The Value and Worth of a Certification Is Validated

Individuals and employers have enough difficulties trying to understand the
value and worth of a certification, and this is made even more difficult when a
major certification vendor changes the entire structure and naming of their
certification program. Microsoft started such a restructuring last year and
continues to do so with the announcement of their new Master Certification and
exams. To give an example, there are some employers

who do not understand or know about the new
MCTS and MCITP certifications and
seek to hire new employees who have their MCSE (Microsoft Certified System
Engineer) on Windows Server 2008 – even though this certification doesn’t and
won’t exist.

Microsoft Certification

The MCSE certification was Microsoft’s premier certification up to 2006 when the
Microsoft Certified Architect

(MCA) was announced. The Microsoft Certified Professional program (MCP) has been
in place since 1992, with more than 2 million people having achieved a Microsoft
Certification worldwide.4 The MCSE
certification itself has been around since the NT3.5 days (mid-‘90s). It is
12+ years old in its current form, and we have developed a certain comfort and
familiarity with it. An entire generation of IT Professionals has “grown up”
knowing exactly where an MCSE fits into the certification scheme, and they also
have a good idea of what is involved in earning the MCSE, as well as the worth
of this certification, both financially and professionally.

This does not mean that there haven’t been additions and other enhancements to
the program over the years. The original MCSE was earned on a specific variant
of the NT system. Let’s say you earned your MCSE on NT 3.51 and then on NT4. You
were certified on those two systems – as a Systems Engineer. This same naming
approach held true for Windows Server 2000 and Server 2003. This meant that you
were an MCSE, MCSA, or an MCP (this white paper addresses the IT
pros, not database administrators [DBA] and developers).