Hot take: entry-level Azure certs are replacing what experience used to prove.
Posted by eckoonian@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 204 comments
15 years in infrastructure/networking here and I’ve avoided certs most of my career because operational experience mattered more in real environments.
Now I’m watching recruiters filter people out before a human even reads the CV unless Azure keywords and certs are present.
Finally starting with AZ-900 this week. Curious whether others think certs actually matter now, or whether we’ve just built an HR mini-game
M365Expert@reddit
Yes, I have the same experience. I'm starting certs too because AI and a lot of HR are to stupid to see experience in a resume and go straight to looking for CERTs.
fahque@reddit
Now? It's been this way for 20 years at least.
daverhowe@reddit
Been that way for a long time though.
Certs aren't about skill, they are about getting past the recruitment firewall. 😃
Nightblade178@reddit
How does the company know u have 15 years of experience or 1 year of experience 15 times over? That's their mentality when hiring. Also if most of the industry is asking for a cert, more companies follow suit so the market kinda snowballs over from there too.
Historical-Molasses2@reddit
10 years into my IT career at this point, my opinions on certs vs degrees vs experience has kinda changed. For reference, I have my Masters in IT Administration and Security, but also got into the field before I got a formal education and got my certs initially before getting into the field(my first IT job was tutoring others for thier certs)
Experience only: You have the most practical day to day skills. Even if you dont know how things work on a technical/theoretical level, you likely have the best understanding of the day to day operations and maintenance. These people also tend to be the slowest to learn and adopt new tech/concepts and also tend to be the worst at the social aspect of IT, be it sending out emails, coordinating with other teams, or any other communication. They also tend to have the highest amount of overconfident, stuck in thier way mentality, which tends to be more of a hindrance than a help when new problems arise.
Certs only: probably the rarest of the three and a sort of middle ground. They lack the width of knowledge a degree only IT professional has, nor do they have the practical skills of an experience only person, but what they do have their certs in, they tend to have a deeper understanding of than either of the two groups. They tend to be the specialists(when utilized properly). They, like formally trained professionals, show that they can pick up and learn things, and arguably show they can do it more reliably, as its easier to coast through classes than BS your way through most cert exams.
Degree only: all knowledge(assuming they didnt coast) and little practical application experience. Despite fitting into all three groups by the time I got my first sysadmin job, I'd say I fit into this group the most. They tend to have the highest rates of imposter syndrome, if only because of the amount of knowledge they know they dont know, and not having the experience to easily know how to do day to day tasks. They also tend to be the best when it comes to communication and collaboration with external teams. A fresh college graduate is less value in the short term compared to someone with even 5 years of experience but a person with degrees and experience will likely go the farthest, career wise, learn the fastest and be the least likely to get "stuck in thier ways".
If I had to pick one as a new hire, it would largely depend on the job, but if its meant to be a long term role meant for the employee to grow with the company Id go with the college student. In my experience its much easier to teach the college educated person the day to day tasks and tricks of the trade than it is to teach an experienced person how to write, document, and learn new concepts tech wise. Cert only isnt out of the running, but depending on the cert I'd be more inclined to hire them first for things like short term contracts.
Preferably having all three would be best(its certainly helped me) but all three kinds of IT people have their values and flaws. Ignore the people who say that certs or education are meaningless compared to real world experience. That kind of thinking always tends to be more cope than anything. On the other hand new professionals need to understand that just having a degree or just a few certs under your belt doesnt mean you know how to do your day to day job, and someone who hasn't been to school since before 9/11 and only has work experience likely knows more than you.
Slight_Manufacturer6@reddit
Experience has always mattered more than certs and it still does.
But it isn’t an either or proposition you should get both. Qualifications are stackable.
Experience is good but experience plus certs is better… like $100 is good, but $100 + $50 is better.
bolunez@reddit
This AI resume screening shit is going to cost a lot of employers good candidates.
Same_Recipe2729@reddit
Doesn't really matter to companies though. Their candidate pools are so massive.
BreathDeeply101@reddit
Remember the theory of "good enough." A lot of employers are going to be fine with the AI results because they feel they're good enough.
Then, they won't be able to connect the dots as to why quality of work is going down, and figure "as long as the work ain't great we might as well get it for cheaper and offshore it."
discosoc@reddit
Not really. Labor pool is large enough that it doesn’t matter how many “qualified” candidates get missed or filtered as long as they are able to hire someone.
GoogleDrummer@reddit
Employers don't give a shit. If they did we wouldn't have to play the job hopping game every couple years to get raises that are worth a damn.
rybl@reddit
While I agree with you, I understand the appeal. I’m hiring a sys admin right now. It’s been open for a week and we’ve already gotten several hundred applicants. We don’t use AI review of any sort and basically my entire week this week is going to be reviewing resumes. Most of them so far have not really been qualified, but it still takes me 5 minutes or so to review one. I still think it’s worth manually reviewing them all, but I do understand why companies don’t. It’s incredible the volume of applicants that flood in with these online job boards and most are terrible.
tankerkiller125real@reddit
Where I work, we drop all the resumes into OCR and then manually search and review from there. It speeds things up a bit, but importantly there's no AI filtering beforehand, so we can find good candidates that don't have all the fancy key words.
Darkzed1@reddit
Big time but I don't see it stopping unfortunately.
Jaereth@reddit
I mean why would it?
Get hired - cool. You can now work for a manager who can barely write who has AI compose his Emails to his manager who can't be bothered so he has AI compose his replies.
