In my early days as a business intelligence consultant, my company asks me to pass some certification in order to advertise the company skills on some specific technologies. At first I took that opportunity as a reward from my company. It was like a prove my capability so they want to offer me the right to officially prove my knowledge.
Look, I know how to do it ! It’s written just here.
I had 5 individual exam to pass as I was identified as a top candidate (Whoa !). So I jumped in and I ended up working intensively on the first step of my certification path. I’ve been working after my professional working time and my weekend to learn skills and prepare myself for the exam. After 6 months of intensive work and reading, I successfully pass the « Exam 461: Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012/2014 ».
I was really proud of myself specifically because I didn’t just memorize all the answers (as many do) you can find on the internet but I actually really learn lots of interesting things.
And then I discovered the dark side of it … When I came back to my company and show them that I was successful in my first exam they just ask me when I’ll pass the other four exams …
Yes, they needed that I pass all the exams by the end of the year otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to keep the higher level of partnership with Microsoft. It’s only at that point that I realized that my company didn’t reward me, but needed me to keep their status. That’s totally valid … if I could share the profit! But as you might guess, it was not part of the plan.
I continued working on a side project to improve my knowledge but didn’t pass the exam as I didn’t want to « be used » by my company.
Since then I’m quite reluctant to the professional certification world but I’m currently questioning my position. I still don’t have a clue if I should change my mind or still staying aside the certification processes.