Stephane,
>I've been reading many messages that were posted in this forum and I encountered some that talked about MCSE certification or some other kind of certification.
>
>Is this necessary? What are the benefits of acquiring such certificates? In a nutshell, my question is why would I wanna pay for something like that? I have a bachelor's degree by the way, I'm thinking "that's enough to get by", right?
I have seen ads for jobs or contract positions that specifically state that the candidate must have MCSD certification.
For me, it was incentive to learn the product and other related technologies at a more in-depth level, and to gain experience by working out my own examples, especially with MTS, MSMQ, etc.
Some would say that certification will not help you, but I believe that is a bit short-sighted. Microsoft is working hard to make the certification tests a good measure of experience, and my outlook on it is that gaining certification certainly will NOT hurt my changes of landing a good job or contract.
Some good discussion on this issue:
http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?wiki~SupportingCertificationhttp://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?wiki~CertificationDownsides
