Re: Increasing certifications on oracle database, could increase reliability on dbas

On 10/10/06, Juan Carlos Reyes Pacheco <juancarlosreyesp_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> 1.
> If some one takes the time to get the certification at least I know he
> has a minimum knowledge,

You know that he had at least the minimal knowledge at the time he took the exam.

Here in the UK (and I'm told many other countries as well, certainly including the US) people have been trained by the education system into a revise/regurgitate/forget pattern of education for the past 30 years or more (It's certainly been that way when I started primary school 32 years ago and was the same when I graduated 13 years ago). It's all about memorising for a test (be it an exam or a course work project/essay) then forgetting as quickly as possible to make room for the next topic.

In my experience certification (OCP, MCSE, CCNA, CNA, RHCSE &c) is treated exactly the same way by the majority of those who get it. Memorise the material for this exam, do the exam, forget everything you learned for the last exam and move on. OK, so some of the information no doubt sticks around for at least a while. But, is it signifcantly more than would stick from them having read one of the better books in the last six months.

If I'm hiring someone as a DBA then I'm far more interested in evidence of general problem solving skills than whether they have OCP.  At interview I always give candidates scenarios that are solvable with only a relatively basic level of knowledge of Oracle but require good problem solving skills, obviously the more senior the DBA the less basic the Oracle knowledge required to solve the problem. Knowledge can be learned or refreshed by dipping into a book or website but all the knowledge in the world about Oracle isn't going to help you if the problem is on the network, the OS or the thing connecting the chair to the keyboard. Good problem solving skills take longer to learn and can be applied more generally.

Stephen

-- 
It's better to ask a silly question than to make a silly assumption.

http://stephensorablog.blogspot.com/

 'nohup cd /; rm -rf * > /dev/null 2>&1 &'
(There's a strong arguement for the belief that running a command
without first knowing what it does is 'Darwin in action')
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