RE: FreeOCP

Jeff,

Forgive me for jumping in on your rant, but I didn't see the original message.

All -

I do love this quote from the original email:

"In my humble opinion, any OCP DBA with experience is lot better than a OCP DBA without experience or an experienced DBA without OCP."

Really? Let's see.... I've been working as a DBA for 10+ years. I have met DBAs with OCP and experience, DBAs with experience and no OCP and DBAs with OCP and no experience.

OCP does not in and of itself confer anything. You can pass the tests and never have used the products that the tests are about. I passed the 8.0 to 8i upgrade without ever having worked with RMAN, partitioned tables, Advanced Queuing, local and global partitioned indexes etc -- I hadn't worked with 8i at ALL. What I *did* have were some hours spent at conferences listening to people present on these topics, and a really good ability to guess on standardized tests. I passed the 7.3 to 8.0 upgrade the same way.

So I have OCP and it still does not mean that I have experience in these things.

Jeff is right -- what counts is what the person knows, not how he/she learned it. The best explanation I have ever heard was from Michael Abbey who said "OCP will get you in the door, but it's up to you and your abilities to keep you there".

All OCP does is give upper management a warm and fuzzy (and often incorrect) feeling about the abilities of the candidate.

I don't look to see OCP on a resume before I interview someone. I don't reject the candidate if it is there, but it doesn't get you in the door to see me. Your resume does.

End of *MY* rant -- thanks Jeff :)

Rachel

>From: Jeffery Stevenson <jeff_at_mpv.com>
>Reply-To: ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
>Subject: RE: FreeOCP
>Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 06:41:28 -0800
>
> Every person should be judged on their own individual merits...a veteran
>DBA without OCP might have a box at home (or at work) where they take the
>latest and greatest and play with all the new features to figure out how
>they work and see what kind of advantages they bring. You could have a DBA
>with lots of years of experience recorded and an OCP that has just been
>soaking up money in a big contract for a consulting firm somewhere (and not
>really doing much), but they've had lots of time to take the tests (until
>they passed them all). There are too many variables in this world to judge
>a situation without getting all of the details...keeping that in mind, I
>cannot agree with your viewpoint that an OCP DBA with experience is going
>to
>be better than any other DBA--every situation is different. When
>interviewing other DBAs, I might make initial judgements after reviewing
>their resume, but (unless that resume is really, really bad) I won't rule
>them out until I've had a chance to talk with them. The DBA market is a
>tight market, why rule out any potentially good employee/help based on
>years
>of experience or a piece of paper? None of that can tell me exactly what
>kind of heart, will, intelligence, common sense, personality, or learning
>ability a person has. OCP and years of experience have definite merits
>when
>trying to get HR's attention and jacking prices in contracts, but if the
>person behind all that isn't really that good...
>
> Sorry about the rant, but I just couldn't sit back and listen to all
>this
>without saying something...
>
>Jeffery Stevenson
>Chief Databeast Tamer
>Medical Present Value, Inc.
>Austin, TX
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 4:51 PM
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>Hi friends!
> There is a lots of talk about Paper DBAs on this message board. With due
>respect to all the veteran DBAs without OCP and new DBAs with OCP, I would
>like to make few comments from my own personal experience (spanning 9
>years+
>in USA, Europe and India)
>
> I have come across lots of long time DBAs with no OCP, who frown on OCP
>DBAs. Working closely with them, I noticed that these longs really count
>the
>hours to bill the clients. To my dismay, I came across 10+ years Oracle
>DBAs
>who had no clue about OPS, Partitioning, Snapshots, Stand by etc... They
>have gained experience over the years only because the client could not
>find
>a better alternative.
>
> At the same time, in the interviews and at work, I come across lots of
>new
>OCP DBAs who can do the job, but need lots support and help from the other
>DBAs. (It is sort of baby sitting).
>
> I was a DBA without OCP for long time and I had no problem in finding
>jobs
>without OCP. After I started preparing for OCP, I came to know of so many
>things that I did not know before. In my humble opinion, any OCP DBA with
>experience is lot better than a OCP DBA without experience or an
>experienced
>DBA without OCP.
>
> OCP helped me as a DBA to understand things that I did not know before.
>It
>took lots of time, confidence and enthusiasm to be a OCP DBA and change my
>self in the process.
>
> Without OCP, I would have been a Pumpkin DBA, doing clueless things in a
>random and unilateral way. Let's face it... OCP or No OCP is a matter of
>choice. But it helps to be OCP than be left-out and looking at SOUR
>GRAPES!!!
>
>Rama
>OCP DBA with experience!
>
>
>--
>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
>--
>Author: Rama Malladi
> INET: rmalladi_at_inteliant.com
>
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