Oracle certified expert? Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson

 

Oracle has recently instituted a set of exams whereby anyone can become an "Oracle Certified Expert", with no experience required.

I've published about the experience requirement to become an Oracle expert, and I firmly believe that becoming an expert in any technology requires many years of experience.  There have been many incidents in the media about fake Oracle experts:

Haskins admitted that Allen, represented as having "over nine years of trial-and-error from painstaking research" and now acknowledged as "a promising top expert in the field of Oracle database security," is in fact a figment of his imagination.

"There is no Robert Allen," he said. "It's a marketing figure".

Is Oracle going out on a limb, certifying people as experts, with no real-world experience requirement?

• What happens when an Oracle certified expert makes a terrible mistake, and it's shown in court that they are not a "real" expert?  Will Oracle be liable for damages?
   
• Will US courts accept the Oracle Certified Expert designation as justification for being an expert witness?

It's going to be interesting to see if there is any fallout from this new Oracle certification, especially when it's generally agreed that one can only become an expert after many years of full-time work experience.

What do you think about the Oracle Certified Expert program?  Send me an e-mail with your comments.

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Steve Karam (Oracle ACE, Oracle Certified Master) comments:

Unless Oracle somehow lets companies know that these ?expert? certifications can be had without a single prerequisite (in some cases), I could see the entire certification program losing its credibility, just like the MCSE did at some point.

I know several people who get an OCA or OCP nowadays with little to no experience, but Oracle at the least requires them take a class (meaning they probably have to at least work for a company that wants them to do Oracle).

Those three bottom expert certifications though, they have no prerequisites at all!

 

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Ben Prusinski (www.dbaprofessional.com) notes:

My view is that without real and verify method of actual work experience for Oracle jobs is that these certifications are not that great. If the candidate has experience to back up the certification that is alright. However, I am concerned that Oracle is going the same route as many vendors such as Microsoft (i.e. McDBA) to garner money versus quality.

If I interviewed two candidates for a senior level Oracle DBA job, one has certifications and little real experience and the other has a decade of solid experience then the clear winner would be the seasoned candidate not a paper DBA.