Re: Is Sr. DBAs afraid of not be able to pass cert exam ??

Keith Boulton doodled thusly:

>of your references, but my question was more to do with how you could define
>a test to evaluate the skill/talent/knowledge of someone. I tend towards the
>heres the software, hardware and manuals and here are <n> test scenarios to
>work through e.g. user reports bad response time in ..., or disks containing
>control files have been destroyed....
>
>It seems to me that such a test would take days to run and require a large
>number of scenarios if simple luck wasn't to play a big part.
>

Hmmm, not sure if it would take days. I'd concentrate on the "scenarios" side. That usually weeds out straight away the "rote" OCP. They usually haven't got the foggiest about an out of the ordinary situation.

Just to give an example. A few years ago I had to interview a number of DBAs for a client. OCP had started already and I got quite a few freshly "certified" candidates. As well as non-certified ones.

The vast majority of OCPs couldn't simply answer any question that didn't involve using OEM. Seriously. One even had the gall to tell me that "any DBA nowadays not using OEM has to be an amateur". This was 5 years ago. We all know what OEM was like, back then...

To cut it short: the job went to the fella that could explain to me how to approach in an number of ways a lost disk scenario. BTW, this fella had 4 years experience as well as being an OCP. He also DID know what the heck he was talking about, one of the best I've ever seen.

Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam Received on Fri Feb 01 2002 - 07:04:28 CST