Would you cheat to get an IT credential?

Linda Leung's newsletter on IT careers and training has been covering the value of certification quite a bit lately. Read her numerous articles on the topic. All this discussion about certification got me thinking about the scandals a few years ago when it was discovered that people were cheating on paper-based IT certification exams. Now that high stakes exams tend to be computer-based, I wondered if cheating is still a problem.

Apparently it is. See this blog entry from Susan Underhill, the head of HP's certification program. Susan asserts that people in all types of industries (not just IT) cheat to attain their credentials. Even teachers cheat to make it into the classroom!

There are services today that will sell you access to real questions that are found on current certification exams. You can even buy exams on eBay. These agencies might call their list of questions "study guides" or even "brain dumps," but the real name for them is "stolen intellectual property." Based on the fact that these services exist, I assume that people use them, and therefore people cheat on certification exams.

David Foster wrote an in-depth article about certification exam cheating about 4 years ago, but it's still quite relevant today. Foster and his colleague Jamie Mulkey wrote another article on cheating that offers up some suggestions on how the IT industry as a whole can curtail cheating.

I guess people "justify" their cheating by thinking that they already know the subject material, and they just need a little assurance that they will get through the exam. Holding a credential can open doors to new opportunities and maybe even give you a salary bump. Maybe cheaters somehow feel they deserve these benefits, whether they are earned or not. I just don't know.

What's your take on certification cheating? Would you do it? If so, why? How do you feel about colleagues who cheat? What can the industry do to curtail cheating?

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