Your manager gets the wordy response, has copilot "Summarize" the email for him, then tells it to compose one for his team to get them going on these objectives.
So you get your directives triple AI filtered lol. You better know how to play the game.
eckoonian@reddit (OP)
I cannot agree more
my-ka@reddit
az-900 is fir managers and students to get credits
for am engineer it is a joke
stempoweredu@reddit
This. The AZ-900 is a sales pitch in exam form. It familiarizes you with the product but none of the technicals. Start AZ-104 and work from there.
Sieran@reddit
I just wish I wasn't burnt the fuck out at the end of my day to even think of looking at a cert in AWS.
Get a cert! But pay for it yourself. Also... don't study at work. BTW, I need 120% from you again today.
Yet, I work on AWS shit all day.
gekalx@reddit
Sometimes you gotta spend a few weekends studying or taking courses to be better than your haters
Sieran@reddit
I have not bit off the AWS cert stick yet, but I am starting terraform and related github processes. Github was for my scripts before, now I gotta work in different repos, approval processes, branches, etc... using that to manage SGs now... soon keys based on another teams work.
It's just a large shift from what I am used to managing AD, GP, DNS, etc... and apparently I need to know this now according to management if I still want to manage AD (not Entra, on-prem AD and related services).
guy1195@reddit
This. Just handed in my notice and started up on my own instead.
Viharabiliben@reddit
Same here. Work my ass off all day and into the night, often weekends too. Be on call after hours.
Oh and study and get all these certs, too.
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
Wait til it’s a kpi and has a deadline or you don’t meet expectations ……. That sucks big time.
Viharabiliben@reddit
Been there, done that. Been KPI’ed right out of a job because the boss and I didn’t get along. Should have known that after getting the job after just a single Teams interview.
mrheh@reddit
Right with ya brother, keep on swimming.
nomoreyankeemywankee@reddit
Certs do matter, but experience will always win. That being said, AI is easily tricked as well.. Not Suggesting it but saying something like Took 38 Hours of AZ-900 😄 Two can play that game.
guy1195@reddit
"I have fully completed the AZ-900, in spirit, Due to my 10+ years of experience." 🤣
Malbushim@reddit
That's smart lmao
Easik@reddit
Uhh.. a certain country has been churning out endless useless people with paper certifications and no experience for over a decade. AZ-900 is an absolute joke that I passed with like 30m of effort.
guy1195@reddit
I just got put into a team of people with way more certs than me (I have literally none so definitely not hard to beat). One of them has never even logged into Azure before, yet has 5+ certs. I quit already.
Passing a cert doesn't mean shit haha.
hobovalentine@reddit
If it's the country I think it is then even those certs are suspect and they might have paid someone to take the exam for them or just used straight up forgery.
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
I’ve got messages on reddit asking me to sit the az104 for people. No idea how that would even work - maybe in India they can pay off the proctors or something.
hobovalentine@reddit
Yeah the testing sites are just corrupt and you can pay them off to have someone else take the test and that's not even taking into consideration the "dumps" floating around which are leaked from testing sites.
jlassen72@reddit
Just lie and say you have them.
If anybody asks to see proof say "oh. That was a typo. sorry."
Fatel28@reddit
there are a lot of people out there who have worked in IT for decade(s) and haven't broken out of t1/t2
I can't remember where I heard this, but I've heard it put like having 1 year of experience 10 times vs 10 years of experience. A cert can "prove" the latter, or at least that you can grasp more difficult concepts.
That or companies just wnat to up their partnership statuses and certs are a requirement for that. We are almost entirely an AWS shop but we still have techs get azure certs for the improved margin partnership grants
davy_crockett_slayer@reddit
By T1/T2, you mean help desk? I’ve noticed that at work. One or two go the extra mile and want to move up. The others have kind of given up :( There’s guys in their 60s in service desk.
Nyrrix_@reddit
I was a student worker at my college and had two managers: one who was a thirty something who worked in facilities, then got hired as an IT help desk tech, and was recently promoted to an analyst position. Other technician, technically on yhe same level, has been there for 25 years or so and is retiring in December.
The one who was promoted was very enthusiastic about be applying to their old position (still in the works rn) and encouraged me to do it because she knows I'm the type to try to commit to the role and learn. But i was just a bit shocked to hear how they described some of the issues with the older coworker, since i only got a little sense of it while working as a student
AntagonizedDane@reddit
I could go somewhere else, get a 30% wage increase, and now be salaried with 50h work weeks.
Or I could stay where I'm already paid more than enough to fund my lifestyle, retirement etc, and working 37h per week.
davy_crockett_slayer@reddit
Nothing wrong with that. I make more than double what SD earns, but I’m an SRE.
DueDisplay2185@reddit
Not everyone can be a manager. Though everyone can and should have a life outside of working their 9-5 and leaving their frontal lobe at the door on the way out every evening
Viharabiliben@reddit
Not everyone should be a manager. Lord knows I’ve had my fair share of them.
timbotheny26@reddit
Moving up doesn't require you to become a manager though.
pzschrek1@reddit
Especially not from t1/t2
Fatel28@reddit
I wasn't really talking in terms of management. Helpdesk can graduate to sysadmin, solutions architect, or systems engineering work too.
Fatel28@reddit
Yeah helpdesk or whatever the equivalent is. I work at an MSP and some of our customers have their own IT that we handle escalations from. A lot of those guys have 10-20 yoe and sometimes it blows my mind how little they actually know
Definitely not unique to IT but I think it's more common
NotThePersona@reddit
When I was 28 I was hired (I was the wrong choice for this) to review a help desk setup at a government agency in Australia.
