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How to Renew Your Microsoft Certification!
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Feb 19, 2024
Did you know you have to renew your Microsoft certifications to keep them active? Follow along in this video to learn where to access, prepare for, and take renewal exams! Learn Profile Short Link: https://aka.ms/certificationdashboard Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 00:12 Renewal Overview 01:15 Accessing Certification Dashboard 03:07 Reviewing Renewal Exam Details 06:50 Reviewing Exam Results 08:46 Summary
View Video Transcript
0:00
What's going on everyone? Today we're going to talk about renewing your Microsoft certification
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I'll show you where to access the renewal certification exam and some available preparation
0:09
materials. Let's go ahead and get started. Several years ago, Microsoft introduced exam renewals
0:15
Prior to making this change, whenever you achieved a certification, it was valid forever
0:20
This model made sense because you were working with products like Windows Server, SharePoint
0:25
Server, Exchange Server, some of those on-premises applications. But now, with how often cloud
0:30
services change, having a certification from several years ago may not really reflect your
0:35
current skill set. For example, one of my first certifications was over Windows Server 2008
0:41
I took three exams to achieve that certification, but then when a new version came out, Windows
0:46
Server 2012, I had to just take one exam covering new topics and then I could upgrade my certification
0:52
to the newer version. However, Microsoft has changed this a little bit with cloud services
0:57
and that change comes with certification renewals. Now, each year after you achieve one of these new
1:02
certifications, you have to go online and renew it. Luckily, these renewal exams are free and you can
1:08
take them online from a browser. Let's jump out to a browser to show you how to access this and
1:13
how to take the exam. First, you want to go to the Microsoft short URL aka.ms slash certification
1:20
dashboard. This is going to show your Microsoft Learn account and here is where you can access
1:24
your certifications. So, over here on the left under credentials, you'll select that
1:30
and select the certifications tab. As you can see, I have several certifications here that are
1:36
upcoming for renewal. It shows me when it expires and when I earned it. We're going to focus on the
1:42
Azure Administrator Associate. This is the one I want to renew. I still have a few months before
1:47
it expires, but I have a time period here when I can renew it. Let's actually talk about that real
1:51
quick. Let's say you achieve a certification on January 1st. Come July 1st, that is six months
1:59
later, your renewal exam opens up and you have that entire six months from July 1st to January
2:04
1st to take the renewal exam and pass it in order to keep your certification active. Now, depending
2:11
on July 1st to January 1st, that six months period leaning up to the anniversary when you achieved it
2:17
doesn't matter when you pass the renewal exam, it will renew on that January 1st date. So, whenever
2:23
you first initially achieve the certification, that's going to be your anniversary date for the
2:28
certification moving forward. It doesn't matter when you pass the renewal, it'll always go back
2:32
to when you first achieved it and you have up to a year after that to achieve the renewal. So
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mine actually does look a little weird here because it says I first earned it February 4th
2:43
2019. Typically, that would be my renewal date, but I actually achieved the certification before
2:48
Microsoft came out with renewals. Microsoft added a six-month buffer there to give some extra time
2:53
for people who didn't have renewals when this first came out. You can see it expires August 4th
2:58
2024 and if by taking the renewal exam, it shows me I can extend it to August 4th, 2025. So, let's
3:05
go ahead and click on the renew button and this is going to take us out to a special certification
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page. Very similar to maybe when you first achieved the certification, but this one's specifically for renewing the certification and right at the very top, it tells me I'm eligible
3:18
to renew it. I can click right there and take the renewal assessment if I'm ready for it
3:23
Let's scroll down here a little bit and see what else is available here for us. Just like when you
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took an exam to achieve a certification, there is a skills measured and what's being covered in the
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renewal assessment. I have a couple of bullet points here. These are probably things that
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have changed with the Azure Administrator exam in the last year or so. Maybe some new topics
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that they've included in there. That just helps you understand what's going to be covered in the
3:47
exam. Again, I have another option here to take the renewal assessment. We'll get into a little
3:52
bit more details of what's included there, but if there's a topic in the skills measured here that
3:58
you're not familiar with, if we keep scrolling down, there is a preparation section here and
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there are collections here available from Microsoft Learn that go over the specific topics
4:07
If I wasn't as familiar with hosting a web application with Azure App Service
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I can go through this module and learn a few things there. Maybe then jump out to some Microsoft
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Learn documentation, talk about containerized web applications with Dockers, securing your Azure
4:22
storage account, a couple other things here. This is great. Right within our renewal page here
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we have some resources available to us in order to study up on some of the topics on the renewal
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exam in case there's something you're not familiar with. Now, let's scroll back up. Let's say I'm
4:38
already, I feel good about all the topics. Let's go back up to the renewal assessment button here
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and let's go over a couple of things that it talks about here. It is an online assessment
