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I disagree with this that you cannot start a career as DBA.
Ideally you should have Oracle development and data Modelling experience.
But here in Toronto I've seen cases where people are fresh OCPs and were able to find the job of course there OCP was complemented with MCSE, BSEE, BSCS.
Thanx
my first position in IT was as an oracle DBA (the only database guru there). they paid me as a junior dba but I sure learned a lot very quickly. Being thrust into the situation has its advantages.
I would say that I was lucky to get a position with no experience (just the classes that I took at the university) other than a finance background.
somehow, you need to get your foot in the door and be lucky enough to have a company that is willing to take a risk with people of limited experience.
- Magnus
I agree with the above posts. I had an IT background but it was not Oracle or any RDBMS for that matter. I got my OCP and managed to get into this department. Luckily I have a few good seniors here and a manager that is carefully bringing me up to speed and has a geniune concern about my training and future here.
Too many posts here are concerned with certification, degrees and the like, what about the individual? What about personal attributes?
There are far too many variables to say things like
"You can't" or "You will never be"
Somehow I have a feeling that this argument will never go away.
MH
This is true when the economy is good and people chasing for better positions or $$ and company sometimes has to back-fill with non-DBA or jr. DBAs. In today's cost-cutting economy, corporations don't even have large training budget they rather just hire someone with some experience who could start the job without alot of training. Nowadays, even senior DBAs are out of work, some of them even settle for positions with less $$ which leave the newbies in a tough position to find entry-level position, if any.Quote:
Originally posted by shaan
I disagree with this that you cannot start a career as DBA.
Ideally you should have Oracle development and data Modelling experience.
But here in Toronto I've seen cases where people are fresh OCPs and were able to find the job of course there OCP was complemented with MCSE, BSEE, BSCS.
Thanx
{{{{This is true when the economy is good and people chasing for better positions or $$ and company sometimes has to back-fill with non-DBA or jr. DBAs. In today's cost-cutting economy, corporations don't even have large training budget they rather just hire someone with some experience who could start the job without alot of training. }}}}
But certification especially in Oracle is a good start IMHO. By getting certified, you show that you have the foundation of knowledge, and that you are trainable. Oracle OCP shouldn't be treated like just another entry level cert like A+, or MCSA.
Also, if you have many years of experience working as an Oracle DBA or Developer, why would you even need to get certified at all? Wouldn't your knowledge from your previous experiences be enough to get a better job?
{{{some of them even settle for positions with less $$ which leave the newbies in a tough position to find entry-level position, if any.}}}
So, what about the new college grads with a fresh BS or MS in Computer Science. How will they get in the door without much experience?
That, apearantly, is the $95K question.Quote:
Originally posted by NickL
So, what about the new college grads with a fresh BS or MS in Computer Science. How will they get in the door without much experience?
For every rule of thumb, there is an exception. Sure, there are people that don't have a post-secondary education that are in IT, but most do have some kind of degree. There are paper OCPs that have found jobs faster than people with experience.
Does this make one person better than the other? No, I don't think so. Finding a job is a numbers game. You have to get your resume in front of enough people without saturating the market. If you get your resume in front of the right person at the right time and you interview well, you're in.
As we all know, there are SOOOOOO many people in this industry...and if this current global recession is any indication, I think that people in the IT field will have to accept these conditions as being the norm in the future....There are people comming into the field from left and right causing salaries to decrease...
Think of when immigrants enter an region..they are willing to do the same work for less and therefore cause wages to go down so the people who were already living there have to either settle for less $$ or move. The analogy being that with such saturation in IT, employees are going to have to settle for less $$ or change careers...(I wish I was 6'5",could dribble and had a good shot)
Keep in mind that I'm still in college, so I might seem a little naive at this age :):)
Why OCP shouldn't be treated like just another entry levelQuote:
Originally posted by NickL
Oracle OCP shouldn't be treated like just another entry level cert like A+, or MCSA.
cert like A+, or MCSA?? :) You think OCP is god of all certifications ...well, think again
I hate to be negative but these days even a person with a BS degree is having a tough time finding an entry-level position. They just have to wait. I don't think you can compare OCP against academic degrees. If I could finish a BS degrees in 3 months like i did for my OCP then I probaby could have several PHD degrees in several areas by now.Quote:
Originally posted by NickL
So, what about the new college grads with a fresh BS or MS in Computer Science. How will they get in the door without much experience? .
Well I just had an interesting conversation with the head of a small Oracle consulting company here in Victoria Canada (he has 20 oracle DBA/developers working for him).
He made two points that kind of stood out.
First, the number of OCP DBAs has steadily increased over the last couple of years and the result is charge out rates have been dropping. Two years ago a Senior DBA in Victoria would be charged out at $125 an hour. Last week he bid two Senior DBAs at $65 an hour on a six month project and lost out ... a competitor bid $60 an hour.
Second, which is most depressing for people spending big bucks to get certified is that unless you have previous IT experience working with some other type of databases (i.e. DB2, Sybase, etc) the starting salary is $6 an hour (minimum wage).
Gee,
OCP
MCSE
P.S. It costs $16000 at a local post secondary institute to get OCP certificed over a 6 month period.
P.S. He is paying his Senior DBAs about $40 an hour.
$60/hr??
