Good marketable skills to have

Question

I have been an application develper for over 20 years and now I want to focus on database development. I have been working on and off doing database work such as database design and development, database programming writing triggers, stored procedures and function and am very confortable with PL/SQL. What areas of Oracle should I focus on that will give me marketable skills and what is the market ooking for. Should I work toward certifications and if so which one is good to have.

Answer 1

This is not an answer from which are the most marketable skills, but it is an answer from what is achievable relatively quickly.
If you have experience in applications or bea stuff it is possible that is more marketable.
Checkout the forums faqs and blogs,
And checkout [http://www.oracle.com/education/certification] - Find out about the exams there and look at the exam topics.
As a developer three certifications to be looked at that you could probably achieve with good rapidity are:
1) Oracle SQL Certified Expert
2) Oracle PL/SQL Developer Certified Associate
3) Oracle PL/SQL Developer Certified Professional
My suggestion of course to take are as follows:
1z0-051: I'd take this first to get used to taking certification exams. There's an Oracle Press Book that covers the subject matter for this quickly as well. (Some woudl say take 1z0-007; for you 1z0-051 would give more respect).
1z0-047: If your sql is good and you think you your up for it take this. It gets you a certificate. If it doesnt suit you or you think it might take some time bypass and get on with PL/SQL exams.
1z0-147: This gets you the PL/SQL developer OCA. My opinion is this exam is a bit old in the tooth. I said something about it on [this thread|http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=3383966]
> 1z0-144: this is an exam just out currently in beta. Great - except the length of time you may need to wait for your results which could be an issue. I think 1z0-144 topics more relevant compared to 1z0-147.
> If would be worth taking except your enegy would be more useful spent in getting OCP.
1z0-146: This gets you your OCP (but you effectively have to have OCA first). This is the exam that is more likely to push you.
In all events avoid unauthorised training material. To be safe that means buy oracle press/sybex books or use practice test authorised by oracle (transcender/Self Test) linked from the oracle web site [http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=208]
Good Luck - bigdelboy
Edited by: bigdelboy on 26-Apr-2009 06:35 ( typos)