model that prioritizes working towards a solution rather than memorizing vocabulary/ports/what tier of azure licensing you should tell management to buy.
VirtualDenzel@reddit
That it correct. But it would be better to convince management to use 365 'partially' . A lot of companies dive in completely and are stuck with high saas costs and almost no chance to egress without spending a yearly budget
SeparateOpening@reddit
I took it earlier in my career, but in my opinion the CCNA exam was a lot more difficult than the CISSP exam I took recently specifically because it had active lab components to solve.
Anyone can memorize concepts and commands, but not everyone can apply it practically.
Trench_Rat@reddit
I’ve got my stack of A+, Network+ and Security+. Would you recommend that I aim for a CCNA?
I am aiming for either a CCNA or the Comptia CYSA+ or ideally both. What would be a smart thing to prioritise?
SidMeiersCiv@reddit
Do the CCNA, much better cert with more knowledge gained. In my opinion if you can obtain the CCNA you could jump right to the CASP+, especially having already dont the Sec+.
Trench_Rat@reddit
Understood. Thanks for the advice
dontsysmyadmin@reddit
CCNA - way more practical. Lots of overlap with Net+ but more in depth and actually requires experience in the CLI and how to configure devices. Jeremy’s IT Lab on YouTube
Trench_Rat@reddit
Fantastic. Thankyou
homelaberator@reddit
If you do the CCNA as part of Cisco Academy type training, you get a lot of hands on alongside the other stuff. It's a very good program for what it gives you. You finish up with a pretty solid understanding of the basics alongside a realistic appreciation of how much you don't know.
pdp10@reddit
Certification programs are run by the Marketing side of the vendor. Their purpose is to ensconce the userbase into the vendor's way of doing things, and make the end user's value contingent on the overall value of the vendor.
Ponder: Certified Netware Administrator.
We don't discriminate against certifications when hiring, but let's say that a prime candidate won't spend any time on the subject, either.
Grandpaw99@reddit
Generally certifications only prove you can regurgitate enough information to get above a 70 on a test. Met plenty of “ASE” certified techs that could not read an electrical diagram. I recently bought an A+ study guide…. SSD, Windows 10 are not covered at all in the book. Weird that it only talks about windows 7 and 8. And yet I’m supposed to want this certificate?
PaulTheMerc@reddit
I think you got an old exam book: https://partners.comptia.org/docs/default-source/resources/comptia-a-220-1102-exam-objectives-(3-0) , page 4: windows 10 is part of current(220-1102) objectives.
Not so much for win 11
wideace99@reddit
There are so many exams for certification that are fake due to corruption that it doesn't matter anymore, to render the certification to just a piece of paper without any value.
At least in my country, anybody can buy with money starting from high school degree, university degree, master, driver license, e.t.c.
Without personally testing someone, you can't trust any certifications.
Severus157@reddit
Don't think you're late. It depends a lot if you even need one. Depends on the country you're in, the industry you're working in and what the schooling you have had is.
In my country you have the dual system apprenticeship for IT, that's working and then specifically attend a school some days a week or few weeks. In the end you have the exam. And if you have that that mostly removes the need for certs at all unless you are working for an msp or something. And while employers like you having the cert, it's almost never a requirement if you have the necessary skills.
Tatermen@reddit
To play devil's advocate though, plenty of folks in /r/sysadmin also think it's not their job to help users to write a formula in Excel or a whizbang animated slide in Powerpoint. So why would you need to understand the user experience? Where do you draw the line?
Turak64@reddit
MS also love easy exam questions that have no basis in reality. I remember habifns something like "what is dhcp option 47" and loads on various roles and licencing. Knowing that doesn't help you troubleshoot much. 50% of the exam needs to be a situation to resolve. At least they've gone open book now, so you don't have to spend so much time memorising random facts you'll jusr forget a week after the exam.
Man-e-questions@reddit
Thats how the more difficult Cisco exams get.
nanoatzin@reddit
Certification exams are for HR people and might provide a starting point for a career, but don’t rely on certifications to give you the info you need. For example, ICS2 recommends multifactor is superior to certificate authentication but nobody has defeated a modern certificate while multifactor can be defeated with a key logger and carrier SMS access.
heroik-red@reddit
Certs do great at teaching concepts and frameworks to beginner or intermediate sysadmins. However, if you have been doing this job for a long time, you’ll know and be able to explain stuff that no cert will ever be able to.
homelaberator@reddit
Certification exams are the way they are simply because it is practical to do them like this.