The youngest guy (And it was 100% male) was 34, the oldest 64 and retiring in a year.
So I was coming in as a 28 year at 2 whole levels above them to review what they did and how it should be structured.
Project was a mess from top to bottom, ended poorly (Well after I left) and I vowed to never work in Government again if I could avoid it.
davy_crockett_slayer@reddit
I mean, yeah :/ They’re super personable, and staff loves them. I’ve been mentoring someone to get out of service desk. He’s really good and works hard. Unfortunately, with the terrible economy, we’re not really hiring or expanding our teams. Maybe in 2027 after the midterms.
pjtexas1@reddit
After 35 years of IT management some welcome semi-retirement and doing something they can do in their sleep.
PaulTheMerc@reddit
Can I ask you to elaborate on what this means?(Not in IT, learning networking)
jdanton14@reddit
As someone who's consulted, trained, and been around a lot of IT shops, 10x of 1 year experience is common. Certs themselves aren't valuable, however the knowledge you gain studying for a cert is.
You might only use 20% of a products surface area in your normal job. The cert makes you learn about that other 80%. It's not the same as using it, but at least you know what it is.
caylyn953@reddit
Yes, people who have only experience but no certs often have big BIG gaps in their knowledge
While those who have certs but no experience are going to totally flounder in the real world.
Ideally you want to have a balance of both.
MurkyInvestigator810@reddit
The problem seems to be that hiring managers don't understand certs are not equivalent to experience for senior roles, while that may be fine for the middle and entry level positions (of course varying based on role specifics).
dav3n@reddit
I dunno, I think there are a lot of countries out there that have diluted this a fair bit. Some have essentially created an industry where you can pay a relatively small amount and get yourself a cert despite having no clue about what they're certified in. We had a guy on a Service Desk telling us all about how in his country it was almost a kind of tourism industry, people would travel there and just collect a bunch of certs so they could be a "skilled" worker overseas. This particular guy apparently had certs in a number of things but if you put him in front of the console for it he didn't know what it was. I'm not saying everyone is the same as him, there's a lot of good skilled workers coming out of those areas and it's certainly not isolated to foreign workers, but there's a lot of certified clueless people out there.
Chatbots have made it even worse, the new guy here is on a work visa with about 4 years experience in IT and a handful of certs in Azure, AWS, ServiceNow dev, etc but also seems to basically live with a Claude window on a screen. Sometimes it's hard to tell if he knows what he's talking about or if he's just repeating what the chatbot says. We had another guy in on a contract for a project who had all these certs and alleged experience but had no clue what he was doing, answered questions with more questions, and his "doco" was just some generic templated Word document that had some well known IT course publisher as the author. We even had to call the recruiter to confirm he actually did all the things he claimed, and eventually got walked from the building.
fAAbulous@reddit
To be fair, getting a cert often doesn‘t require you to use the console. Instead it‘s often just a multiple choice tedt where it‘s easy enough to figure out the correct answer, even if you don‘t fully understand the question, just because you can read and understand English properly.
For example, I‘ve never touched the Azure Admin console, managed a cloud host or learned the concepts behind a virtual environment, but just from aquiring IT knowledge on-the-job, mainly in M365 and general IT administration, I was easily able to do certs like AZ-305, CISSP and AWS Architect Professional.
do_IT_withme@reddit
About 25 years ago I was running a project installing remote test equipment in data centers. I was up in NYC and bosses sent me a new guy who was MCSE certified. At the time we had to use a modem and phone line to connect back to the office. The VPN software we used had one issue, it wouldn't work if your laptop had a NIC. Simple solution was to disable the network card in windows. First night there new guy comes to my room complaining he couldn't connect to the office over the VPN. I explained all he had to do was disable the NIC in windows and it would work. He left ad came back 2 hours later to ask how to disable the NIC. He had a Microsoft certified solution Expert cert and 2 hours and couldn't figure it out. Granted this was back before AI or even Google so it was much harder to fake it till you make it. He didn't make it and was sent home a couple of days later.
Moral of the story some people are good at taking tests without knowing the material. We called them paper tigers. A cert doesn't PROVE you know the subject of the cert, it just proves you passed the test. And this has been an issue for decades.
I had a very successful IT career and the only cert I ever had was A+ ad when I took it they had just added the windows operating environment (I guess I still have it since they didn't expire when I got mine)
caylyn953@reddit
Good grief! Sounds like outright fraud? What country does this?
dav3n@reddit
India certainly seems to be one place, but I suspect it's relatively common in places where large parts of the local population want to migrate. A mate used to work for an immigration department and said it happens a lot
jdanton14@reddit
my writing was assuming you legit pass the cert. Fun story, I wanted to take an exam while traveling to that "that country". and there was a whole different anti-fraud protocol (that clearly gets bypassed) so I said scew it.
caylyn953@reddit
What was the protocol?
Fatel28@reddit
Agreed. I had been using AWS for ~2 years before I got my solutions architect associate. In just the training for the associate, I learned SO much about all the various services and how to make them interact. Same thing again a year later when I got the solutions architect pro. The information was amazing, and a lot of it I would not have learned without doing those certs.
jdanton14@reddit
I got lucky, MS paid for me to go to India to teach a bunch of the outsourcing places Azure in 2016. I had to study everything to prep.
