To Be certified

[watzmann]

Hi All ,

Actually i need to get your opinion of my next plan to get MCPD ,

first of all , i have some experinace with C# windows application programming and sql server 2005 ,

as i really need to move to IT career i thought that i have to be certified by Microsoft and i think the suitable Certificate for me is MCPD and i have some questions :

1- is it enough to get MCPD to find a job ?
2- how long it will take if i work using a MCPD training Kit , and i have alreday a good experiance ?



i'll aprciate your answers ,

Thank You very much

[MNovy]

Please take my advice:

In this world only skills count,
no diplomas, no certificates, no master, no bachelor,....

Just pure skills over years.


A guy having really skills will be favored against someone, who has just got some certificate with no programming experience and projects.

[watzmann]

i totaly agree with you , but with the world competition we have nowadays , really you need both :

Experiance + certificate


do you agree ?

[MNovy]

do you agree ?

No.

As I told you, some certificate does not tell the employer how skilled you are.
It does tell that you had only slight contact with those software subjects, but that's it.

But this is no guarantee (employer's point of view) to keep you.
He may think that your skills will not push the projects progresses, even
with some certificate.

So he will rather favor someone who actually did already a lot of
projects, have ideas and a clue about team work, project management and stuff
like this. You cannot learn these. This is experience you have to learn
over years by doing coding.

If you want to convince employers you have to show them, which great projects you already
did. This is more worth than some little piece of paper.


I tell you the truth, I am a grated engineer and bachelor.
And the stuff I learned in the universities was never required in real life so far.
It helps only to get in different subjects quite fast.

[watzmann]

o.k i'll tell you my Career situation and i think you can me a good advice .

i'm working as a Manufacturing Know-how training developer engineer , which means i have to train both engineers and oprators to get familar with thier work and this is a continous process to keep them up to date , my study wa mechatronics engineer.

The problem is : this job position is not well known as i think in most of the companies and as i'm 28 years old so i accept this position but i think i have to move soon to a more professional one ., so i thought what can i do with last experiance , i have already been involved in two C# projects but they were small ones .


so now if i need to work as a C# developer i have to be experianced as i know , or may be i have to go a small engineer because i don't have many big projects .

this is m question now : How to get into C# devloping in a good company although i haven't been involved in many projects before ?


Thank You

[MNovy]

this is m question now : How to get into C# devloping in a good company although i haven't been involved in many projects before ?

You can use own projects for references.
If you wrote tools, games, .. in C# this is good point to mention in your casting.

Just look for job offers for .net developers and take that chance. The more tools, apps
you wrote, the better. If you have experience with version management (Source Safe, SubVersion), tell them.

You see, it depends on the know how you have. Sometimes you will be able to resolve
a problem in different ways, but only one may the best one (code optimization,...).

I would not wait for some certificate as long a company is not asking for it in its job offer.
Just apply for it

[watzmann]

so i have a few questions :

do you work a developer ?
is my 28 years is not old for this move ?
do you think the devloping market is brilliant ?


Thank You

[darwen]

is my 28 years is not old for this move

Actually it's quite old : most programmers I know started as soon as they came out of university.

do you think the devloping market is brilliant

It's not particularly great at the moment, but the programming market does tend to move around. Some times are good, some aren't but the biggest advantage for me is when you are a programmer you have a specific skill.

One thing I will ask is do you have a degree ? I'd say the programming market is almost impossible to enter without a degree in a numerical discipline e.g. Computer Science, Mathematics or pure science.

As to having Microsoft qualifications - I think it's more to do with the demonstration of your ability and willingness to learn than any paper qualification except a degree.

But you will have to demonstrate a deep knowledge of .NET coming from a past such as yours - this will show how much effort you're putting into becoming a programmer.

I'd buy a copy of "CLR through C#" and learn it, especially the parts on how the garbage collector works.

Darwen.

[MNovy]

do you work as developer ?

this is my little secret

is my 28 years is not old for this move ?

Definitively not. But you must be sure to move. Sitting in front a monitor the whole
day and coding can turn into sth annoying or boring.

do you think the devloping market is brilliant ?