Well, let's say a person works 50wks/yr * 40hrs/week = 2000hrs
So, 2000hrs * $60/hr = $120,000..............where can I sign up?!?!?!
LOL...
it's fairly evident that more and more IT professionals are UNDERemployed(not to be confused with UNemployed) and all evidence says that it's going to continue
Huh... 50 Weeks a year. Don't know to many contractors who do that. Actually, if you take out public holidays etc. Contractors usually end up working around 220 days a year, it works out at
$40 * 8 Hours * 220 Days = $70,400.
($60 * 8 Hours * 220 Days = $105,600)
Which still isn't bad, but remembering you don't get sick leave, holiday pay, leave loading when you are a contractor.
and tax pay, should be around 30%
I was one of the few lucky "slackers" who was given the oppurtunity to be a DBA without any prior experience with Oracle. I had previous experience as a UNIX SA, UNIX and Windows programming. I also had previous DB experience with mysql, MS Access, MS Foxpro and Postgresql. Not much experience there, but my experience was "somehow relevant" I guess. I showed my employer I was hardworking and eager to learn. so when they were looking for a Junior Oracle DBA, I applied for the position and they gave it to me. regarding OCP's, ofcourse it's still important. 1) you learn things 2) makes you more attractive to employers and last but the most important reason 3) Girls dig Oracle Certified Professionals...ok ok maybe not.
Johnson, I stand corrected....
Man, where have I heard that before?? LOL
everything is comparitive here.
i mean i sailed for 10 years and bade farewell to my job where you saw chicks , all kinds of people from all over the world.....
I began here with a shipping company as application manager(i learned sme stuff/programmed a little on Vb /sometime on a ship), discovered oracle and was thrilled(still am).
but here in netehrlands you can have all the ocp and possibly good experience, but you don't speak dutch , the dutch ain't gonna like ya. So you gotta be fluent in dutch, and it's much harder than all your ocp's. IT deptt's / or large firms or small firms you'd find the companies are pretty withdrawn if you present a flamboyant pic of i know stuff, i can do it etc.
besides talking about oracle, it's also about what you are yourself, and how you relate to it. with me it fits in nice, i'd spend hours and lose the count on time.
Certification is fun, i like it, i already have job offers but i give due respect to the certification.
bottom line is you'll always come across jackasses who have more certifications and know little. but if you had the cert. you'd be in his place and doing a better job(like you keep saying all day), so go ahead and get it.
Do it because you want to be the best in it ,not because you wanna look like a chicken with all the feathers(certificates) and 2 left hands(twee linker handen: in dutch meaning awkward).
Tarry Singh
Slob; You rock, we need more people with a crude sense of humor on this board. Great point too.
Tarry; Also a great point, my OCP got my foot in the door here in the DB dept. Just like the slob I had to display the drive to get in, especially with no experience.
The funny thing is that the other DBA's I work with do not have an OCP and consider it to be BS. What they do have is a ton of experience. The other funny thing is that I am not helping prove that OCP is that great since these guys are training me!
I still think it is a good thing, especially the upgrade because it will make you aware of all the new features. As Julian has mentioned, there are too many DBA's out there still using version 6 methodology when there are clearly better solutions.
MH
Mr Hanky, "DBA's I work with do not have an OCP and consider it to be BS. ", I reckon they think it's BS because they're scared a). They'll fail an exam and look like an idiot, b). Have a closed mind especially if they think they know everything there is to do with Oracle (They don't, I'm sure any one of use could stump another on one obscure question.. and they to us also).
Sometimes whether a group is certified or not has to do with the company they work for. The previous company I worked for put a great emphasis on training and certification. They paid for your training, paid your exam costs, gave you time off to study and take the exams, and my boss took me out to lunch when I became certified. I even got some $$ in the next raise.
At other companies, they only care if you can get the job done. I've worked with people that could have written the exams, but they're not certified. Sure, I've kept up my certification, but on my own time & money.
I agree, but in this case Mr Hanky said they were dissing it. Jealous perhaps...? Ahhh, anyway, I'm glad I did it.
That's true. My company also paid for the exams and ILTs, gave me a day free before each exam to prepare at home and the boss of my boss bought a bottle of champagne after I got certified (not sparkling wine!).Quote:
Originally posted by marist89
Sometimes whether a group is certified or not has to do with the company they work for. The previous company I worked for put a great emphasis on training and certification. They paid for your training, paid your exam costs, gave you time off to study and take the exams, and my boss took me out to lunch when I became certified. I even got some $$ in the next raise.
:-) And I could have won the ski jumping but I didn't get the chance to fly to Salt Lake City.Quote:
I've worked with people that could have written the exams, but they're not certified.
:DQuote:
Originally posted by julian
:-) And I could have won the ski jumping but I didn't get the chance to fly to Salt Lake City.Quote:
I've worked with people that could have written the exams, but they're not certified.
Well ,
jeff, julian you're lucky dudes. getting pampered and stuff.
but if an employer understands how critical a database is for his company, he better do his homework right.
I know i'd be far better professionally if i worked with a group of guys who, like hanky said have tons of exp. because there you learn the tricks of trade which possibly compared with an ocp and a screwy new colleagues who don't wanna share nothing with you, is far better.
I mean looking at today's times with employers busy detrenching and laying off staff. I'd be more than happy if my boss payed for my exams.
Tarry