Firebrand Training

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Can I suggest that, if you don't already do so, you put links to Gertguard and the likes of MS and Cisco policy on use of BDs and what will happen if a student is found to have BDed, in the pre-course and in-course material.

In fact, you could also put a link on the course info for each course on your site to the appropriate policy from the likes of MS, Cisco, CompTIA... that way, the students have no excuse for Braindumping because you've hit them with it in several places.

 

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I don't think anyone has implied that you're just now addressing the issue. The previous posts merely point out that there HAVE been braindumps at your center in the past.

I'm not just picking on Firebrand, and I'm not implying you've got a runaway problem there - in truth, braindumps exist at an overwhelming number of training centers, and I'd be pleasantly shocked if they were eliminated from even a single training center. Braindumps pass themselves off as legitimate study tools, and it is difficult for most people to know what's legit and what's not (thank goodness for CertGuard!). As long as you guys are aware of the issue (as you say you already are) and handling it effectively (as you say you already are), then I applaud your efforts.

 

All this is all well and good - but you have focussed on the braindump issue - which isn't the main one as far as I'm concerned. You CAN'T prevent people from using braindumps - whenever there is an opportunity to cheat, there will ALWAYS be some people who choose to do so - either through misguidedness, lack of willingness to pay fees for resits or sheer laziness. What you CAN do is protect the industry as much as you are able - which leads me onto my main point -you still haven't answered anything related to my main beef - which is with the accelerated learning MCSE course you and other 'bootcamp' TPs provide. How do you propose to convince me that you do all you can to only take people who can legitimately pass the MCSE in 14 days?

When you implement a test that can't be braindumped, that is given to prospective candidates prior to being accepted on the course and is tough enough to weed out people who can only pass certification exams by memorising a set of answers to questions that they don't even understand, then I'll take the '14 day MCSE' you offer seriously. Until then, each and every time I do a CV sift and see a candidate with an MCSE obtained in such a manner their CV will go straight in the dusty bin. THAT is what is so damning about bootcamp TPs - not that they pay lip-service to banning the use of braindumps, not that they don't vet instructors carefully enough to ensure they don't either encourage or turn a blind eye to braindumping, and not the fact that they lie about expected salaries on offer once candidates have passed, but the fact that the only real pre-requisite for sitting an 'accelerated learning' bootcamp MCSE is a pulse and valid method of payment.

 

zebulebu,

If I understand your point of view you do not believe anyone needs any training to legitimately pass any MCP as they should already know it from their experience.

So regardless of the delivery mechanism any training method is flawed as I can "buy a book" read it and take the exam and be paper certified. This isn't a question of Firebrand/Bootcamps/Accelerated Learning/eLearning/other.

I can not see how I can resolve what any TP does and your position on training to achieve certification goals.

You and others repeatedly state that Firebrand will "accept a booking from someone with a pulse and valid method of payment."

I'll repeat again we DO NOT DO THIS. If we do then prove it to me and we will stamp it out.

Robert.

 

On this point I'd also add as I'm sure is well understood by the readers of this board that many Microsoft Exams including simulations that require you to "answer" the question by perfoming the task.

Is this perfect? No, but it's getting there.

Microsoft is also progressing towards virtual server based questions where you actually use a server to answer the question and you are judged on the outcome and not the route you took to get there. In other words you really do it. Like taking a driving test by driving a car and not answering multiple choice questions.

Do you feel these are worthless additions to the testing arsenal in the pursuit of the nirvana that is "the perfect test"?

Robert.

 

With the greatest of respect, what on Earth has this to do with the question I asked? Do I think its good that MS are starting to look seriously at implementing 'real' lab type questions for their certifications? Yes, of course I do.

Does that have any bearing on tests that YOU as a Training Provider could implement prior to accepting people on an MCSE course? It doesn't take a genius to figure out whether someone is a bull****ter or not. Five minutes with an instructor prior to being accepted on a course is more than enough time to know whether someone is ready to take an 'acclerated learning' MCSE. Stop trying to divert attention away from the main issue - which is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for anyone who isn't already a competent, experienced engineer to pass 7 MCSE exams in 14 days.

 

Once again, absolute, utter nonsense. Have you even READ what I posted, or did you just think that ignoring the salient point I raised and answering a completely different question would confuse me?

At NO point have I stated that no-one needs to pass an MCP because they already have the knowledge. Thats like saying I don;t believe in the inherent value of certifications at all - patent nonsense - if there weren't certifications, how would anyone know whether any potential candidate for a job had the skills required to do it?

