Ittechtips.com’s Blog

Cisco and its global testing provider, Pearson VUE, a business of Pearson Inc. are pleased to announce a series of security enhancements that will reinforce the integrity and value of its Career certification program.

The advanced security enhancements include the use of digital photographs for candidate-identity verification and forensic analysis of testing data. The new measures, to be implemented beginning on Aug. 1, will include: 

• Photo on Score Report and Web – On completion of a certification exam at the test center, candidates will receive preliminary score reports imprinted with their photos and unique authentication codes. The authentication code can be used to access a candidate’s official score online at Pearson VUE’s website usually within 72 hours of the examination. The online score report will also display the candidate’s photo. Candidates may share access to their online records with employers or other third parties.
• Forensic Analysis – Exam results and other testing data will be continuously analyzed by forensic software to detect aberrant testing behavior and to flag suspect exams for further investigation.
• Preliminary Score Report – All paper score reports will be preliminary, pending the results of forensic analysis, until official exam scores are posted to the Web usually within 72 hours of exam completion. Once the exam scores are official, candidates may use the authentication codes on their score reports to access the Pearson VUE website for score and photo verification.

These new exam security measures are part of Cisco’s overall strategy to protect the value and integrity of its certifications. Other measures include simulation-based testing, dynamically generated questions and emulations to help ensure that Cisco certified networking professionals continue to have the knowledge, skills, and credentials to perform well on the job. 

To find out more about Cisco Career Certifications access the Cisco Learning Network at www.cisco.com/go/learnnetspace.

To sign up for a Cisco exam at a VUE testing center go to http://www.pearsonvue.com/cisco/online/

 With all of the cheat sheets we have confiscated, I have yet to see one that would get you through a job interview. Memorizing the answer to question 42 will not help you when you are being grilled by a potential employer. Imagine memorizing the cheat sheet for the written portion of the driver’s test, but having no knowledge of how to actually drive. You would qualify for the road test, but your odds of passing would go down once you backed into a utility pole.

And companies are getting more thorough in their interviews of certificate holders. One interviewer I met said he has screened candidates who had cheated on their exams. By about the third troubleshooting question, he said the candidates usually become completely flustered. Some have even cried. So if your only job interview preparation involved buying stolen exam content off the Internet, I’d bring tissues… maybe the phone number for a grief counseling hotline.

I don’t mean to give away company secrets, but we’ve found that the best way to convince an employer that you know how to configure a router is to know how to configure a router. Using Cisco-approved study materials and courses will give you that knowledge, the knowledge to pass not just the exam, but also the road test.

Let us know what you thought about this article. The original is posted here: https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/blogs;jsessionid=BAF55DE08A78F94659A05E6E00C75B7F