cheers for the reply ( titles been edited)

firstly, i had no intention of putting on my cv that i'd read some books!

apart from the reference fom my last job, i have 8-10 small companies that i have done private spreadsheet stuff for that will provide references too - i'm quite tempted to blatantently lie on it and put "Freeelance Excel Developer" for the last 3 years and use them as references anyway....

i can see that MCAS looks impressive to a layman (and probably quite a few IT managers tbh) so it seems that 80 quid for the exam (i wouldnt pay 300 for the course) and maybe 30 for a sample test just to make sure could be worth a small investment