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Now, when you first achieve your certification, you may have taken it in a Pearson testing center
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or maybe you took it online. Now, when you took it online, you had to download a secure browser
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You had to take pictures of your workspace and have someone proctor it. The renewal exams have
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none of that. It is just you and a web browser and there's no proctor watching it or anything
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like that. It's much lower stakes and potentially stress fee if that type of thing stressed you out
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the first time you had to take the exam. The third bullet point here talks about what happens if you
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don't pass the renewal exam. You can take it again right away, but if you happen to fail that
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second attempt, then you have to wait 24 hours between each subsequent exam attempt. So, you can
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take it as many times as you need to in that six months leading up to the certification anniversary
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date, which at that point it would expire. In the renewal certification, there are very simple
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question types. There's no case studies. There is no drag and drop really. There is, you know
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fill in the blank, anything like that. These are very straightforward multiple choice questions
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However, you have to answer the question and move on and once you've moved on past the question
6:00
you can't go back. So, you have to be able to read the question and answer it right away before you
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can move on. Typically, there's maybe 20 to 30 questions. That could obviously change depending
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on how many topics are being covered and the renewal exam is timed. It is 45 minutes. I feel
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like in past renewal exams that I've had to take, there was no timer, but in one I took recently
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they actually did have a countdown timer showing how much time you have left. I've never come close
6:26
to hitting that time limit, so hopefully you'll be fine. I take tests pretty quick though. I've
6:30
taken lots of exams over the years, but maybe you have a little bit more test anxiety. Just know
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I think you'll have plenty of time. Okay, so we know where to find the renewal exam. There's some
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preparation materials, but I feel good about everything right now, so I'm going to take the
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renewal assessment. I'm going to pause the recording here, take the renewal assessment
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and we'll see how I do. Okay, I just finished the renewal assessment. As you can see, I passed
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so I extended my certification for another year. If we scroll down here, you can click on see your
7:00
results, and it looks like I scored a 76%. I needed a 57% to pass, and then we go through each bullet
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point that we saw earlier when we were looking to prepare for the exam and showed me how I did on
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the questions on it. Azure App Services and containerized web apps did pretty good. Not
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so great on securing storage accounts. Isolating Azure resources with NSGs and service points
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looking pretty good there. The rest of it, pretty good. Not so great on managing users and groups
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with Microsoft Enter ID. But if you didn't pass the exam, you could take this and see where you
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didn't do well. Maybe go back to those Microsoft Learn modules, or then go do some additional
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studying. Obviously, you just took the exam here, and you know what questions they ask. You could go
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research those specific topics. If I had failed, if I wanted to, I could retake it right now. But
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like I mentioned earlier, if I failed now on my second attempt, then I have to wait 24 hours
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between each subsequent attempt. Let's scroll back up here, and then if I want to, I can click on my
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profile picture here and click on profile. We should be able to see right here, yep
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here's today's dates. Here's my recent activity. It just showed me that I renewed this successfully
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and it is good for another year. If we go back under credentials, click on certification
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and we can see which ones are coming up. Here's a good one. I earned my Azure Network Engineer
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Associate October 22nd. It will expire October 23rd, 2024. Let's see, it won't be until April
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six months prior to that expiration date until I can take this exam again to renew this other
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certification here. It doesn't. Hopefully, this helps you prepare for renewal assessments. Make
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sure they're on your radar. You should receive emails from Microsoft to the email address that
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you use to get the initial certification reminding you that it's coming up for renewal, and you have
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six months to do it. Plenty of free retakes, and you should be good to go. So don't let those expire
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on you. That's it for today. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you next time
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