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Subject:Re: value of MCSE certification in tech pubs From:Sandy Harris <sandy -at- storm -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 30 Jul 2001 17:18:27 -0400
Jean Richardson wrote:
> I've recently joined an MCSE (Microsoft Certified Software Engineer)
> certification study group. After looking at this material for a while, I
> began to wonder about the value of MCSE certification for technical
> communicators.
Methinks that depends heavily on the sort of docs you do. If your target
audience in administrators on MS systems, people likely to have an MCSE
certification, then it may be quite useful. You need to know the concepts
they work with and the terminology they are used to.
However, the idea that an MCSE is valuable is by no means universal.
I've twice been involved in conversations with hiring managers for network
security work who thought a good way to screen out the clueless was to
immediately discard any resume with an MCSE on it. I think that's
over-reacting; I'd treat it as a minor black mark.
Most of my circle would qualify as net.oldfarts. We all had Internet news
and mail accounts before the web was invented in 1990. Most of us are
dyed-in-the-wool Unix users who think MCSE is "Moron Confused by Sun
Equipment". The Internet does not run on Microsoft protocols, and people
who know the MS stuff well are sometimes amazingly net.clueless.
Even the people in my crowd who work mainly with NT and 2000 think MCSE
is "Must Consult Someone Experienced". A training course and piece of
paper are no substitute for knowing what you're doing.
Certifications that do carry some weight in my world are the Cisco and
Oracle ones, and especially the network security certifications from
SANS, www.sans.org.
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