@dcontesti wrote:
@JoePete I almost agree with you except for the fact that each exam that is taken (free or not) has an associated cost to it.
(ISC)2 will need to pay Pearson $$ for their time and facilities. So the 1 Million free exams do have an internal operating cost associated with them.
And I probably agree with you more than almost ;). There most certainly is a cost with each exam taken. I note that our administrative expenses rose significantly (~$10 million) in 2022, and that would seem to coincide with the CC initiative and handing out all these vouchers (but I doubt this expense increase is exclusively the CC).
But to me, those financial issues are secondary to whether we are exploiting a certain inexperienced population, who may be reading our marketing in a secondary or translated language. Keep in mind this is an adaptive test, marketed at people with no professional security experience. In retrospect, maybe a free retake is not a viable answer, but when I see posts like the original, it puts me in an apologetic mindset.
I note the first line of the marketing of the CC: "See yourself in cybersecurity. You don’t need experience ..." I don't know if that came from the board, management, or Prof. Harold Hill, but the recognition of experience was the driving principle behind the (ISC)2. We seem to be selling a message that I find is untrue in my experience (see, there's that word again). By the same token, though, the industry already had plenty of affordable entry-level certifications, ones better established and benchmarked than the CC. Maybe with time, the CC will find its place alongside those, but until that happens, is our marketing aligning with reality?
