Career
Studying for the 70-767 to earn the MCSE
I really only planned on writing about the 70-767 in one post rather than two, but I thought this post may help other people while I continually study for my 70-767 exam. Microsoft is retiring the 70-767 and many other exams on January 31 2021. This is significant for several reasons:
- The exams were originally set to be retired by June 30 2020
- You will not be able to achieve an MCSA or MCSE after the dates
- Microsoft is changing how they design the certifications to be role-based involving Azure technology
I’ve included a read-only copy of my OneNote study book. I’d recommend making a copy of it in your own OneNote, that way you can take notes and use the checkbox features. The only purchased material I am using for this study is the 70-767 exam guide and the Kimball Data Warehouse Toolkit book.
T-SQL Tuesday #122 – Imposter Syndrome wrap up
I want to thank everyone who participated in this month’s #TSQL2SDAY! There are new folks starting their journey towards a new career every day and I believe that these stories can honestly help many individuals. Thank you, Steve Jones – (b|t) for letting me host this month and thank you Adam Machanic for starting this blog party back in 2009.
Overall, we had 27 individuals post or share their Imposter Syndrome stories and thoughts. I had a lot of great reading to do this week and weekend.
T-SQL Tuesday #122 – Imposter Syndrome
As we enter the new year, I’m sure many of us are setting goals, resolutions, or perhaps beginning new challenges. Change can often be terrifying, but that’s how we grow. With this in mind, the topic I’d like us to write about this month is “Imposter Syndrome”.
Imposter syndrome isn’t a topic I’ve seen addressed before via T-SQL Tuesday and this is an issue I’ve commonly seen in the IT industry.
Hurray! I earned my CDMP!
On 11/10/2019, I earned my CDMP (Certified Data Management Professional) certification! This certificate comes from an organization called DAMA which I’ve recently written about. Today’s post is more about the preparation and experience of taking the Data Management Fundamentals Exam. I would recommend starting by reading out what DAMA is and circle back here if you are unfamiliar with it.
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T-SQL Tuesday #120 What were you thinking?
Thank you Wayne for hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday! Wayne shared last year a story where he had to reverse engineer a complex hierarchy pattern within a table. The developers appeared to do this to obfuscate how the software operated. This left him asking, “What were you thinking?” So this month, we are discussing stories that left you asking that same question.
During my introduction to a new company, we were running through the processes, duties, systems, and everything else you would expect when starting a new job. Overall, it was a basic induction into a new company.
Lessons from conferences
This month I’ve attended SQL Saturday in Denver along with the Pre-Con event featuring Steve Jones and Kendra Little who discuss continuous integration and development. I’ve also attended the Teradata Universe conference in Denver, so it’s been a very busy month. Besides trying to catch up on email and work between sessions, I’ve been trying to summarize material into educational and actionable items for my customers.
I would like to share with you three sayings and some examples around them that I heard at these conferences. I think these phrases have a lot of insight to them and I hope you can take something productive away from this.
T-SQL Tuesday #119 Changing my mind
Thank you Alex Yates for this month’s topic!
Something I’ve changed my mind on recently is working on contracting projects instead of performing work directly for a company. Very recently I had a (good) problem of choosing between a few different job roles and companies. The choice was not easy and two years ago I told myself I’d never do contract work again. I’m not talking about starting an S-Corp or an LLC but working for a company that contracts your work out to another company. I have also in the past changed my mind about how I update rows in critical systems and whether you can ROLLBACK a TRUNCATE statement (in SQL Server).
Upcoming blog content
A lot of the content on my website is a mix of technical and conceptual. Over the next few months to probably the end of the year, I’m going to focus on more conceptual articles. The majority of them will cover my experience and time spent learning and working on certifications.
My goal is to achieve my CDMP (Certified Data Management Professionals) Associate certification and my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert) in Data Management and Analytics by the end of the year. These goals are relatively intensive in coordination with my new(ish) job that I accepted in June. Due to the intensity, I’ve pushed the work back on some technical articles and presentations I’ve been working on. So in order to keep up with frequent postings, I’ll be creating those two series of articles related to obtaining certifications.
T-SQL Tuesday #118 My fantasy SQL features
T-SQL Tuesday #118Thank you Kevin for hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday! It’s an interesting topic to reflect on features we wish we saw in SQL Server. I’m excited to read some of the other ideas and maybe we’ll see one or two get pushed out in the future!
I have three features I’d love to see from SQL Server. Two of these mostly exist already, but they are not easy to utilize. I wish so badly that SQL Server could generate smart Entity Relation Diagrams (ERD) and documentation. Really, I wish it could create the artifacts the way Redgate does. If I had a third feature to wish for while knowing it would be unrealistic, but I’d love if they had a feature to change the culture of a workplace.
Develop your career – Brand yourself!
This post should really be titled “Obtaining interviews – Building your portfolio”, but I honestly think the current title is better. (Both are still true!) Now, a lot of people are going to tell me that they don’t need to make themselves a brand to land a great job. I’m going to say that you’re right, but I’m also going to say that it’s easier when you do.
Building the “Brand”
Before we get into the portfolio which is a large piece of this, I wanted to describe what a “Brand” is. Branding to me can be as simple as “leaving an impression on someone”. That’s it.