I'm certifiable
Category domino certification
Once upon a time, I was a PCLP, which apparently doesn't even exist any more. I'd intended to keep my certification current, but to be honest, despite being proud of obtaining the highest level of certification (short of being a Certified Lotus Instructor) during my rookie year, the caliber of the questions asked at the time left me questioning the true value of being certified. At best, it seemed an easy way of impressing HR and recruiters when hunting for the next job.
For several reasons, I finally decided that this week I'd quit procrastinating and get certified in a version of Notes/Domino that IBM still supports. One of those reasons is that I occasionally harp on clients (politely, of course) to upgrade to a version that is less than five years old, and I was beginning to feel mildly hypocritical, having not updated my certification in a decade. Another is that I had heard rumors from several sources that the tests are now more challenging, leading me to believe that obtaining a fresh new certification might have more meaning than before. Well, as of a half hour ago, I am now an IBM Certified Associate Developer. The test took 21 minutes (out of an allotted 60), and I missed one question (about rich text lite fields) out of 45, for a score of 97% (with 75% required to pass).
The rumors were true, by the way: even the Application Development Foundation Skills exam is now more difficult than I recall the equivalent being back in '98... which actually made it much easier to pass, because this time it was primarily about concepts like which @Function to use for a given situation, not which tab of the Properties dialog contains a given field setting. It's an odd feeling to realize that I probably couldn't have passed this exam (or, rather, an R4 equivalent of it) back when I originally got my certification... and that if I retook those original exams I'd probably fail. The difference is that, back then I only passed because I borrowed an exam preparation book from a coworker and studied for a month, memorizing every tab of the InfoBox to make sure I remembered that you set a field to editable/computed on the first tab but enable "Refresh fields on keyword change" on the second... this time I just showed up and told them what I do every day.
UPDATE: I've since passed the other two exams... hooray, I'm a full-fledged developer.
Once upon a time, I was a PCLP, which apparently doesn't even exist any more. I'd intended to keep my certification current, but to be honest, despite being proud of obtaining the highest level of certification (short of being a Certified Lotus Instructor) during my rookie year, the caliber of the questions asked at the time left me questioning the true value of being certified. At best, it seemed an easy way of impressing HR and recruiters when hunting for the next job.
For several reasons, I finally decided that this week I'd quit procrastinating and get certified in a version of Notes/Domino that IBM still supports. One of those reasons is that I occasionally harp on clients (politely, of course) to upgrade to a version that is less than five years old, and I was beginning to feel mildly hypocritical, having not updated my certification in a decade. Another is that I had heard rumors from several sources that the tests are now more challenging, leading me to believe that obtaining a fresh new certification might have more meaning than before. Well, as of a half hour ago, I am now an IBM Certified Associate Developer. The test took 21 minutes (out of an allotted 60), and I missed one question (about rich text lite fields) out of 45, for a score of 97% (with 75% required to pass).
The rumors were true, by the way: even the Application Development Foundation Skills exam is now more difficult than I recall the equivalent being back in '98... which actually made it much easier to pass, because this time it was primarily about concepts like which @Function to use for a given situation, not which tab of the Properties dialog contains a given field setting. It's an odd feeling to realize that I probably couldn't have passed this exam (or, rather, an R4 equivalent of it) back when I originally got my certification... and that if I retook those original exams I'd probably fail. The difference is that, back then I only passed because I borrowed an exam preparation book from a coworker and studied for a month, memorizing every tab of the InfoBox to make sure I remembered that you set a field to editable/computed on the first tab but enable "Refresh fields on keyword change" on the second... this time I just showed up and told them what I do every day.
UPDATE: I've since passed the other two exams... hooray, I'm a full-fledged developer.
Comments
Posted by Tim Tripcony At 11:53:40 AM On 07/29/2008 | - Website - |
Posted by Dan Sickles At 06:01:59 PM On 07/28/2008 | - Website - |
I took the 7 tests and then the 8 upgrade. There not too bad except for the 1 question on the 7 exam that has no correct answer.
Posted by Mike Smelser At 04:32:21 PM On 07/30/2008 | - Website - |
I too recently rejoined the ranks of the "certifiable". I went from R5 to R7. Are you at R8?
I agree about the type of questions becoming somewhat more practical, and farther from minutia.
Posted by Eric Romo At 03:14:36 PM On 07/28/2008 | - Website - |