AntagonizedDane@reddit
Ziggy_the_third@reddit
Great, so next time I see some incompetent msp from India, I know who to message about it. /r
MajStealth@reddit
So you were the one....
fumar@reddit
The cert proves you at least studied and are capable of learning something.
I put more stock in something that's practical though like CKA, RHCSA, etc. I liked that AWS tried to implement a hands on section of the sysops associate but that seems to have died last I checked.
Zerewa@reddit
Just like how people cry about universities giving out diplomas for bruteforcing your way through exams and shit, but it proves that you have at least some sort of strategy to meet other people's expectations of problemsolving.
Now, have I seen masters' students completely incapable of opening a very obvious plaintext file to see what's in it before asking chatgpt to write code for the task at hand? Absolutely, and I cried a little when I realized. Did I also see some extremely creative solutions and great lines of thought by people who turned out to have actual real world experience and professional integrity? More than enough, yes, and the exam task was actually meant to throw them off balance just a little.
jdanton14@reddit
Some the Azure exams have labs, but it's hit or miss, depending on what capacity constraints are. It's gone back and forth like 3x.
jacenat@reddit
Is this a typo? Because to me a cert can't prove you actually worked with the subject in a prod environment. Especially not 10 years. Am I going crazy?
Jaereth@reddit
I work with someone who's had 3 months experience 120 times...
Fuskeduske@reddit
Problem is, most certs take a mere 6-8 weeks to attain for a junior = Making them redundant in actually proving skill
sweetteatime@reddit
IT and tech is about adapting and changing. That’s how it’s always been. Refusing to do what you see is the new norm because you don’t like it only shoots you in the foot (that’s a metaphor for the Reddit mods in case some chud reports the metaphor). I have a cert stack that I started to maintain after LLMs because the new “big thing.” Certs aren’t the enemy.
Gabe_Isko@reddit
The certs unlock partner status and marketing funds from biz/dev accounts most of the time. There are many situations where a recruiter will higher you for the cert because they get a kickback from the partner status fund on their commission or whatever.
Medical-Ask7149@reddit
It’s HR badges. It’s a quantifiable way to justify the budget for your salary on paper. We have X certified X in X department that’s why it costs X. Get the certs. Become a cert hog. Wear them on your LinkedIn like a third world warlord wears metals on his uniform.
Grrl_geek@reddit
Yeah, all those gif''s look great in email signatures. 🤣🤣
Hier0phant@reddit
Its an mini game, but the hands on experience makes the cert actually mean something.
TheNewl0gic@reddit
Certs mean shit
Witte-666@reddit
The xx-900 certificates are not even close to hands on experience. They are just basic knowledge and imo just good enough for sales reps to know basic stuff about Microsoft products and how they work.
abuhd@reddit
In the certs section of your resume, just put the words you need to be there, in brackets (working towards) so HR will see the words, and not skip you.
dlongwing@reddit
The solution is the same one it always was: Have someone with real-world experience wade through the slush pile of resumes and pick out a handful with real potential to fit a role. Interview those people and pick the best possible one.
The last round of hiring I did was the first one where we worked with a recruiting firm and it was eye opening. The quality of candidates they put forward was absolutely atrocious. I wound up bypassing them entirely and reading the entire resume pool by hand because their recommendations were so bad.
MacrossX@reddit
MS certs = can you memorize powershell commands for two weeks?
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
I am getting the az-104 for this reason alone.. Got to pas that HR check box..
eckoonian@reddit (OP)
What made you consider the az-104 over the az-900 out of curiosity?
jdanton14@reddit
AZ-104 is a real exam. The 900 exams (all of them) are largely focused at non-technical candidates. The 900s are all 4 answer multiple choice questions. AZ-104 is pretty damn hard to pass unless you've used Azure.
MasterChiefmas@reddit
It's pretty hard even if you have, because it covers so much of Azure. Day to day, most of us aren't going to use every single thing in Azure. Even what's in the cert.
Frisnfruitig@reddit
Lots of BS questions as well though. They'll ask you which license covers which specific features or they'll ask you to choose between 4 RBAC roles that sound exactly the same. Stuff that is pointless to memorize
dustojnikhummer@reddit
Like that is useful if they keep changing it every quarter
GallowWho@reddit
Dumb question too when you can just ask copilot now.
Nosib23@reddit
It's open book though (they let you use MS Learn) so you don't have to memorise them
Frisnfruitig@reddit
You don't have time to review every single question though. Also the Pearview software is totally garbage. You can access ms learn indeed, but it crashes easily.
RikiWardOG@reddit
That's why I hate the 104, I passed it a few years back. Who touches this stuff regularly... no one. Like it proves you could study for an exam, not that you know how to implement something in a real world environment. Don't get me wrong, certs definitely prove that you at least apply yourself and have some knowledge, but I would never take them over experience
dasunt@reddit
Are the 900 exams "stuff you should know" or "stuff an average person would frequently look up"?
hobovalentine@reddit
A lot of it is basic stuff but then again a lot of it is stuff that Azure admins don't even take into consideration so I don't think you can breeze through it without going through MS learn to learn about all the acronyms and terms because a lot of it is just memorization.
tankerkiller125real@reddit
It took me 2 days of reading the study materials before I scheduled the exam. It was basically all stuff I use every single day, or have used at some point, or played around with a bit.
The only reason I even bothered to take the exam was because I got a free voucher from attending on of the online conferences.
_SundayNightDrive@reddit
Its base level specifics for the product. So the AZ900 exam wont ask for anything too in-depth but it will ask about general things like how does fail over work or what regions is it available in.
