In this article I am going to present an insider's view of this process. What you are about to read is the experience of an associate of mine. He is an MCSE, or at least he was. I'll let him tell his story in his own words. You should find this interesting.

Hi. My name is Steven. I am 48 years old and out of work. That may seem strange considering that I have a number of certifications including a Novell CNA and a Microsoft MCSE. So what's the problem?

To answer that question you need to have some background information.

I originally went to school for Accounting but lost interest. I eventually graduated with a degree in business, which at the time was good for nothing. Then my wife to be brought home an ad for computer training. This was long before Microsoft was big. We were still on DOS 3.0. Anyway, I went to school and learned COBOL and RPG. That did me a lot of good too because I had no experience and at the time these languages were already on their way out. I eventually did find a job but working on PCs. I worked on an Apple III.

This lead to a teaching position, teaching BASIC on TRS 80 computers. Eventually this died out too and I was out of work, yet again.

To make a very long story short, the cycle continued until networking became big. I got a Novell CNA and then eventually a Microsoft MCSE. I was set for life. Or so I thought. But let me back track just a little.

Before getting my MCSE I had to go through extensive training. The number of courses I had to take were mind boggling. The amount of information was mind boggling. I didn't know how I was going to keep all of that in my head, let alone pass an exam on it.

Then the first exam came. I failed. I studied more and went to retake it. Much to my shock, the exam was almost completely different with probably 70% of the questions different. Yes, there is so much information in these exams that you can actually take one of them 3 times (which I had to do) and still not get a majority of the same questions twice. Finally though, I passed the first exam and then after a period of nine months I passed all seven. It was the most horrible time of my life. But at least I was set.

At least that's what I thought.

At the time of the exam the system was Windows NT 3.51. If you know anything about computers and Microsoft you know that this particular operating system is long dead and buried. And as the changes came, I too became dead and buried.

Why?

To answer that question you have to understand how companies work. They always feel they have to have the latest technology, even though what they had was more than adequate to do the job. Part of this problem though is with Microsoft. They don't support old systems. So companies are forced to upgrade. With that comes the forcing of employees to get recertified and learn the new systems. This is where I just couldn't keep up. It was hard enough for me to pass the exams the first time. I wasn't about to even try again.

Sure enough, my company wanted me to learn the new systems and get recertified. I asked them what would happen if I didn't. They said they would have to let me go. I saved them the trouble. I quit.

I am telling you this story for a reason. If you are considering getting an MCSE certification you need to be prepared for exactly what happened to me, not just with losing my job if not getting recertified but the actual difficulties with the exams themselves. The amount of information is overwhelming and it won't be easy to pass seven exams. Then be prepared to constantly have to upgrade your skills as Microsoft isn't going to stop trying to make more money