Prepare for Autodesk Professional Certification

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

In the 1997 movie about recently laid-off steelworkers in England, “The Full Monty,” the 40-something Gerald, a former plant manager lands a job interview with an old friend at another steel plant. The interviewer tells Gerald he won’t hire him since his skills are out of date after three months of unemployment. Three months.

You could hear that someday. But you can and should do something about it. You can keep learning and get yourself certified as a professional in the tools you use. It’s a no brainer. Today’s Check it Out link takes you to where you can prepare for certification.

The ASCENT - Center for Technical Knowledge is the courseware division of Rand Worldwide, a global provider of technology solutions to engineering design organizations. ASCENT develops professional-level training materials and technical documentation for engineering applications from Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes and PTC. They just came out with a series of review guides to help you prepare for the Certified Professional exams for the 2015 versions of AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Revit and AutoCAD Civil 3D.

ASCENT is an authorized Autodesk author, publisher, developer and trainer. They report that they also are the sole provider of Autodesk Official Training Guides. Suffice it to say, ASCENT has the creds to ensure that you’re getting the instruction you need.

A quick note: The review guides under consideration here are for people experienced with Autodesk software and preparing for or considering preparing for their Autodesk Certified Professional exam. If you’re a new or infrequent user looking to improve your skills, check out ASCENT’s Autodesk Official Training Guides.

Each Autodesk certification exam preparation book contains a set of topics drawn from the training guides that are likely to be Autodesk Certified Professional exam topics and objectives. Each guide begins with a review of the objectives Autodesk requires for the exam, then covers them in detail. Following that are practice examples and review questions covering what you studied.

The Autodesk Inventor guide for the Professional Certification exam is the largest of the set at 838 pages. The others range between 438 and 450 pages. From the rendering, the guides appear to be spiral-bound, which means you don’t have to worry about finding something heavy to prop them open.

Next week at Autodesk University (AU) 2014 in Las Vegas, you can meet the authors of the Professional Certification exam guides. They’ll be delivering five classes as well as hanging out at the ASCENT booth (#249) and the “Ask a Guru” station in the Certification Lounge. ASCENT will also have certification exam review guides at the booth along with some 30 or so titles from their 2015 Autodesk courseware line-up. (Hint: There’s a show discount on courseware for AU attendees.)

You probably picked up on that “Certification Lounge” comment. The next round of Autodesk Certified Professional exams will be held next week at AU. If you’re attending AU 2014 and want to get your certification, that’s a pretty tight timeline for in-depth review; however, you probably did some cramming during your university days. But you don’t have to wait until next week to get your mitts on one of these official certification exam guides. All are available for one-day shipping through Amazon.

You can learn more about ASCENT’s official Autodesk Professional Certification exam preparation guides from the landing page at the end of today’s Check it Out link. On the page you’ll find a 2-minute 15-second video on the guides. Beneath the video are links to each guide. Hit the one that matches your need. That’ll bring up a blurb on the guide. Look for the Amazon link.

This is really worth the effort. The importance of burnishing your résumé cannot be overstated. Having proof that you’re a certified Autodesk Professional could be the difference if you suddenly find yourself out there hustling for a job. So, hit the Check it Out link and get cracking.

Thanks, Pal. – Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Go here to learn more about the Autodesk Professional Certification exam preparation guides.