
Ask HN: Fast relevant qualifications for .Net/MVC? - UnoriginalGuy
We&#x27;re an MVC&#x2F;C#&#x2F;.Net&#x2F;MS SQL Server shop. We do corporate internal web development. Responsive design, Bootstrap&#x2F;JQuery. Pretty generic stuff.<p>So the business has an odd pay bonus. If we earn a qualification that they consider helpful to our day work then we get a pay bump ($1Kish forever), if we do a harder tier of qualification then we get a larger bump ($1.5Kish forever). We have to pay for the qualifications ourselves.<p>The only one I know of is Microsoft&#x27;s MCSD. I need alternatives. The concern&#x2F;issue I have with Microsoft&#x27;s MCSD is two fold:<p>- It is legitimately hard. Deals with obscure memorisation. Would take months per exam. Which is fine for learning, but bad when I am losing money every month it isn&#x27;t done (literally almost $100&#x2F;month). That&#x27;s a lot of pressure.<p>- Due to the structure of the MCSD and work&#x27;s pay thingy, I am rewarded only for the first exam ($1Kish) and third exam ($1.5Kish) but nothing for the middle exam. I&#x27;d like to find a two exam qualification where the second one is considered a fully realised qualification.<p>Assuming I didn&#x27;t pay a cent for training and passed the first time, I am looking at $495 for the MCSD. That&#x27;s do-able. But given the nature of the exams, they&#x27;re almost designed to be failed. They bring up the most obscure parts of the most up to date spec for JavaScript&#x2F;CSS&#x2F;HTML&#x2F;etc. Without Microsoft&#x27;s official training materials you don&#x27;t stand a chance, and frankly I don&#x27;t feel that learning a spec in such intricate detail is a good use of my time (that&#x27;s what Google is for).<p>I&#x27;d definitely consider qualifications only loosely related, like project management. It just has to be something I can sell to work as a legitimate value.
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Can't you ask management what to recommend? Is that not seen as taking
initiative?

