Certification prep is an interesting proposition for IT cert candidates, but it’s important to remember that selling cert prep materials is also a pretty big business. Though you’ll often encounter grandiose claims from the makers of cert prep materials, I strongly recommend that you exercise the same skepticism and restraint in giving credence to such claims that you would exercise when considering ads of any kind.
The trick is to be choosy about what you fork over your hard-earned cash for, but also to be effective in how you go about deciding what’s potentially worth your money, and what’s not. If you learn to look for and steer clear of some tell-tale signs of a rip-off, you can save yourself time and money.
How to be choosy AND effective
Here’s a list of questions you should run through whenever you’re weighing the purchase of any certification preparation materials:
How well-known and reputable is the vendor organization?
The best way to select cert prep materials is on the basis of a strong, detailed and positive recommendation from someone you know well and trust completely. Other good sources of recommendation might come from a user or study group to which you belong, where peers and colleagues comment on such materials. In this case, a majority of strong positive opinions have some value and could lead you to investigate further.
You can use the Better Business Bureau (BBB.org) online to review hundreds of businesses around the USA and Canada to get a sense of how reputable (or not) an online vendor might be (check for a site at or near the vendor’s headquarters office location). Things to avoid in this case include: a bad, questionable or absent reputation; negative feedback from peers, colleagues or trustworthy sources of cert prep evaluations; and numerous unresolved complaints at the vendor’s home BBB office.
How outrageous are the vendor’s claims?
There’s a class of cert prep providers that may sometimes be labeled a brain dump, a place where vendors claim to provide verbatim access to cert exam questions and answers. This kind of claim is a red flag because providing such information not only violates the confidentiality agreement that any and all cert test-takers routinely agree to when they take certification exams, but also because anyone caught using a brain dump site can have his or her certifications voided, and may even be barred from future participation in certification testing.
This is not a good career move, and it’s especially risky for those who must earn and maintain certifications to qualify for or keep their jobs. Things to avoid in this case are materials for which vendors make claims like “accurate test questions,” “guaranteed pass,” “access to all test questions,” or “all you need to do is memorize our questions and answers, and you’ll pass.”
What do the reviews say about the materials?
By typing “review: <name of vendor><cert exam ID>” into your favorite search engine, you can usually find numerous reviews of a vendor’s cert prep materials online. If you find no such reviews, or find them to be rather more negative than positive, please steer clear.
On the other hand, you may find numerous positive reviews, which will help persuade you to purchase certain prep materials, or at least add them to your short list of final purchase candidates from among which you’ll ultimately buy something.
Things to avoid in this case are materials that garner negative (or no) reviews, or those that get more negative than positive ratings.
If you do your homework when researching cert prep materials and training, you’ll also find many specialty websites around specific certifications. These may be sponsored by book authors, instructors or already-certified IT professionals seeking to share their knowledge and experiences with others. Though you will want to check out their reputations to be sure they’re not working for the prep material vendors, you will find plenty of “good stuff” within their offerings.
For more information about which cert prep materials are worth considering and how to study for exams, sign up for TrainSignal’s newsletter to get your free copy of the Ultimate Guide to Preparing for IT Certifications.
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