Re: Certifications don't count! (from a good test-taker)

Actually, I never stated that an OCP is of necessity not passionate. What I said - and repeat - is that I'll pick a passionate non-certified dba anytime for an interview over someone who presents a piece of OC paper as a door opener. And I stand by that.

The solution is this: stop using the OCP as a "door opener". I did. So should others.

Regardless of what Oracle marketing might think or do. Who the heck do they think they are to tell anyone how to run their shop? Most of them wouldn't even know what a computer centre looks like, much less how to run one!

Simple as that.

As to oca/p/m being all we got, I disagree. What we got is professionalism and willingness to select the best candidates, period. The time when we got hundreds of resumes for a single position is long gone. If anything, it's nowadays hard to find dbas. Mostly because the job has had a bad vibe about it for a long time. The argument that we need to "thin the hordes" is not valid anymore and hasn't been for quite a while. Witness Mogens' ramblings on that, over a year ago. Yes, it's a problem!

Guess who mainly caused that bad vibe? Hint: a guy called Larry Ellison, who stated that "dbas weren't needed". Funny how he happens to run the certification shop as well. Talk about shooting one's own foot... Or maybe he woke up and realized there was no real moolah from selling those anymore?

No: a piece of paper, release specific, that can simply be bought, guarantees nothing and provides no assurance of quality whatsoever. Never has, never will, in ANY professional field!

Ask a mechanic association or any other trade or professional association if they allow ANY "certificate" to be model specific or provided exclusively by a single supplier.

Not a single one! And for very good reasons. Why should IT be different?

Vendor-provided "certifications" mean ABSOLUTELY nothing in ALL fields of trade except IT. In most cases, such are called "seminar training" and are provided free of charge by said vendors. Rather than charging professionals for them.

That it is a reverse situation in IT only proves this industry has a long way to go in terms of improving the quality of its management, before it can even be called an industry.

Sorry, but this is an area I just won't let go of: vendor certifications are wrong, have always been wrong and prove absolutely NOTHING about the competence or suitability of an IT professional for anything.

Note that I said vendor certifications. I've got nothing against vendor training. There is a fundamental difference there.

And please all: note that this is directed at the process itself, not to folks who by their choice abide by it.
So please can we drop the "I'm an OCP and passionate and I'm offended" line of argument?
Good for anyone to be passionate. Excellent, in fact: my kind of people! As for also being vendor-certified, I couldn't possibly care less.

And that's all I'll say here about this.

-- 
Cheers
Nuno Souto
in sunny Sydney, Australia
dbvision_at_iinet.net.au

Dan Norris wrote,on my timestamp of 12/06/2008 11:36 PM:


> Nuno,

> 

> I think you misinterpreted. I don't think that a certification should 

> necessarily be a hiring criteria (positive or negative), but that wasn't 

> my point. I honestly didn't know that one of the DBAs in my group was 

> certified until recently--didn't matter to me and still doesn't as far 

> as whether or not I'd hire them. I agree it isn't fair to consider a 

> candidate or not consider a candidate based on their certification 

> status. However, it is a filter I've used when there are too many 

> candidates to interview.

> 

> The statement I think was unfair was to connect the ideas that certified 

> DBAs (regardless of what you think of the OC process) are not passionate 

> or engaged. I think we agree on many points regarding the "value" of 

> certification as a measure of competency. Like many, I live in the 

> consulting world, so I view certification as more of a selling tool than 

> really proving any particular knowledge level. Oracle Marketing has done 

> a fine job of making some IT Managers and CIOs believe that they should 

> view certified contractors and consultants as "better" than 

> non-certified personnel. I didn't do that, but since they did, I feel 

> compelled to seek certification in order to give my organization a 

> competitive edge when trying to win consulting contracts. Doesn't always 

> matter, but by the time you find out that it matters to customer X, it's 

> too late to address.

> 

> What's the solution you propose to "fix" this? I would welcome an 

> industry-wide, standardized certification for DBAs, but unfortunately, I 

> think that may hold the same or less value than OCP since it would 

> likely need to be "generic" to all DBs. I think the process should be 

> improved as well, but in the meantime, OCA/P/M is what we've got.

> 

> Dan


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