MCDBA & Job Prospects

Discussion in 'General Microsoft Certifications' started by amsie, Jun 23, 2009.

  1. amsie

    amsie New Member

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    Hi all,

    A quick question regarding the MCDBA and job prospects. To fill you in on my exp, I was in IT many moons ago, supporting DOS, 3.1 upto Windows 2000 AD, Exchange etc + some Novell and Linux. Although mainly desktop and server, in the "good old days", you petty much got your hands dirty with everything, inc databases and I designed a few databases years ago.

    After an 8 year absence, and due to current climate and my business not going so well, im looking at comming back into IT and thinking about an SQL DBA or something along them lines.

    Despite my absence, I had to set up a SQL DB for a POS system we used in a shop we had, and have done a couple for friends business websites, so im not exactly a newbie, but remembering from the flood of MCSE's a few years ago, it tended to be the case that even if you had an MCSE, you were still required to have the experience.

    Hence my question, would a MCDBA be worthwhile getting before re-entering the job market? or is it as worthless as the MCSE without exp?

    p.s. Im MSCE NT4 & 2000 so no flaming me please with regards to my opinion of MCSE certs, just i've seen enough paper certers who didnt know their a*se from their elbow nearly destroying systems and not sticking to procedured installations.

    Thanks in advance

    Amsie
     
  2. BosonMichael
    Honorary Member Highly Decorated Member Award 500 Likes Award

    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    Like the MCSE, the MCDBA isn't very useful without experience. That said, it's not like you're coming at this with no experience at all... you have a little bit of real-world, hands-on experience. Sure, it was years ago, but it's still experience.

    Only problem is... you can't get the MCDBA anymore. The SQL 2000 exams are retired. You would have to pursue the MCTS/MCITP exams related to SQL 2005.
     
    Certifications: CISSP, MCSE+I, MCSE: Security, MCSE: Messaging, MCDST, MCDBA, MCTS, OCP, CCNP, CCDP, CCNA Security, CCNA Voice, CNE, SCSA, Security+, Linux+, Server+, Network+, A+
    WIP: Just about everything!
  3. amsie

    amsie New Member

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    Thanks BosonMichael, my bad regarding the correct exam, gosh, has it been that long? lol

    Comming back to the origional point. I find reading SQL as easy as reading books that my 5 year old is reading, i.e. dead easy. Ditto for most things IT related, so im confident that I can pick up SQL pretty easy.

    In my experience in IT, and lets face it, not everyone knows everything, I found the role of support not to know every solution there and then in front of a user, rather, the ability to find the solution.

    I would assume that joining a company that already has a DB in place would be more a case of learning the existing system (hopefully procedured) than comming in and totally re-designing it? With this thought, the plan would be to take the exams, hopefully join a company in the above scenario, get some exp and take things from there, whether I persued a development career or an administrator role. Sound feasable?

    These are just thoughts at this stage, and one more thing to point out, although the majority of my exp is servers/desktops, I find this part of the market flooded, and the current jobs on offer are no where near what my salary was 8 years ago!!! I always felt I stood still at the time after I got a really cushy well paid job, and with hindsight regret the MCSE route that I took for exams as opposed to Cisco/Unix.

    Thanks again

    Amsie
     
  4. BosonMichael
    Honorary Member Highly Decorated Member Award 500 Likes Award

    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    Exactly right. Unfortunately, most certification exams don't really test your troubleshooting skills... and those skills don't always shine through on a resume or in an interview. Best we can do is to make ourselves look as attractive to employers as possible.

    Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for that... I've always worked at places where there was very light database administration, typically using turnkey vendor solutions. The databases that were "home-grown" were always relatively small. We have a database here at Boson, but I don't help administer it... the code heads do. :)

    That said, your plan sounds feasible...

    To the contrary, it looks flooded, but isn't really. There are plenty of people who WANT to be doing server administration... but not that many truly qualified and capable to do server administration. There's no shame in doing the MCSE instead of the Cisco or UNIX certifications. In truth, there aren't nearly as many Cisco or UNIX jobs as there are Windows server admin jobs.

    You are correct in one thing, though: gone are the days where a tech could sit in his server room/throne room/glass tower and do nothing for a fat paycheck. Still, the salaries aren't bad... and IT is a LOT better than SOME jobs you could be doing!!
     
    Certifications: CISSP, MCSE+I, MCSE: Security, MCSE: Messaging, MCDST, MCDBA, MCTS, OCP, CCNP, CCDP, CCNA Security, CCNA Voice, CNE, SCSA, Security+, Linux+, Server+, Network+, A+
    WIP: Just about everything!

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