One of the frustrations of of working in Certification is that so little time is spent creating exam questions. There are million other things from expense reports to mandatory training that need to be take care of before delving back into things like InnoDB buffer pools or scaling Falcon databases. The good news is that new exam questions are ready for the next generation of DBA Certification and I will soon be begging the folks who helped me in the past for one last look before we shrink wrap the exams.
I attended the CEdMA Conference this week and was able to network with other certification folks. One of the items of discussion was what goes into a certification package. In tight economic times, training and certification departments need to cut costs. Many certification entities are simply sending out PDF certificates via email. Others are concerned about rising costs for shipping t-shirts, pens, wallet-sized cards, certificates, and other 'gifts'.
I would love to get some feedback on what you want to physically receive when you earn your certification. Do you want the printed certificate or would a PDF suffice? Does the wallet-sized card with your certification information useful? What about the 'throwing disk', pen, beach-ball, t-shirt, or other 'gifts'? Please do not be shy as we need your feedback!
Do you have a success story you would care to share about how you used MySQL? We are always looking for good success stories. This year MySQL training is participating in a week long training session for Sun System Engineers. And we wish to share what you have done with MySQL to help them understand how our products are used out there in the real world.
So please brag about your work!
4 comments:
I personally think the pdf is fine. That way it can just be forwarded to whoever for verification (many times certifications come with bonuses, or goals, or cost reimbursement if it's verifiable)
I like my 'MySQL Certified' pen. Might be fun to have a baseball cap with a dolphin or something along those lines...
When I got the MySQL Dev I received a pen which promptly fell apart. I suggest making sure whatever you send is well made or don't send anything at all. I do value the certificate I received with the Dev, and it would have been nice to have received one when I got the DBA.
What I wish was available is some sort of job board or placement assistance for cert holders. That would be awesome. Even something as simple as a contact button on the Candidate list would probably be helpful
Rob -- send a request for the lost certification paper to certification AY MySQl.com and we'll get one sent out to you.
I passed the SCJP (Sun Certified Java Programmer) and I was amused to get a pin, certification wallet card and a paper certificate. Honestly, all this stuff is junk. I'd rather you spend the money developing some practice tests online like Sun has for the the SCJP to make it easier to study for this or offer some discounts.
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