Microsoft’s MOS (Microsoft
Office Specialist) certification
is meant for people in any
industry and with various job
roles who want to demonstrate a
high-level of proficiency with
Microsoft’s Office applications.
Microsoft has positioned MOS exams
such that they provide a valid and
reliable measure of technical
proficiency and expertise by
evaluating your overall
comprehension of Office or
Microsoft Project applications,
your ability to use their advanced
features, and your ability to
integratethe Office applications
with other software applications.
The MOS got its start back in
1998 as the MOUS certification,
Microsoft Office User Specialist,
with exams on Office 97
applications. In mid 2002,
Microsoft changed the name to MOS
as well as stopped certifying
people on Office 97 products.
However, these Office 97
certifications will not be retired
or otherwise invalidated. The same
lifetime rule applies to the new
MOS certifications. There are no
prerequisites for MOS
certifications, although some MOS
certifications build on others.
Passing any single Core MOS
exam, offered in more than 100
countries and in 18 different
languages, results in a MOS
certification for the related
product.
There are five exams which
compose the entry-level Office
2002 Core certifications. To
achieve the mid-level Expert
certification, the candidate must
pass one expert exam.
By passing all five of these
exams, Word 2002 Expert, Excel
2002 Expert, PowerPoint 2000
Comprehensive, Access 2002 Core,
and Outlook 2002 Core, the
candidate achieves the Master
certification in the Office XP
track.
Another perk of the MOS
certification is that the American
Council on Education (ACE) has
issued a one-semester
hour college credit recommendation
for each Microsoft Office
Specialist certification for
Microsoft Office XP applications.
