I’LL PASS ON THE MULLIGAN
I confess to having mixed feelings about the “Second Shot” promotion that Microsoft is currently offering. If you fail an exam you registered for between now and Jan. 30, 2008, the promotion lets you have one free retake. Second Shot is applicable for any IT professional, developer or Dynamics exam.
As Microsoft’s marketing piece says:
“Microsoft certification is a great way to set yourself apart with hard proof of your skills in the most current and specialized technologies and tasks. Now Second Shot doubles your advantage by giving you a free retake of a Microsoft Certification exam. It’s your extra shot at success — and it’s only available for a limited time.”
On one hand, I’m in favor of anything that’s free. If you want to offer me the chance to take an exam without studying properly, fail it so I can learn what types of questions you ask, study for the test and pass it — how can I be against that? I just saved the time it takes to read the WHOLE study guide.
On the other hand, however, Microsoft talks about “hard proof of your skills”…but then tells you that it’s OK to fail; just try again, take the do-over without penalty. I’m not sure that’s a world I want to live in. Imagine arriving to work Monday morning to a down network. When you grab the junior administrator by the collar and ask why they did nothing, they respond that they just didn’t know what to do in this particular situation. It’s their mulligan; they’ll fix it the next time it goes down.
Of course, I’m being flip, but the truth of the matter is that there aren’t many do-overs outside of children’s games. Not only do I think that there shouldn’t be free do-overs on exams, I also think that your certification transcript should indicate the number of times you had to take an exam. I’d much rather hire someone who passed the first time through as opposed to someone who had to take it enough times to learn every question in the pool.
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