Re: Oracle certification - Worth the hard work?

On 12/08/05, Johnson, George <GJohnson_at_gam.com> wrote:
> I was thinking
> purely on the merits of being able to secure a job over someone who doesn't
> have certification. I studied my 8i when they came out but ran out of cash
> before I could afford the tests, since never bothered!

If a company ever turned me down for a job on the basis that I didn't have OCP (rather than because I didn't have enough/right sort of experience) then I'd immediately advise everyone I know to sell any stock they have in that company.

Certifcation, in most cases, proves two things. The ability to read and the ability to retain what you read long enough to pass the exam. I flirted with the idea of getting my OCP a few years ago (8i, IIRC) , did a couple of the exams and a bunch of the self tests. I came to the conclusion that the questions asked were asked because they were things that it was easy to write questions about, not because they were something you'd use much, if ever. The 9i self tests I looked at struck me as being much the same.

I did the 9i DBA certification track courses (4 courses) last year. Each of the tutors asked on the first day of the course if we wanted them to teach us what we'd need to pass the exam or what we'd need to actually be any good as DBAs, because they could do one or the other but not both. I found that to be very telling.

If going for the certification is the only way to get your employer to pay for training then go for it. Although if you've been working with Oracle for 8 years you probably already know the vast majority of it.

If you want a few more letters after your name then go for it.

If your employer insists then go for it.

Connor McDonald has a few things to say about OCP on his website (http://www.oracledba.co.uk/) it's well worth a look.

I did the courses (at my employer's expense) for a number of reasons.  Firstly (from a personal perspective) I really enjoy going on courses and hadn't had one for a couple of years (although that alone wouldn't be enough of a reason to go on a course). Secondly I was aware that there were gaps in my knowledge, especially around tuning and backup/recovery, and these courses would give me the grounding I needed to expand on with self study. Thirdly we'd just had a really nasty restructure and I thought it best to have a few weeks out of the office whilst things settled down but don't like holidays.

I came back from the courses refreshed, reinvogorated and more knowledgable. Definate win-win for me and my employer.

>
> I live and work in the UK and from my limited perspective have not
> seen that many Oracle DBA jobs asking for it as a requirement and those that
> do only state it would be advantageous.
>
>

Yeah, I've noticed that. If anything the number of jobs that even say an OCP (or other certification) would be advantageous are dropping. I think a lot of companies got burned by taking on people who had done the courses and passed the exams but had little or no real experience of working with Oracle in a production environment.

Stephen

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