Why MCSD certification is important

Recently I have started getting my MCSD Web Applications certification. As a .NET consultant this is quite important from a market value perspective however in my opinion it’s even more important from a personal development perspective.

Let me elaborate, as your company is trying to sell your expertise to a third party it’s important for the third party that they get an employee with the appropriate skills, in my case .NET framework skills. There is always a certain chance that the consultant exaggerates his skills and that he claims to be an expert on certain aspects while he only used the technology for a short amount of time or that he used it in a limited way. For instance, the .NET framework is a really big framework and stating to be expert in it might mean something else for you than for the hiring company. It’s a matter of perception. This resolves in a risk for the hiring company. This risk can be reduced by getting the right certifications. Certifications can’t be misinterpreted since the content of the examinations is fixed. So when the consultant has for instance a 70-487: Developing ASP.net MVC Web Applications certificate you can be sure that he has the appropriate knowledge to build a solid MVC Web application. This certainty reduces the risk of hiring an incompetent employees, which increases the market value of the consultant since hiring an employee with certifications has a higher change of success.

Secondly the personal development perspective. As a, not necessarily Microsoft, software developer you have to keep learning and keep expanding your knowledge. Software languages develop, frameworks expand, new libraries come and go, you simple can't learn one language or one framework and do your thing for 40 years. You need to keep track of new trends and developments. MCSD Certification helps to keep your Microsoft knowledge up to date. Since certifications expire you will have to keep track of new trends and developments or catch up when you retake your examination. The certification functions as a big stick to keep your knowledge up to date. Some developers think that just working experience is enough. I tend to think that that's not true. Working experience is often limited to the technology that applies to the application you are developing. Its pretty hard to keep your MVC knowledge up to date if you are for instance developing a Web Forms application for your work. You will have to catch up in your spare time and MVC is only a small part of the MCSD Web Applications stack. MCSD certifications basically force you to keep track of developments, some guys need it some guys don't. I like it.