Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 78 posts

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#61

Post by BinaryIdiot »

tombert wrote: post #2

I don't mean to come off as dismissive, but as someone who has a bunch of these company-sponsored certificates, does any employer (outside of the one issuing it) care at all about these certs? I have a few from EdX, something from W3Schools, and something from RedHat that I still put on my resume for some indiscernible reason, but having asked interviewers about it after being hired, they don't appear to have been of…

In my experience the only time this matters is when you're doing contracting work and a government entity or company requires X certificate(s) to win a contract. It's amazing how many government contracts require certain, easy to get certificates and you can't work on the contract without them.

Beyond that I have never seen them be useful unless your company has, say, pay raises tied to extended learning (which is a common thing with teaching but that's going to college, not some Google cert).

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#62

Post by gkilmain »

pc86 wrote: post #51
tombert wrote: post #2

I don't mean to come off as dismissive, but as someone who has a bunch of these company-sponsored certificates, does any employer (outside of the one issuing it) care at all about these certs? I have a few from EdX, something from W3Schools, and something from RedHat that I still put on my resume for some indiscernible reason, but having asked interviewers about it after being hired, they don't appear to have been of…

I would think listing a W3Schools cert on your resume would do quite a bit more harm than good.

W3Schools battles css-tricks and mdn for first spot on search results for most of my searches (I'm a front end dev). I agree that their certificates are completely worthless but the site isn't as terrible as it used to be.

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#63

Post by elliekelly »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #43
tombert wrote: post #2

I don't mean to come off as dismissive, but as someone who has a bunch of these company-sponsored certificates, does any employer (outside of the one issuing it) care at all about these certs? I have a few from EdX, something from W3Schools, and something from RedHat that I still put on my resume for some indiscernible reason, but having asked interviewers about it after being hired, they don't appear to have been of…

My employer has us get two a year. They generally favor the AWS certs, but certs in other relevant fields, apps, or service work too.

Can you explain how this works? Do you see this as a perk or “busy work”? Does your employer pay for the course and/or test? Do you get to choose which two certifications you complete?

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#64

Post by sdinsn »

jorblumesea wrote: post #25

I'm pretty skeptical of any IT cert after having a few really bad experiences with "AWS certified" devs. It doesn't seem to certify competence at all. We had a dev with tons of certs struggle to understand and setup a load balancer. What's the point of accreditation if there's no actual expectation or understanding of skill?

AWS' certifications are entry level

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#65

Post by [deleted] »

tombert wrote: post #2

I don't mean to come off as dismissive, but as someone who has a bunch of these company-sponsored certificates, does any employer (outside of the one issuing it) care at all about these certs? I have a few from EdX, something from W3Schools, and something from RedHat that I still put on my resume for some indiscernible reason, but having asked interviewers about it after being hired, they don't appear to have been of…

[deleted]

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#66

Post by eropple »

sdinsn wrote: post #64
jorblumesea wrote: post #25

I'm pretty skeptical of any IT cert after having a few really bad experiences with "AWS certified" devs. It doesn't seem to certify competence at all. We had a dev with tons of certs struggle to understand and setup a load balancer. What's the point of accreditation if there's no actual expectation or understanding of skill?

AWS' certifications are entry level

That's a little vague. Cloud Practitioner is entry level, and isn't worth anything. Associate is what I'd expect out of a mid-level infrastructure engineer, though the test is easy enough that I'd want to verify it. And the topic-specific certs are variable (I have the Security one and I wasn't impressed by it, but others look more interesting).

Somebody able to pass the Professional certs, however, I'd be willing to trust somewhat; it's not an easy test and it requires some significant depth of knowledge.

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#67

Post by scarface74 »

tombert wrote: post #2

I don't mean to come off as dismissive, but as someone who has a bunch of these company-sponsored certificates, does any employer (outside of the one issuing it) care at all about these certs? I have a few from EdX, something from W3Schools, and something from RedHat that I still put on my resume for some indiscernible reason, but having asked interviewers about it after being hired, they don't appear to have been of…

I’m going to try to speak from all sides.

For context: I am a software developer/architect/team lead depending on how the wind blows. I am also now responsible for guiding the “cloud native initiatives.” I’m going to hit a ceiling in the next year or two as an IC in my market and might want to go into consulting working for a company.

I have six AWS certifications: The three associate certs, two professional and one specialty. The company paid for all but the first. I use them as a guided learning path to help me know what I don’t know.

With six certifications, I run the risk of looking like a paper tiger - someone who spends more time getting certifications than having practical experience. I’m leaving the three associate certs off of my resume. I have enough real world experience on my resume to show that I know the core areas of AWS that they cover.

Consulting companies care about relevant certifications because they can tell their clients that their consultants have them and they need them to keep their “partner” status.

I’ve also been on the other side of the table interviewing candidates. I take most certifications as a slightly negative signal and I definitely don’t think of them as proof of anything. I got my first AWS certification without ever logging into a AWS. I passed the two professional certs and the one associate cert with only nine months of experience with AWS doing small proofs of concepts.

All that to say. I agree completely. Putting it on your resume will only pass you through the HR filter if it is a certification that is required for the company to keep partner status. Any decent hiring manager will ignore them.

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#68

Post by scarface74 »

slumdev wrote: post #11
rootsofallevil wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think so? I know some employers do care but more to be able to claim X consultants certified in tech Y than as a guide for hiring. Capgemini are pretty big on certs but most people we hired didn't have them, just got them after they joined (This is my experience in the UK)

None of them are amazing predictors of success, only a baseline for competence. Tech consulting shops especially demonstrate a preference for people who have certs relevant to the work that they're trying to sell.

I wouldn’t even say they are a baseline for competency. There are brain dumps for most major certs available online.

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#69

Post by scarface74 »

jimbokun wrote: post #19
firebird84 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purposefully ignore certificates when looking at CVs. Once upon a time, I actually looked at them prejudicially, because the kinds of candidates I saw with certificates were generally inferior and couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. These days I just don't really give them any weight one way or another.

"because the kinds of candidates I saw with certificates were generally inferior and couldn't code their way out of a paper bag" Or in this case, because they are entry level and its their first programming job?

Even if it’s their first programming job. I would expect them to know how to program. Programming is easy to learn on your own.

Re: Google offers certificate to help IT career growth

#70

Post by kortex »

lame-robot-hoax wrote: post #36

Does anyone want to comment their thoughts on the course contents/the syllabus for the certification? 1. Crash course on Python. 2. Using Python to interact with the operating system. 3. Introduction to Git and GitHub. 4. Troubleshooting and debugging techniques. 5. Configuration management and the cloud. 6. Automating real world tasks with Python. To me, this actually seems like a pretty dang good syllabus.

If you don't know these things, this looks like a great crash course. Basically know enough to be dangerous as they say. It'd be great as a primer for any cs degree as well
Post reply on HN