It's easier to write multiple choice and drag + drop kind of tests that cover the common core knowledge than it is to write exams that are scenario based and still meaningfully comprehensive.
I'd disagree that they are useless. Outside of the issues with cheating, the popular certifications still do a pretty good job at testing fundamental knowledge and skills. The most value in education is what you do for yourself, though. If you approach it sensibly with an attitude to learn something, and then treat the test as an assessment of what you have learnt and how well, you derive far more benefit than if you treat it as pokemon collecting.
After working in IT for too long, and getting an education whilst doing it, I can see the difference between the people who have that good base knowledge (an understanding of what's actually going on rather than just knowing, in this situation I press this button and check this box) and those that have relied on "experience". Certification can be part of that process of getting a good foundation.
No_Resolution_9252@reddit
I stopped renewing most of my certs and stopped pursuing new ones. MS certs from about 2005 to 2013 were all really good but then all became sales certs.
Only one I carry now is security+ I don't do network work anymore. Once you are established, there isn't as much a need for them.
SinoKast@reddit
I agree, one of the big reasons i don't even renew a lot of my certs is it's just a study fest and i have my own resources inside and outside my industry to keep me abreast of changes in my knowledge base. Scenario based would be solid proof of concept grasp of applying the knowledge, critical thinking, and troubleshooting all angles.
BrokenRatingScheme@reddit
I never want to sit for another Cisco exam as long as I live. I will do CEs until I go crosseyed if it means I don't have to do another one of their atrocious tests.
dflame45@reddit
The problem is that doing it one way works for one company and not the other. How you implement it is so subjective. Why do you think there’s so many snow consultants. You have to test them on the fundamentals, unfortunately, it’s only skin deep.
TigwithIT@reddit
CompTIA+ just obtained by Thoma Brava and Hedgefund house of horrors. That should tell you all you need to know about certs. Welcome to money over actual knowledge.
SWZerbe100@reddit
Yep I got a CompTIA cert and have no plans to renew it, still put it on my resume though 😎
primalsmoke@reddit
I got Microsoft certifications back in 1997, the books were good , really to understand concepts, back then it was the best source to learn from.
When interviewed for a specific job, most of the interview questions where from the book, I told the VP that the answer he was looking for was such and such, but the book was wrong because of such and such. I was cocky because the place was a pre IPO dot com shithole and I was working at a high end place. They matched my pay and I took the job, and that's how I got into the dot com world in 1999.
Moral of the story, whoever is interviewing you may use certification material.
FatBoyStew@reddit
Oh I wholeheartedly agree that MOST certs are useless. We've had several hires that according to their certs should've been amazing, but in reality they didn't know anything really...
Superb_Raccoon@reddit
But I also don't want to hire the guy with 15 years experence... he is expensive!
mrbiggbrain@reddit
You always pay for experience, one way or another.
primalsmoke@reddit
So true
yoortyyo@reddit
Amazingly Certified or Amazingly Educated has rarely conveyed actual employee awesomeness
primalsmoke@reddit
A certification just means that someone has been able to read the manual, and has preserverance that's a start, more than a lot of applicants.
As someone who used to hire people, I would still need to know if the applicant can actually think and has the principals that I would need, that's why the interview process is so important.
Then candidates get a exam cram and just pass the test, or just outright lie about the cert.
Helpjuice@reddit
If it is an official certification the only way to pass it should be no open book, and only through hands on competency, no multiple choice or fill in the blank. You literally sit down and do what is being asked of you along with the parameters that must be met at the end of the exam.
Anything else should not be a certification, period all other options do not actually test your capability to do what the exam says you know how to do.
Shrimp_Dock@reddit
I mean, you're kind of late to the game. Certs aren't necessarily for you, unless you're talking about the more advanced ones and those are more applied knowledge. As far as the entry level certs go, they are great for building a foundation and getting some chops using platforms(for the vendor specific ones). From there, people should take the introduction they get with the cert, and with experience refine the how and why to use the technology, and practice building stuff.
Superb_Raccoon@reddit
https://www.opengroup.org/
more than a test.
For level 4, it was same format as a PhD, 20 presentation, 40 minutes cross examination.
greendx@reddit
Some certification exams do include scenario based questions often in addition to multiple choice questions.
5141121@reddit
This is why I love the Red Hat exams so much. They're 100% practical, and they test real-world stuff you run into as an admin/engineer.
The RHCE 8 was the toughest exam I've ever sat for, and studying for that dramatically leveled up my skills.