When is it time to be Microsoft Certified?
My company is developing new certification model, named abc (I’m not sure if I can use original name), which includes few levels such as abc Certified Junior, abc Certified Intermediate, abc Certified Senior… and so on… To become Senior developer after you are Intermediate you first need to get abc Intermediate certification.

Each of the levels has some requirements like industry experience, some number company-wide presentations, passed performance appraisal with strength area marks, passed knowledge evaluation, but what is important here is that each next level also requires some external certifications. For example, to be abc certified intermediate level in .NET desktop you need to have 2 certificates: 70-505 and 70-536.

Hey, but I’m already promoted to be intermediate, but do not have certificates… At least it is one of the reasons why I cannot become Senior (another one is that I need about half a year more experience and improve my knowledge). And this makes me bit sad.
Actually I tried to get 70-505 exam immediately after I get promoted (summer 2009). First time it was free attempt, and I failed it. Shit, but that was so easy, I got 670 out of 1000 with required 700.

Why did I fail it? There are few reasons:

* Exam 70-505 includes features from the 3.0 framework, which I did not ever use. For example it includes easy question regarding the Linq. I did not know Linq at that moment. It included question regarding installing and deploying strategies. Which I did not ever try. Stop. Am I so bad? I knew design patterns; I had experience in developing desktop applications. But I was interacted only with actual developing of easy things; I was not familiar with whole lifecycle of our product. To be honest we have so complicated lifecycle that nobody knows it well.
* I was too much self-confident about the exam.
* I did not spend a lot of time on preparing, maybe half a day.

I know that there are other ways to successfully pass exam, I think you know what I mean, but I did not see in internet actual tests for my exam, and besides that is not good way to pass it. I saw some people that passed with 1000 score other exams. Why? They found exact test in internet.

Let’s suppose that I was not ready and I did not know how to pass such exams.

Ok. Do you know Roosevelt? His words: “Never, never, never, never…give up!” And I did not give up. I tried again with the same exam month later. And you know – I field it with score less than 500. I was pure sure that questions will be similar, and they were. I was too much confident that I will pass it, but I did not. So I blew 50$. Holly shit.

Was it needed to pass Microsoft exam? Tips are following:

•    Get resource to learn from it. Best choice is Microsoft Training Kits.
•    Be aware what does your exam include, if there are some unknown technologies for you, ask yourself if this is correct exam for you.
•    Ensure that you interacted with each technology meant there in real world, if you have not interact, just write simple applications when preparing to exam.
•    Do not schedule exam, if you are not self-confident in your knowledge.
•    Do not be too much self-confident in your knowledge. Most of exams are dry tests, which include some monkey questions that could be easily forgotten.
•    Train, train, train… and never give up.

Getting MCTS for me is very important step in my career. (See picture below).
I’m going to achieve this with passing 536 and 505 in short terms.