The Lions' Pride

While I'm not looking at obtaining my MCSE cert, I am looking into obtaining my MCDBA certification down the road, once I'm done with grad school. I don't really have a desire to be a face down programmer for the rest of my life. I enjoy the challenges and tasks involving Databases, etc.

I would advise getting some books, or if you have the money, take some courses to help you learn what you need to and or train you how the exams will be. Fortunately, my work is a Microsoft shop and I have all of this stuff at my disposal. I'll see what I can dig up for you, if you'd like?

Yeah, I'm looking into an MTA certification for Security Fundamentals.

Right now, I'm looking to open up as many doors as I can. If the MS Certs open up PM jobs, then that's more doors for me. The PMP isn't possible for someone like me at this point in time as I have no PM courses, and no PM experience, so I couldn't even qualify to enroll in the course(s).

Are you a programmer now? Where do you live? Maybe I can help you out.

Also I'd go the avenue of trying to contribute to some open-source type stuff instead of studying for tests. The reasons I say this are two fold: 1) You need something to show for experience during this 9 month gap. 2) You go that long without coding your going to get rusty.

Also - I saw you mentioned you want to be a PM? Ugh! Coding is infinitely more fun than staring at Gant charts and asking people that their status is

I agree with those saying the cert might be a waste. I am a development director for a decent size software company, and I rarely pay attention to certifications. Actual skills, experience, and analytical ability carry a lot more weight with me.

Check your PMs, FireJayPa.

I can't speak for others, but for me, I look for a variety of experience that shows a pattern of focus on analysis. If that is there, and there is some clear technical skill, we get to the interview. Once there, it's all about the interview. I get more from that than anything else. Of course, it depends on the position you are seeking. For QA, that's the story. For programming, some training and education in the area and the appropriate technologies does help, as long as you can show that you actually understand the methodologies being used.

What kind of job are you looking for? Where are you located?

Right now I am in financial industry and have met resistance so I have been exploring other avenues either business/system analyst certain or networking or security certs.

7 years as a formally trained credit analyst and underwriter for commercial mortgages/loans.

Northern Delaware. Easy commute to center city Philly too

Here's what I can tell you about the certs and what they can/can't do for you..

I got an MCSE, MCSA (on Windows 2000), and MCDBA in August of 2002 (after graduating from PSU with a Management Science and Information Systems degree in the Fall of '01). The certifications did help me to get more looks at my resume on monster.com, and helped me land my first job out of college as an IT helpdesk person at a big 4 accounting firm by October of 2002.

If you're not trying to get an entry level IT job, the Microsoft certs will probably do very little in helping you get attention for a job. The reason for this, is that over the last 10-12 years, the MCSE has been overrun by people with limited IT experience wanting to set themselves apart from an ever growing sea of prospective IT hires. Also, the exam test banks have also become very accessible via internet resources where you can literally download and memorize the bank of questions and answers for each of the tests (if you're so inclined), and just take the tests by rote memorization. This has created and perpetuated a stigma of people with a "paper MCSE" among hiring managers, which basically is someone with the certification(s) and no relevant experience backing it up, which from the sound of it, you would be if you spent the time to get the MCSE.

I can also tell you that in 10+ years of working in the industry now, I have never once applied anything I learned from getting my MCSE to any job situation. They teach you the "microsoft way" of doing things in the classes and tests. Unfortunately, almost no one but Microsoft does things the "microsoft way". You basically learn a bunch of Active Directory administration stuff while taking the MCSE tests, but you won't often find companies looking to hire someone with only an MCSE and no server admin experience to administrate what essentially is the backbone of their IT infrastructure.

Unfortunately, there's a sea of people just like you out there looking to break into IT and find a job, and the Microsoft certifications just don't hold the weight anymore. Moving toward security or networking is probably a far better idea than an MCSE. The best you can hope for with the MCSE is lucking into a low-paying phone support job that might turn into a desktop support job after a few years (or might get outsourced in less time), but even that's not guaranteed. I'm pretty sure that a CCNA is still reasonably well respected in the industry if you wanted to go toward networking and have any inclination to take that test.

I'm sorry to rain on the parade, but this is just what I've seen around IT hiring during my career. Whatever you choose to do, I wish you the best of luck.