Trying to Get Certified

I started a new job on July 28, 2014. I was hired as a Senior Consultant by Avalon Consulting LLC, a Plano, Texas company that specializes in Web Portals, NoSQL databases and Hadoop. My IT experience and skill set is fairly diverse. While I have been been involved with Hadoop installation, monitoring and development over the past 3 years and expected to start working with Hadoop, I have more than 10 years of experience as a relational database administrator (DBA), have worked on several NoSQL database implementations, and spent more than 5 years as a lead client-server developer. More recently, I worked as a VMware Virtualization Engineer and most recently was a Python Cloud Developer.

I only hold two certifications: I am a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP) and I hold a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) Windows 7 Client Systems Administrator. The CISSP is an active certification, in that the examinations are regularly updated and maintaining the certification requires 120 hours of Continuing Education (CE) per 3-year cycle. The MCTS is no longer being maintained; Microsoft points candidates towards newer certificates in active technology. I was hired in June 2011 to work as a Contract VMware Virtualization Engineer for the US Army Medical Information Technology Center, contingent upon my earning an MCTS prior to my commencing work. I already held the CISSP which, along with the VMware skill set, was required to work in a secure position. The choice of subject area for the MCTS was left to me; I chose the Windows 7 Client Sysadmin based on my prospective manager's advice that it was the easiest to earn. I purchased the two Microsoft Press Self-Paced Training Kits that corresponded to the exam: 70-680 Configuring Windows 7 and 70-685 Windows 7 Enterprise Desktop Support Technician and spent the next 3 weeks cramming on the 1500+ pages of material. I had used Windows 7, performed multiple installs, and, in general, had some familiarity with the product. However, there were a number of capabilities that I had had no opportunity to examine, not having been a Windows 7 Enterprise Support Technician previously. The self-paced training materials included several very-short practice tests of about 10 questions each. The certification exam itself was, I believe, 120 questions over 3 hours, if I remember correctly.

I did not pass the first try. In fact, the nature of the questions on the exam were very different from those in the practice exam. Not passing the first try was fairly distressing to me. I had always been a fairly "good" test taker. Great SATs, great MCATs, passed the National Medical Boards, Part I in a previous career, passed the CISSP. I had an employer that wanted me, the position had actually opened a month prior so they had tasks stacking up for me to perform. Well, exposure to the test told me how to re-study, and I passed a second try a week later.

All of these tech companies that offer certification exams also offer training classes, and they are, of course, the "preferred" method of preparation. I have known people that attended training classes paid for by their companies as a cost of business. I have known people that paid their own way. I completed a year as a VMware Engineer, and my contract was renewed. However, I very much wanted to become VMware Certified, and one hard requirement to sit for the VMware Certification exam was to attend (and, of course, pay for) the appropriate training class. My manager had promised to send me once my contract was renewed, but was unable to keep that promise when his manager decided that training dollars could not be spent on contractors, and the three slots were filled with individuals that were not performing VMware Engineering tasks. I thought of paying for my own slot, but the $2999 for the class plus the travel costs (~$1600) plus the wages lost (I was an hourly contractor) was just too much for my wallet. So the Army lost a VMware Engineer, and I moved to Austin to work as a Python System Security developer.

Fast forward a couple of years. Tomorrow I sit for a Hadoop System Administration exam, one of two I need to start doing real work for my company. The past 3 weeks studying have been déjà vu all over again, to quote Yogi Berra. Sitting on overhead in a consulting firm is just like for an attorney. You make money for the company by billing hours to clients, not to overhead. I am less than enamored with this certification process. The company that offers the Hadoop distribution that I am testing on has outsourced the training classes to a handful of companies around the world, and also outsourced the testing process. Between the three entities, it has been difficult to get a feel for the type of questions on the exam. (Some would argue that is good for the testing process; that it encourages the student to study harder.) Perhaps they want to sell more class slots. I do know that I could pass their competitor's corresponding exam, as their competitor offers more practice questions. Undoubtedly, this is merely a reflection of my own insecurities and frustrations over not being able to quickly test out and get to work. not to mention the fact that I don't have the $2999 in my pocket to pay my own way to the class, which they "almost guarantee" will help you pass. Perhaps I should just stop writing, get a good nights sleep, and then do well. So I will!