Microsoft has their free self-paced cert prep courses with practice exams which I've found to be pretty good with relaying the info you'll need to know. Took me a week and a half to to read through the course work and 10-15 minutes to get through the exam.
I also don't list the 900 certs on my resume or LinkedIn and only have a few of them to appease a prior manager who wanted us to do training.
hobovalentine@reddit
The AZ-900 does have a few non multiple choice questions but not that many
jdanton14@reddit
I've never taken it. I authored the original exam, and at that time it was only A/B/C/D. I did recently take AI-900 (consulting firm bonus) and I think it a 100% MC.
RikiWardOG@reddit
900 is a joke tbh and isn't worth anybody's time. the 104 at least has some meat to it. But imo, azure certs are kinda ass. They don't really test on ability and test on how well you can cram for a test on settings you may or may not ever touch and if you do, you might touch once. Then there's the stupid PS fill in the blank type shit they do. NOBODY memorizes cmdlets like that unless they use those few lines of code like all the time, which is rare.
UpperAd5715@reddit
AZ900 is watching a video course and going for the exam, if you don't eat crayonz thru the nose for breakfast you'll probably pass. It's basically a brochure with an accompanying test. Companies send their people working administration to get this cert for partnership bonuses.
The AZ104 is much more in-depth and actually challenging if you don't work with most of the azure ecosystem. took me a month or two of a few hours a day because it's basically 40 different products you kind of have to know on a level just beyond superficial and then some you need to know how they interact with eachother.
I won't be working with azure as i'm going into networking&security in an MSP but i'll damn sure renew it every year due to the effort that it took me. Renewing yearly is free and an online open book test you can do at home. As many tries as you want
jimmothyhendrix@reddit
Az900 isn't very valuable it's surface level concepts
Nietechz@reddit
It's a fundamental level, for very beginners.
jimmothyhendrix@reddit
Yes so not very valuable
mouse6502@reddit
I remember that class. It was just between recess, and lunch.
ReadyAimTranspire@reddit
How about them apples
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
We had sales people doing the exam at a csp.
smshing@reddit
The 900 is worthless.
caylyn953@reddit
Any "xx-900" from Microsoft merely proves you know a few buzzwords, it is very broad but with absolutely zero depth
Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit
I did the az-900 last year out of boredom.. took like 2 weeks from start to taking the test..
TacoTimebomb@reddit
One thing you can try that I have found helpful, try writing prompts in the eyes of a hiring manager. And dont only do it once, these situations will continue coming up. Something like, “im looking for a skilled azure admin (or whatever title) and have a few resumes that have the az-900 cert. another resume has the az-104 cert.
Your chatbot will tell you how introductory the az-900 is, especially if the hiring manager is using aggressive language prompting or if their ATS is targeting specific keyword/skills, or if they ask the chatbot to raise red flags on potential lack of skills/experience/certs. Only az-900 is a red flag for someone with 5+ years of experience.
I’m actually also working on az-104 right now, already have the 900, it definitely helps to have it, as long as you have other advanced ones backing it up.
thortgot@reddit
The 104 is a much more comprehensive cert. The 900 is introductory.
The applied skills certs work well too and are free.
glassmanjones@reddit
For a second I thought you were a Chernobyl reactor operator
diablette@reddit
"Trying is the first step toward failure."
ihaxr@reddit
Make sure you read through this page a few times. I had like 10 questions about scale sets. You could reason out the answers if you have the time, but this is the only exam I've taken in my entire life that I was close to running out of time on. The case studies really kicked my ass.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machine-scale-sets/virtual-machine-scale-sets-autoscale-portal
Longjumping_Square_2@reddit
Good looking out. I took it last September and got a 570. I definitely had like 12 questions I didn’t get to answer by the end of the test because I got hit with the case studies out of the gate and spent too much time second guessing myself.
deteknician@reddit
To me as a working manager they still don't really matter. I've had people with certs and master degrees in computer science that couldn't tell me the difference between a public and private IP, couldn't explain NAT and even had one who had to Google how to get a hostname on a computer. I do some certs for my own fin, like Kuberetes or some Azure ones and if I see these on a resume it shows that at least the person is interested but when I interview I ignore them and ask real wield questions. As for HR mini game, yeah probably need to do them now to get past it.
OregonTechHead@reddit
That's always been the case when dealing with recruiters.
Jazzlike-Vacation230@reddit
Was studying a 365 basic cert and they retired it in march. Now it’s all Azure Azure Azure. The fundamentals just disappeared. What is Microsoft smoking seriously
Speed-Tyr@reddit
I just hate fucking taking tests in general. Especially when it comes to anything Microsoft related. They change that shit constantly and have so much bloat on everything.
Valdaraak@reddit
I put no faith in any certificate that consists solely of multiple choice questions.
And if HR ever sent me a stack of resumes to review and not a single one of them was certless, I would ask them to re-send me what they got since I didn't put a cert requirement on the description.
Secret_Account07@reddit
I took AZ-900 years ago since my work offered it. It was pretty useless tbh.
I’ve learned more supporting Azure VMs by 100 times. Idk why they think these entry level certs matter
Stonewalled9999@reddit
HR and AI use buzzword bingo
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
Az-104 would be the useful one in that scenario
But certs without experience doesn’t make for a good admin.
Weak_Activity9994@reddit
Thoughts on getting MS-102? Administering and implementing Intune and endpoint management seems valuable compared to possibly other MS certs?
caylyn953@reddit
Probably get MD-102 or/and SC-300 first??