Skilled SW developers are required all day long

[ozzy66]

As to having Microsoft qualifications - I think it's more to do with the demonstration of your ability and willingness to learn than any paper qualification except a degree.

it depends, there are job advertisements where such a certificate is precondition - but fortunately only few, probably due to an addiction to superintendence of the personnel manager

[HanneSThEGreaT]

My answer ( to your original question ) would be yes and no. It probably depends on where you live.
Here in SA, employers tend to go for as many qualifications as possible. the downside to it is that many people have downloaded the exam preps etc. and just studied it, and passed their MCPD, or whatever qualification. These are usually the people who are "highly skilled" but know absoutely nothing, but get lots of money by knowing nothing. You can go through the MS Press books, to get some more knowledge about C# though... If you decide to do the MCPD, do it properly, completely - then it';s worth it, not only for your potential employer & company, but to yourself as well.

Nothing beats experience IMHO. The proof is in the pudding. What I'd suggest you do is to start creating your own profile ( I think this was mentioned earlier ), develop your own things, and add those to your profile, be more active on developer forums such as CG - get your name and your knowledge out there! I know people that have landed great jobs just because of their personal projects, or by being very active in writing articles, and posting on forums

You're never too old ( except in SA ). Age is not really a big factor, yes, I suppose employers are looking for people to stay a long time at a company, but if you can do what is expected of you, when it is expected of you, then that is all that matters.

Good luck!

[ozzy66]

I suppose employers are looking for people to stay a long time at a company

talking about software projects and if u mean for years: no, these times are definitely over. Employers are furthermore looking for the cheapest and most appropriate service for a task. If there will be sequential project(s) it's useful to acquire the same personnel resources as they got for the previous project. Otherwise it doesn't matter who will do the task.

[JonnyPoet]

talking about software projects and if u mean for years: no, these times are definitely over. Employers are furthermore looking for the cheapest and most appropriate service for a task. If there will be sequential project(s) it's useful to acquire the same personnel resources as they got for the previous project. Otherwise it doesn't matter who will do the task.

This may be different from company to company, because if you need high quality I would personally try to work with people which I already know instead of having moving chairs all the time. Changing employees is not that cheap as it looks because if you calculate the risk of quality losses and its costs to keep standard high, then its better to have long term employees. But thats one of the points maybe wrong in the thinking of modern managers, some of them have really lost the viewpoint that we all arn't machines but human beeing and that having a good peronal connection and a good team spirit is a main point of creating high quality products IMHO.

But when I'm looking to the softwares quality as for example games, which at least normally needs up to three patches to get it workable , then it really might be true that there are companies which only want to make quick money and do not really take care for high quality long time employements.

getting certified may not be a mainpoint. But if you are going to really understand and train the materials you are learning for doing a cert then you may win in any case. The difference is simple the purpose. Doing certification only for being cetified is nothing, forget it, doing it for getting all the possible knowledge and being that way skilled to do a better job will be seen in any personal talk with a maybe future chief and may end in getting the job. It all has to do with intention and purpose, believe me.

[ozzy66]

yes, i totally agree with your statements Jonny

...you calculate the risk of quality losses and its costs to keep standard high...But thats one of the points maybe wrong in the thinking of modern managers

and perhaps the missing post-calculation in modern business management. To calculate costs afterwards is almost banned from controlling - at least those customers I've been working for don't do that.
So it's generally difficult to evaluate what the savings would have been if an employer held to known service companies.

[ VG ins schöne Wien ]

[JonnyPoet]

and perhaps the missing post-calculation in modern business management. To calculate costs afterwards is almost banned from controlling - at least those customers I've been working for don't do that.
So it's generally difficult to evaluate what the savings would have been if an employer held to known service companies.

[ VG ins schöne Wien ]

Yea I totally agree. They also dont implement any 'After sales Service costs' But it should be calculated in percentage to all the products delivered depending on statistics, which products needs most aftersales service in relation to products sold. This way you will get a service costs per piece and thats what is some sort of significance to quality level. BTW Thx for the greetings hopefully people dont think you are sending secret messages as you wrote it in German