What I, and most other people who care about the validity of their certifications ARE concerned about, is the devaluing of what should be the industry-standard blue riband certification for anyone working with Microsoft products by Training providers continually accepting people onto courses who can only possibly pass them by cheating. You have failed to address this issue by failing to state what vetting procedures you insist candidates undertake prior to attending the 'bootcamp' MCSE. Do you question them on their experience? Do you give them even a five minute interview where you have the opportunity to see whether their knoweldge of AD replication, IPSEC VPNs, PKI infrastructure, subnetting, DNS and network & directory services design is good enough to be confident that they could pass the more advanced MCSE exams?

Of course you don't - if you did, everyone knows you'd have about five candidates a month - and that just isn't a viable business model. Stop trying to justify the bootcamp MCSE, you can't possibly hope to defend your position with any integrity. Concentrate on the other courses you provide - which I have no problem with - and trying to stamp out cheating in those. That is something you CAN make a difference with. As far as a 14-day MCSE goes, you can't possibly stamp out cheating there, because, as I've already mentioned, you can count the number of candidates who could pass an MCSE in that space of time legitimately on the fingers of one knee.

 

Oh the irony.

Did you actually read what I wrote?

I said "If I understand your point of view you do not believe anyone needs any training to legitimately pass any MCP as they should already know it from their experience."

I didn't say anything about not needing to pass MCP's anywhere in my post.

 

Admittedly, I didn't express that particularly well, and focussed on one point when i should have covered both. Of course people need training as well - they can get that either from books, CBTs, classroom based courses or self study in their home labs (or, as in my case, a combination of those things).

However, what should be considered the main prerequisite for any candidate sitting an MCSE (experience) is viewed by Training Providers with no respect - just because Microsoft doesn't require candidates to demonstrate they have the experience necessary to legitimately pass an MCSE in 14 days means Training Providers have a massive loophole to use when signing people up. That doesn't make it right.

You still haven't answered my question though - how do you vet candidates taking the 14 day bootcamp MCSE prior to signing them up for it?

 

I have actually already answered in other postings but again for the record here's our version of how we screen.

Which you will no doubt pick apart and prove is flawed but what the hell here I go.

1. Firebrand Training's website lists the experience we and/or the vendor expects a candidate that obtains the qualification to have. This list is typically developed from what is on the vendors website plus what our instructors believe is appropriate experience for a student to have prior to attending the course. This is both so the qualification that they may obtain ( yes people fail - it's a good thing otherwise the certs are worthless ) and the pace ( we are accelerated not cutting corners ) we go at is appropriate to their existing knowledge. We build on what people know, we do not in the majority of cases, teach people from zero to hero.

2. To the best of our ability we train our staff who talk to students about potentially attending a course to screen candidates based on the experience they say they have by using the content from our website as the basis for calibrating their experience which comes from point 1.

Is this perfect? Course not.

Why?

We are dealing with grown ups spending significant amounts of money to learn and get certified ( hopefully ) in a short amount of time. It's important to them because they are highly paid staff members who need to be fee earning/delivering value to their business and NOT spending days and weeks in training using "slower" methods. So we trust them when they say they have, for instance, 2 years experience managing a 500 server network of Windows 2003 servers. We trust them when they say they've met the requirements listed on our website.

The irony is we do have complaints from people who think "my money is good enough why won't you let me on the course." Another fact.

If you go to a car dealer to buy a car they might ask you if you have a drivers license, and will take you at your word if you say you do given you are paying thousands for the vehicle.

3. Again ask yourself the question why would we want a rookie in a classroom disrupting the other 12 people who should be there? It doesn't make sense the rest of the class would suffer for the sake of one more student, the student would fail and feel like they've wasted their money. We wouldn't train 4,000 people a year in the UK alone if we had a model that mixed up abilities with qualifications beyond people's reach. It would be a disaster. No instructor would work for us because their classes would be a nightmare to teach.

You will disagree that this approach is valid but the fact is we wouldn't continue to succeed and get referrals from our students if they thought what we did was not valuable to them.

Again look at these testimonials http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/testimonials and keep hitting the "show more" button.

Why would they write this stuff ( and there's about 3,000 of them ) if they thought we were conning them some how?

 

You know what? That's actually a pretty good answer. I don't agree with some of it, and I think the reasoning behind some of the logic is flawed, but its enough for me to be satisfied and let this rest. For the record, anyone reading this thread in the future can see that the topic has been debated pretty well and, whilst I will never agree with the 14 day MCSE (I just don't see it as viable) I'd like to state that I have no issue with Firebrand themselves, or the accelerated learning they provide for other courses.

To be honest with you, I really cannot be arsed to debate every point you've made, and I think most people reading this thread in the future will agree with my viewpoint - that's enough for me and I'll leave it there.

 

And I'm happy to leave this point knowing that most people here will see that there are different choices about how they get trained depending on what their experience/budget/need is.