Microsoft Learn Cloud Skills Challenge: Earn One Certification Exam w/ Challenge Expired

Here's some info for some questions I'm seeing. I don't work for Microsoft but have helped gather some info around these certs for my organization's educational curriculum.

What are all of the certs available from Microsoft?
This poster (PDF in the link) is a good place to see what's available. It's easy to google any individual cert for more information.
https://aka.ms/traincertposter

What cert should I get?
Sorry, but that's like asking "What color should I paint my wall?" We need more information. ;-)

What cert should I get if I'm a noob?
Actually, none of these are the *best* to get started with. With Microsoft's certifications, they're almost all about the cloud. If you're a noob and you want to get started, go start with AZ-900, which is the intro cert for Azure. As others have mentioned, you can frequiently get a free voucher for that cert. While this posted deal doesn't qualify for AZ-900, you should be able to find another source for that cert for free, start there, and then come back to this deal for a follow-up cert.

Do note that some of the certs in this deal are pretty difficult. If you're really wanting to know what to take after AZ-900, then AZ-104 is one that we recommend to most of our employees as one of the next few to take (we also have some SC-xxx certs that we target early). Also, a note on AZ-204. Despite it sounding like "the obvious dev cert to get", and it kinda is, we've found that it is unusually difficult given the breadth of topics that it covers. For example, you might be tested on the very specific querying syntax for a Redis query or some nginx configuration details. While most of our people pass it, we've never really had anybody "ace it", even for those developing against Azure for almost 15 years.

Back to the question. Seriously, just look at the name of the cert and focus on the one that is in the area you want to learn the most in. The Microsoft Learn resources are a really good place to start and are free. Tons of help at Youtube for free, too. Pluralsight and other paid options exist for training, too. The official paid training courses are very hit-or-miss.

What cert is the easiest?
That would probably be AI-900. Generally speaking, the *-900 certs are the introduction certs that don't require prior experience. However, those also tend to be the cheapest certification exams and might not maximize the value of this deal. However, a less-optimized deal is better than no deal at all if you just want to start with the easiest cert. Don't feel bad for that. Your first cert is sometimes the hardest and most difficult one to get because of the mental barriers we all build up around it.

Side note: I doubt that AI-900 has caught up with the latest OpenAI craze. There is some really need GPT 3, 3.5, and 4 stuff in Azure, but you have to get a special invite to get access to some of that and I don't think these certs cover the latest LLM craze, given how new it all is. But if you can get into that preview, there is some really cool stuff around models that you can customize on your own (either from just prompt training or even full-blown heavy duty model training based on large datasets of your own). Neat stuff!

What cert will look most impressive for a new job?
This doesn't have an obvious answer. It probably depends on what kind of job you're looking for. An infosec job? A Development job? A DevOps job? While your situation may vary, I would have to say that AZ-305 is one of the more impressive certs in this list. But it also has pre-requisite certs that you'll have to get before you can then take and pass the 305. So that's not something you'd start at, but something you'd build up to.

EDIT: Technically, you can take and pass the AZ-305 exam without the pre-reqs, but you won't get the certification until you also take and pass the pre-reqs. Moral of the story: just do the pre-reqs first.

What cert will look most impressive for a new job if I don't want to take a bunch of certs to get to your recommendation of AZ-305?
heh, yeah, I didn't think my answer was really what people wanted to hear. So, if you really want a simple answer here, just go for the AZ-104. That is applicable to almost all Azure jobs and covers a lot of stuff. Somebody else might disagree, but this is the most obvious answer in my opinion. It's not that it's impressive, it's just that it covers a significant baseline of a lot of Azure information.

What cert will help my company's partnership program the most?
This totally depends on what certs already exist within your company. If your company is just 4 points shy of qualifying for a program (each cert counts as 4 points towards a goal of 70 points in one of several pillars), then any cert that gets them over that hump is the most beneficial. However, if you're looking for a more generic answer, then AZ-305 is the answer. This is because some partnership pillars are "locked" until your organization has two individuals who have the AZ-305 cert. Once those 2 have that cert, then that pillar "unlocks", so to speak, and all of the other qualifying conditions and accumulated sales metrics can help get you over that 70-point hurdle. I think one pillar is unlocked by the PL-600 cert, but that's not included here. So, AZ-305 would have to be my catch-all answer unless there are other specific circumstances for you.

Once I pass and get my cert, how long is it good for? Do I have to renew it?
The cert is good for 12 months, then it expires. However, you can renew it, for free, and keep it active. Each renewal bumps it for another 12 months. If you let it expire by one day, then you have to pay for and take the entire certificate exam again to get it back. So don't let it expire!

I have some of these certs, but they're with my old company. Do I have to take the exam again?
NOPE! These certs are supposed to belong to YOU and not your company. So, if you quit and get a new job, the certs should travel with you. For this reason, it's highly recommended that you associate these certs with a personal email address and not your work email address. If you have them associated with a work email address and you need to "recover" the certs, Microsoft should help you.

Get started here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/certifications/find-mcid​ [microsoft.com]
And ask questions in the forums link(s) from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/certifications/help​ [microsoft.com]

I have another question!
Sorry, that's all the answers I'm giving you. Go look here for more info [microsoft.com]. Otherwise, go google it yourself!

The time has come again! Against all odds, Microsoft is giving a free certification voucher again for this Microsoft Build.

When does it start? May 23, 2023, at 4:00 PM UTC
When does it end? June 20, 2023, at 4:00 PM UTC
When will you get the voucher? June 30, 2023
When will the voucher expire? September 27, 2023

Can you take the exam later than September 27? No and extensions are not possible under any circumstances

What are the rules? Cloud Skills Challenge Rules [microsoft.com]

Which exams are available?

AI-900: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals [microsoft.com]
AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator [microsoft.com]
AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure [microsoft.com]
AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions [microsoft.com]
AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions [microsoft.com]
DP-420: Designing and Implementing Cloud-Native Applications Using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB [microsoft.com]
PL-400: Microsoft Power Platform Developer [microsoft.com]

Challenge Registration link [microsoft.com]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/c...social_wwl

Wait I'll just let ChatGPT write the answers for me brb