Weak_Activity9994@reddit
Oops meant to say thought about MD 102
caylyn953@reddit
Is Modern Workplace / 365 Engineer where you want to focus on?
If so, MD-102 is probably the best Associates first cert to get. SC-300 2nd most.
Simple-Kaleidoscope4@reddit
I rate people with certs. I will move them the interview list. It shows initative.
I also put a cert a year in kpis.
Though if you do interview and cant tell me how to log into the azure portal the interview is done. Its happend more than once.
Jimmyv81@reddit
25 years experience here. Been looking for for a new role for the past few months and nothing but crickets. Took a couple of days off to study for az104 and passed first attempt. Now all recruiters suddenly want to be my friend.
Can confirm that filtering/ai is looking for for keywords for job applications.
Environmental-Sir-19@reddit
Not really , market is just bad , someone with no experience or low experience with certs won’t get a job over someone with experience
AlexisFR@reddit
Most still don't care about certs here, only Bac+X diplomas.
SiIverwolf@reddit
Which is ironic considering certs always meant more to me than a degree or diploma.
AdmRL_@reddit
This is not new at all?
Before Azure certs it was MCSE, CCNA, CCNP, etc. Certs have always been used as a 'great filter' for applicants for a lot of firms going back to the 90s.
BomB191@reddit
az-900 is a sales pitch cert. you learn what azure can do......
eman0821@reddit
Certs doesn't mean much without experience. You don't need certification if you have years of relevant cloud experience. I'm a Cloud Engineer with any cloud related certifications nor a college degree. I was a Linux Sysadmin prior.
Plenty-Hold4311@reddit
True, I found the one cert that actually helped me learn so much was the CCNA
SirLoremIpsum@reddit
this has been happening for decades. This is normal recruiter stuff.
certs and buzzswords on your resume is normal recruiter HR mini games.
Due_Peak_6428@reddit
Az-900 biggest waste of time
beigemore@reddit
I still hire based on real experienced after deciding if I think a person is capable of actual troubleshooting. Lots of certs, little experience, poor social (soft) skills, and not conveying to me enough during the interview that you know how to dig into issues is a “no” for me. You also have to show really want the job.
raifeller1984@reddit
recruiters and hr always looked for certifications, it’s not new…it’s just that azure is the flavor of the week
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
Management likes certs. They can boast about how qualified their teams are. Bonus points if it’s an msp or csp who use it for attracting customers
bananajr6000@reddit
I’ve got 20+ years of experience and can’t get an interview. Working on certs now
DizzyAmphibian309@reddit
I did this many years ago. Just go to testking and buy the exams and memorize the answers. You can learn the content later if you need it. Just be sure to pick an area and go deep rather than getting certs all over the place. If you show up with AWS and Azure and Google and Redhat certs, I'll know you just memorized the exams, but if you have Pro certs in one area, it'll look more convincing.
By all means learn the content, but if you're convinced that certs will get you the interview, don't waste time studying.
caylyn953@reddit
Maybe it just means the person is multicloud skilled? Which is very valuable itself
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
This. I did azure and aws exams at a csp, supporting multicloud clients. (Solutions architect, developer, etc in both clouds)
I’ve since specialised in Azure.
No cheating here.
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
How is it wasting time? I’ve done maybe 15 certs or more if you count VMware yearly new exams. But I’ve used the things I’ve learned so often - the time taken to deep dive and test deploy have paid off
wesinatl@reddit
We call that ageism. Welcome to the old farts club.
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
Bonus points if you’re a woman who hasn’t coloured her hair …
Things we have to do.
ihaxr@reddit
I did the same thing... got my AZ-104 and was going to take my DP-300 but I got a job at a place with absolutely no cloud presence and (for regulatory purposes) will never have anything in the cloud.
tarvijron@reddit
Gratz on the weirdo manufacturing or niche financial industry job. Ride it till your ear hairs get long.
Savings_Art5944@reddit
I had a client who does stuff for NASA, and they were on-prem for everything.
Viharabiliben@reddit
I worked at NASA a couple of years ago. They have a few things in the secure Gov Cloud, and growing, but certainly not a lot. The group I was in had everything on prem. We had equipment and systems in every one of the 20+ sites around the country.
tarvijron@reddit
I am also old and I am still getting interviews (though not as many as I used to) and I do think it's down to me getting modern certs. Showing a hiring manager that you have both the experience and wisdom of long term admin/engineering work but also the ambition and flexibility to continue to pursue modern tech helps, IMO. I definitely work with and I'm sure you work with a lot of old timers who ... the last thing they learned new is a vintage tech now. Why would a hiring manager want to bring somebody on who is just going to be grumpy AND lost. I try to be grumpy but up to date, I feel like it's the best I can do to keep this circus going until retirement age.
slitz4life@reddit
I understand part of this but I also understand having the cert. example my network admin has been a network admin for 15+ years he can definitely say he has 15 years of networking experience. He was thrown into that job he was not a network admin to begin had little to no technology experience (was more sales front end people person) and has no networking certs. He can do a lot of the basic stuff of networking because he has learned through doing but there are times when we will talk about things that are on the CCNA for example that he will admit he does not know about
Me and my VP have talked about it and once he retires the app will require a minimum of CCNA with 5 years experience.
ImCaffeinated_Chris@reddit
I'm over 30 years and have only a few certs current. AWS and azure. Almost my whole career without any until about 7 years ago for cloud.
