Ken, I would have to disagree with that.
To have Practical Experience you do have to have 'some' understanding of the theory of what they are doing. Else, they wouldn't know how, and why, it is important. I don't have my MCSE, but I have been administering networks since the late 80's. I have admin'd Novell, up to version 5, a SCO Unix server, RISC 6000 servers, and multitudes of NT 4.0, 2000/2003 Servers. I have experience with Active Directory and GPO. I have been admin'd Cisco Routers and Switches when they were OEM'd to IBM. I got a contract to be an Assistant Network Admin and was instrumental in setting up a disaster recovery for their MS SQL 2000 server. I setup a Virtual Server on their 2003 box and took a snapshot of the SQL Server. Migrated the data off the SQL internal drives to a JBOD. Showed management that if this server should die that we could be up in 20 minutes, or less, with the Virtual Server failover configuration. This was back in 2005. Did I have my MCSE Cert? No. But I did understand the theories in order to get this to work. Yes, I did have to do research, but at least I knew what to look up and who to go to to get my questions answered. Nearly everything that I know has been by hands on learning and experience. If I were a manager, and was looking to hire a tech, I would ask them how long they had been in this industry and how long they have had their cert's, if any. I am looking for someone who knows the work. I am also looking for someone who can think quickly and knows how to apply their knowledge across different disciplines. Story I read once, and it has helped me in many situations (this story is old as it references a time when someone would actually pump your gas); Woman is distraught because her son got hold of a ring and put it on his finger, and now it was stuck. She tried to remove the ring, but her son's finger was swelling up. So she called the doctor's office and they said to bring him in. When she got there, the doctor looked at the finger and said that the swelling was getting worse and that they may need to amputate the finger or else an infection would set in. So the woman takes her son to the hospital. Along the way, she notices that she needs to get some gasoline, or else she won't make it to the hospital. She pulls into a gas station. The gas attendant walks up and asks her what she needs. She blurts out that she needs to get some gas to get her son to the hospital because of his hand. The attendant ask to see her son's hand. He examines it for a second and ask her to bring her son to the work bay. He gets her son to sit down and he pulls out some string from a drawer. The attendant proceeds to wrap the string around the finger just in front of the ring. As he wraps the string around the finger, he makes it a bit tighter than the previous round. This makes the boy's finger a little smaller and allows the attendant to move the ring up the finger. Eventually, the attendant is able to get the ring off. Now, this story shows two schools of thought. A doctor. who is certified and has many years of schooling, determined that amputation was necessary for this situation. The attendant at the gas station knew from experience, that he didn't need to squeeze the entire finger to get the ring off. He just needed to squeeze a little area at a time to move the ring past a certain point. My point to this story is this; Even though you have someone who is certified, but with little or no experience, they may not be able to give the best answer to a problem. But, someone with experience will rely on past situations to come up with the best answer to a problem. My $.02. On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 5:57 PM, Ken Schaefer <[email protected]> wrote: > Sounds like a guy who doesn't know what he's doing. > > > > But MCSEs (or CCNAs or CISSPs) aren't tested on whether you can create > shortcuts on desktops. > > > > Someone who's just read a bunch of books and then gone and passed some > exams probably isn't going to be able to do a lot in a practical situation. > But there are plenty of people who have practical experience who don't > understand the theory behind what they are doing. > > > > Cheers > > Ken > > > > *From:* Jacob [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Friday, 6 February 2009 9:45 AM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* RE: SUSPECT: RE: MCSE question > > > > We hired an MCSE who did not know how to create a shortcut on a desktop. > Not kidding. Really.. not kidding. > > > > He lasted about one week. > > > > *From:* Garcia-Moran, Carlos [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Thursday, February 05, 2009 1:42 PM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* RE: SUSPECT: RE: MCSE question > > > > For the most part I'm a firm believer that Certs and Test's are no longer > what they used to be. I've been doing IT for around 15+ years, I had an MCP, > never bothered to make it into an MCSE. It wasn't worth it to me. I wouldn't > have learned nothing taking a class that I didn't learn from mentors / peers > / my own research and reading. Requiring an MCSE for a position is a joke, > would you pay the person more? Salaries rarely ever go up it you take Certs. > > > > Let me tell you a quick story about certs I was working for a company once > and I was the supervisor of a 5 person desktop IT team. They decided to > hire a more senior guy once one of my team members left, I wasn't involved > in the process except for giving my bosses needs /wants for the position. > Well they hired an MCSE guy that had more certs that I could shake a stick > at. Well after about two months of working together and him consistently > failing to do simple things, like If 4 of us could print and he couldn't he > would start taking the printer network device apart since that had to be the > problem. I sat down and drilled him about his skills , prior to his hiring > he was a carpenter but decided to switch jobs he did a 6 month tech stint a > small company as desktop support and then took a Boot camp MCSE, which was > the major factor in the hiring process that my bosses used. He was USELESS! > > > > *From:* Brian Desmond [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Thursday, February 05, 2009 4:29 PM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* RE: SUSPECT: RE: MCSE question > > > > *Someone who knows what they're doing should be able to demonstrate that > they can do that without an MCSE. I know a bunch of REALLY good Windows > people who have no MS certs and never will. * > > * * > > *Likewise, someone who knows pretty much nothing but is good at taking > tests can be an MCSE without much trouble. * > > * * > > *Thanks,* > > *Brian Desmond* > > *[email protected]* > > * * > > *c - 312.731.3132* > > > > > > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
