RE: Certifications?

I've been told that there's a difference between iSeries certifications and 
Microsoft certifications.  That being that the MS certs indicate you are 
knowledgeable enough to START a job, and the iSeries certs indicate you are 
COMPETENT to DO the job.  Big difference, eh?

My boss likes to see us get certs.  He wants me to get the iSeries 
Administrator cert.  I just took it at the September Common and failed it. It 
was the last thing I did at COMMON - Thursday at 2:00 p.m. and failing it was a 
real blow.  I had been preparing for it for months starting with the assessment 
exam I took last December.  The test is difficult!  After failing the admin 
test, I took the command operations test which I passed with flying colors.  
The IBM proctor was happy that I passed as she said very few people had passed 
any of the tests she gave during the week.  She said that the RPG and Admin 
tests were very difficult with few passing scores.

During my school years, I always excelled at multiple choice tests where you 
could often determine a answer from the way a question was worded; but the 
Iseries cert tests don't work that way.  As Jim Oberholtzer said, you need the 
experience to go along with the knowledge.


Bryan Burns
ECHO, Inc.
iSeries Certified - Command Operations   


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-jobs-bounces+bryan_burns=echo-usa.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-jobs-bounces+bryan_burns=echo-usa.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of David Gibbs
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 10:58 PM
To: Midrange-jobs
Subject: Certifications?


*** Please pay close attention when replying to a message on this list!
*** If you want the reply to go to the list, use REPLY-TO-ALL
*** Recruiters may advertise only permanent employment positions in this list.


An interesting thread was started on Slashdot about IT Certifications
(http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/06/0337209).

I'm curious as to how valuable certifications are in the System i market.

david