Ask HN: Did certifications ever help you get a better job?

Having a cloud certified consultant, was a big deal for clients who needed help getting into the cloud.

If you’re looking to get hired in-house for certain types of work, then certs can help you get past the HR droids that are only looking for checkboxes. That generally becomes less and less applicable as you gain more and more experience.

Beyond that, you have to ask which certs help you learn something that you didn’t already know, and which ones aren’t worth the e-paper they’re printed on.

I’m an old-school Unix SysAdmin/DevOps guy, with over 30 years of experience in the industry. Over the years I’ve been in the business, I have found very few certs that were worthwhile. The Cisco certs used to be something meaningful, but I don’t know if they still are. None of the rest of the certs that I used to value are still being taught — who remembers NetWare?

I think some of the higher-end AWS certs are useful, but you have to start at the bottom and work your way up. Which I am now doing.

Even if all you’ve got right now are the lower-level certs, one thing they can show is your willingness to put up with BS to get some sort of minor reward. And your intention to go for something greater.

I'll take PMP for example. I have made my way through the PMBOK Guide and various satellite publications. I've found some parts very useful, especially when focusing in retrospect.

I have also worked in organisations where HR decide to get 20% of operations and technology staff certified in a year because they're working on projects for no reason other than a box-ticking exercise to show the organisation is a learning organisation. [This is then compounded by one company doing it, then all of the neighbouring ones deciding to do similar.] PM career paths were not opened. Rather, those PM paths that existed were made a lot harder for anyone that now didn't tick the new PMP-box. And I have friends that did it simply because it afforded a small pay rise; many freely admit (brag) the only thing of recall was the sweat that went into a month of cramming before the test; required experience of actual project work was largely imagined.

So, while with great respect to the effort that's been put in by the PMI in creating PMBOK etc, the certification system they use for PMP is broken for determining any signal in competent project management. I'd far prefer someone's blog.

For OP: That does not mean the above makes certificates worthless. Far from it. Getting them can get you through various filters. They can signal an interest in a field or in furthering one's self in a field. They can provide networking opportunities. They are what you make of them.