Fully agree. I have discussed with some supplier of these dumps, too

It is not easy to convince them that this is useless.

Money ist all...

+1

Yes learn the technology so you are able to work with it. Dumps are not the way to go definitely.  I hate when people ask you for them too like on LinkedIn annoying as well. 

I ask some pretty difficult questions in interviews.  It’s not about the answer, it’s about how you would get there.  Telling me you’d use google, and specifically what you would be searching and opening in tabs is a good enough answer.  

I love scenario based questions for that stuff. If you ask questions that someone can answer with single definitive answers (questions from a test) you may end up with a guy that can answer the questions who doesn’t know what he is doing.

TBH, it’s pretty easy to find a guy that has years of troubleshooting and I.T. experience vs someone that has 15 certs and minimal experience. I find the people in the first category actually care less about how they look on paper most of the time. I’ve had a few certs expire on me (I should renew them), but I can “I.T.” Circles around some “qualified/certified” people haha

I like this method too as in a previous job when interviewing I was about to even explain the PowerShell commands to do the things I was asked about.  

I’ll always accept too much info and move the conversation along when I have heard enough rather than “I’d just create a PowerShell script”

My follow up will be, what will the script do, what commands would you use, etc. I’d even give info like running as a service account in a scheduled task etc. 

I aced an interview once and 90% of the questions were SO specific I repeatedly answered “I’d google it” and explained what I’d type into google, or getting manuals for software/vendors etc. I even got the job (didn’t end up accepting). When asking me specific numbers on specific equipment and maximums I’m not going to memorize that. What I will do is memorize WHERE to get the information when I need it.  

Maybe you should extend this to: ‘Don't post and don't use brain dumps’ @Geoff Burke 

The ‘15 certs and minimal experience’ point you make here triggered me to reply as I can’t agree enough with this point. There are some certifications that are more obviously exploited as they’re paperbased, and unfortunately I think the only way to defend against some of this would be to see people doing practical sections of their exam too. Like how you never seem to see these people with VMware’s VCAP-Deploy… I recall seeing an IT ‘expert’ with Azure, AWS, GCP, Security, Storage Vendor, Networking Vendor, M365, VMware, Nutanix certifications. Each exam about a month apart. I can’t help but think that after the first few, there becomes little doubt that it’s cheating, subjects that have nearly no overlap and vendors with specific UIs, commands, and design optimisations, and you can learn each of them cover to cover in a month? I’m either doing something wrong here, or they are…

I agree with you @MicoolPaul ..a few gurus may exist, but the way technology is varied today it is impossible to become an architect of anything in a short time..you need at least a white beard!

hahaha exactly. To be honest, when we hire, I’d take someone with real world experience over 100 certs.  To me, a cert means you “attended” a course. I can’t verify you learnt anything, or didn’t forget it all. I can’t prove you used a dump or not. I can only guarantee (on some) that you took the course as a requirement to write the test.

That being said, 95% of the time people are not spending thousands of dollars out of pocket for this. So chances are you worked for a company that also thought it would be good to invest in you. 

I also cringe at job postings asking of that many vastly different skills from employees as well as people that proclaim to be an expert in that many areas.  It takes a while to be come an “expert” in anything and the more you spread yourself thin, the more of a generalist you become. 

I feel I’m at a level I could do well on VMware, Veeam, and storage exams without studying, but would still need to study and not waste money challenging tests.   I do bet you I could memorize the answers to all of those above tests and get a job I’m totally unqualified for as well too. haha

Yeah getting that many certs in that short of a time period is definitely suspect to me.  It takes time and if you earn them the right way more than a month.  

Yes, certifications are an indication but not a guarantee of knowledge and experience.
And many exams are quite easy to pass without experience, but only with a little reading.

The Veeam exams are much better in this way. No chance to pass without hands-on experience with the product(s).

I think a combination of certs and experience is optimal. Just take Veeam, if it were not for the exams I would never learn about certain things that I don’t actually see day to day. I have never laid hands on Net APP but if confronted with one I would at least have some idea (and know where to look). 

There is definitely value in learning how to study, learning how to perform under the pressure of an exam. It is what I realized when I used to run marathons, it was not the medal at the end that had most of the value, it was the process that led you to that end. The process makes you understand yourself better and stimulates your creativity in order for you to get by past the hardships. Sounds a bit like life :) 

Unpopular opinion here...but first, I agree.  Learn the materials.  I like to know what goes on behind the scenes, knowing why and how things work.  Memorizing answers is not learning.  Just because you know the answer doesn’t make you valuable or knowledgable in the real world. 

With that said, generally there are two answers in the certification exams….at least the not as great exams, or exams of the past (looking at you Microsoft and Cisco).  There’s the right answer (the one the vendor wants), and the real-world answer.  The one that is practice.  You really need to know both in many situations, what the vendor wants the answer to be for the exam, but also what the answer really is to fix the issue.  As previously stated, this doesn’t fit the bill for all exams, or for all vendors, but I have taken exams where they didn’t match.

My second example - I would imagine that most folks don’t know that I’m a licensed Amateur Radio Operator in the US (General Class, Callsign KD0INN).  You can spend a lot of time learning why and how everything works, how to calculate everything, and yes, you need to.  And I’ll note that that is what I did.  But others may advised that for the purposes of the exam, sometimes it’s just better to know the answers, get your license, and then let the learning begin in the real world.  OJT (On the Job Training) is one of the best ways to learn.  It certainly helps to have the book knowledge as a foundation, but practice experience to reinforce that knowledge and those skills.  And sometimes that means learning the answers so you can move on to the “real” learning.

So, like a lot of things, to me it’s a case of “both” or “it depends”.  I think there is a place for exam dumps, but I cannot advocate for only using dumps so that you can have that certificate/badge.  It really only hurts you in the end.

Fully agree, I don’t know why so many people only use the dump for exam preparation.