AWS SA Pro opens a lot of doors. Not an easy one though.
eckoonian@reddit (OP)
I feel I am in the exact same boat
eat-the-cookiez@reddit
If I see certs on a resume, it shows that they are committed to learning, made an effort and keep up to date (annual renewals)
Certs and no or little experience is an entry level person trying
No certs = not trying
vivkkrishnan2005@reddit
Here in India they are made to work pre-sales. And have zero idea going about it. Microsoft large partner.
neon909@reddit
Worst possible timeline.
zatset@reddit
Filtering by degree is something I might understand, filtering by certs - not really. Even when it comes to experience, if we are to be realistic - general experience and fundamental understanding is advisable, but cannot be expected that a candidate will have experience with the exact technology used.
Fundamentals never expire. Experience can be relevant if not exactly with the technology that is used. And certs are nice to have if you deal with particular technology, but otherwise can be said waste of money if it will be never used, as they expire.
My 2 cents.
JoeMiner79@reddit
Dont worry experience is always first!
tarvijron@reddit
HR mini game but you gotta play to get your resume in front of the real hiring managers. I never avoided certs I just avoided paying for them myself until recently. AZ900 is easy, take the ms learn practice test a couple dozen times and you’ll get the idea, it’s “cloud concepts: Microsoft jargon edition”.
Viharabiliben@reddit
It’s gotta play to get paid these days. In a tough economy like today, having certs matter. When the economy and the hiring is good, they matter a lot less.
fadingroads@reddit
Just put all known certs in size 1 font in white font somewhere in the document.
You're welcome.
davy_crockett_slayer@reddit
In a bad job market, everything matters. Education, experience, and certs. If you don’t go the extra mile, someone else will.
rootkode@reddit
And they’ll do it for less money.
am_i_a_towel@reddit
It’s unfortunate, because some of us couldn’t care less about Azure.
rootkode@reddit
As if Azure is the only cloud platform around.
WhatThePuck9@reddit
There are two types of people who I view as suspicious, people who have earned very single cert offered by MSFT and those who avoid them completely.
Certs have always proved experience. What the hell is the point of a cert if not that?
disclosure5@reddit
Countargument: Certs have always existed to get your foot in the door in order to get your first job and get some experience. So how can they prove experience?
WhatThePuck9@reddit
You know there are expert and architect level certs that some people take seriously, right?
disclosure5@reddit
I'm entirely familiar with HR listing expert level certs for L1 helpdesk yes.
WhatThePuck9@reddit
Yeah the only people who get certs are L1 help desk. 🙄
eckoonian@reddit (OP)
I get that and understand it but if you have certs in stuff that is transferable and have been doing the same job with similar responsibilities
WhatThePuck9@reddit
My company is a MSFT partner so we are constantly pushed to certify because there are incentives to do so. Taking the Az-900 after 15 years of experience might feel insulting, I could understand if it does. Just be glad it’s a relatively easy one I guess.
EugeneBelford1995@reddit
I only saw one other person mention it so I will: hands on matters. This goes for certs and work experience.
JMHO, but multiple choice certs are a bit like working as a manager who just tells other people to secure xyz or setup and configure xyz but has never done it themselves.
I'm a big fan of hands on certs though, have done 2 SANS exams that had a hands on portion (roughly 90 multiple choice questions with 11 100% hands on ones), Administering AD DS (free, technically a "credential" but I totally put it on my LinkedIn as a cert), 2 other exams that were about 1/3 multiple choice and 2/3 hands on, and 4 100% hands on exams.
I even had to pass a shorter 100% hands on exam to renew one of those hands on certs.
I had a huge argument with some idiot on some dinky FB group about this. He kept saying that "certs are paper and don't matter". I told him he had no idea what he was talking about as he had never taken a single hands on exam.
AZ-900 is easy u/eckoonian. If you're already working on Azure you could probably just walk in and pass it tomorrow. It's also good for life. Other Azure/Entra/M365 certs require you to pass a free quiz on Microsoft Learn every year to keep them current.
crutchy79@reddit
Can confirm on the AZ-900. Worked in Azure for a total of 2 months, only ever had on prem experience, passed with flying colors. I listened to some John Savill, got bored about halfway through, and then just decided to take it.
shell_shocked_today@reddit
This has always been the way - it used to be that a Cisco or MS certified engineering cert was what you needed to get past HR. Now a cloud cert.
Same shit, different shovel.
Pale-Price-7156@reddit
The job market is so borked, I really don't know if you are right or wrong.
I will say this though:
I have well over a dozen certs.. and I'm at the point to where I can sit down and do practice questions on a topic I haven't even studied and get close to a passing grade.
I don't think that means that I know everything about everything, but I think it does indicate that an engineer has seen so many scenarios, they can use process of elimination to completely discard the wrong choices and turn every multiple question test into a 50/50 and pass with reasonable guesses.
Again, I have no idea what that proves... but I am not getting any replies from anyone... for anything :(
Gabe_Isko@reddit
Unfortunately, you just gotta get them. You are right - they don't prove anything about experience. It's a compliance thing. As in "will this guy comply".
I do the AWS ones, but you just pay 20 bucks or whatever for the udemy course, 10 bucks for the practice tests, spend 3-4 weeks doing the course and drilling the practices and you should be good.
hugglesthemerciless@reddit
You're about a decade late with this take but yes you are right
DisjointedHuntsville@reddit
Meritocracy goes to die in the corporate world 🤮
I've seen atrocious staffing and promotion decisions that wouldn't stand scrutiny of the most lazy auditors routinely employed as standard operating process. Nepotism, self preservation, sheer incompetence . .you name it.
The best thing about the upcoming AI horizon is when it replaces the middle management layer instead of the worker bees. You'll be surprised how much productivity is tied up in asinine little countless decisions such as this where people without a clue are hiring people without a clue because they have a piece of paper issued by people who don't have a clue.
commissar0617@reddit
who do you think they'll get to set up this AI?
DisjointedHuntsville@reddit
Once it's mainstream, no one needs to get anyone to set anything up. When the iPhone launched, Apple didn't do Enterprise sales. Individuals themselves requested iPhone provisioning and it became standard issue. Same with Macs.
Any new tech that sufficiently embedded in the human experience doesn't need to be forced onto people like Microsoft copilot subscriptions.
0zer0space0@reddit
I’m a sys admin for the last 9 years (level 3 at current employer; level 4 at my previous employer; but there’s truly no difference in the scope or difficulty of the work); 18 years overall in IT although my first 7 years were as a QA tester. I have zero certs. I have a bachelor’s of art, not even anything computer related. I keep getting jobs through word of mouth e.g. someone I worked with before who is familiar with my work moves on somewhere else and eventually throws a job description way they think matches and helps me get in if I want it. That’s how I’ve gotten every single job. I worry a lot that some day it all falls apart and I have to rely on certs instead of experience
GullibleDetective@reddit
It was always the case since ccna and comptia dug in
silkee5521@reddit
We would never hire someone that only held certs and no hands-on experience. That's a disaster waiting to happen.
Hashrunr@reddit
This discussion about certs has been going on before you even started your career. Certs get you past some HR checkpoints. Certs also show you have a baseline of knowledge about a topic, assuming you actually passed the exam and people check. It doesn't show working knowledge. If you're not happy with the people that are getting hired into your team, ask your boss to be part of the interview process.
BearcatPyramid@reddit
Eh, it was paper MCSE's in the early 2000's. Now it's Azure certs. History may not repeat exactly, but it sure echoes.
phungus1138@reddit
Certs and degrees help get your foot in the door.
phillymjs@reddit
I remember the 2000s, when diploma mills were turning out paper MCSEs who could pass the exams but couldn't troubleshoot their way out of a wet paper bag.
Two employers ago was an MSP that had a real hard-on for certs, since the more certified techs were on staff, the higher up the MSP moved in the vendor partner rankings. I haven't sat for a cert exam since I left there. My last employer didn't give a single fuck about them during the hiring process, they just cared about my experience.
Of course, that was when resumes were actually read by humans, but since we now live in the stupidest timeline where that is no longer the case...
hankhillnsfw@reddit
IMO azure is really hard to learn and I’d recommend AWS instead if you are just starting in cloud. It may just be how my brain is wired though, idk, AWS just seemed easier to learn.
eckoonian@reddit (OP)
Interesting take, do you think this is because you had more aws experience.
Any specific examples?
Yubbi45@reddit
HR Minigame added to the gauntlet
Superb_Raccoon@reddit
Where have you been since 2000?
flattop100@reddit
That is the whole point of certifications.
Misocainea@reddit
I see this as saving me time.
The kind of orgs that operate like that aren't the kind of orgs I want to work for anyway.
Malbushim@reddit
I didn't get my first cert until I had been in tech for 13 years. There is a point where it feels like youve got not shot without them
fumar@reddit
Don't bother with az-900 if you have azure experience. Go straight to az-104. Az-900 is for sales people and total noobs to the cloud. Source: I have az-400 and AWS DevOps pro active right now.
SensitiveFrosting13@reddit
Yeah, this has been a thing here in Australia for a little while at least I've found. The barrier for entry is getting higher here, so a lot of places won't even look at you unless you have at least your basic certifications in $cloud.
ExceptionEX@reddit
Automation always filters out practical experience in favor of verifiable things, same thing happened with computer programmers in the mid 2000s. A CS degree became a must didn't matter what you knew
Common-Towel-8484@reddit
15 years in IT and never had a certificate. I’ve risen from entry level help desk through systems engineer roles, to cloud systems manager, and now more recently as an AI Platform Engineer. I also have very good soft skills so I’m known in my area. I can explain things very well to non technical leadership. Certs may help but I have found experience has been better for me.
AZ-900 is also not really made for people who have been in the field. I would start with 104.
haklor@reddit
I had extremely strong experience in my job before last. I took a new job due to the type of opportunity that it was, but unfortunately found that it wasnt a good fit for me so I started looking. My resume did not get past the filters for the first few months. I finally put the skills of my previous position into certifications. AZ-104 and 305, SC-200 and 300. I had projects on my resume speaking to those same skills, but recruiters did not contact me until I got the certs. After I got those though, it was within a month that I got a good offer.
mraztastic@reddit
It’s an HR / manager mini game. Sure it checks a box about whether you can answer the question, but I haven’t renewed any of my certs since 2021. It has no impact on my ability to do my day to day job or being able to explain our projects.
Note that the AZ-500 is going to be replaced fairly soon with the SC-500, which will include “AI”. I will probably go do the AZ version to hold off on the new cert awhile longer. AI principles at MSFT are not aligned together so I’d rather the dust settle there first.
BisonThunderclap@reddit
Experience always trumps certifications, but are you really surprised that companies filter off of certs? Especially in the day and age where everyone fluffs the shit out of their resumes because ChatGPT told them to?
Imagine if everyone who went to the DMV could just bypass the test if they said "Oh, I already know how to drive."
The test may not mean a lot to you, but not everyone can pass it.