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Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

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Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#221

Post by markoman »

robcohen wrote: post #171
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just out of interest, what do you do with the offensive security knowledge?

I used to be a pentester, so it was pretty applicable... Pentesting really requires "full stack" systems knowledge, from networking, to OS, to API analysis, malware analysis, binary reverse engineering. OSCP is an applied cert, so it really forces you to be able to leverage knowledge in a practical way. However my favorite benefit of offsec is really being able to see things from an attacker's perspective. This has b…

I'm thinking about getting into pen-testing and eventually getting an OSCP. Would you mind offering a few words about why you left the pen-testing field? Also, do you have a CEH or do you recommend bypassing it in favor of the OSCP?

Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#222

Post by itsmemattchung »

Cisco certified network associate (CCNA). As a developer with roots in networking, being able to troubleshoot the network — even as little as understanding the 3-way TCP hand shake to identify whether even a socket has been established — helps you isolate fairly quickly whether it's your app, the server, or some intermediate device that's causing headaches.

Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#223

Post by meristem »

imadethis wrote: post #39

Getting my EMT cert was pretty important for getting a job as an EMT. In all seriousness the difference between getting hired for my tech jobs vs as an EMT was interesting. I’m used to the standard multi week interview process, but for EMS the only question was if I had my certs.

Do you plan to go the paramedic route? I let my EMT lapse once I moved to CA; the scope of work was more restricted than East Coast, where many states rely on volunteer fire and EMT.

Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#224

Post by rammy1234 »

I don't have certs in my 17 years career. I always believe good work ( clubbed with learning ) and subsequent recommendations or reference based on that good work helps a career. It is always about learning, never about certification. I personally don't believe in certification, but sometime it is useful to know the syllabus. You go broad and dive deep on some.

Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#225

Post by FpUser »

After getting my masters in 1982 and then half defending PhD I did not do any certs. To me it is a total waste of time. When I need something I do not know I always find enough info on how to solve a problem or guess it myself. Being a former scientist this is how I was trained. The last thing I need are some bloodsuckers charging me money for their failure to produce decent docs / manuals / whatever else relevant.

Since I went on my own for the last 22 years I do not recall ever being asked for any certs anyways. I specialize in developing products from scratch with some hit an run jobs in between and clients just read references and rather long list of products I've developed. This severs me way better than any cert ever will.

Of course the situation would be totally different if I've worked in some other field.

Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#226

Post by BossingAround »

grepfru_it wrote: post #117
bawolff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also seen this. A large number of certs on a resume (more than 4) is the most consistent negative signal i have seen. I assume part of the reason is that certs are expensive and not well respected, so the only reason you would get them is if you had no other options.

Is this recent? I held every cert under the sun in the 2000s and companies GOBBLED ME UP. In the early 2010s I could walk into companies by simply having a VCP cert. I'm sure if I held a K8s or some hashicorp cert, or AWS or Azure certs I would be pulled into any org hiring today. And I put all of my certs on my resume (that I can fit with most recent first). I should also clarify, I only put certs that matter (why p…

It's a response to large number of people who know very little and want to compensate with memorizing stuff and passing certificates without deeper understanding of what they're doing.

It's kind of a stupid response, especially considering that the same people would most likely view 10+ certs on your CV as a positive if your name is western-sounding...

Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#227

Post by hattmall »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #137
robcohen wrote: post #11

I collect a lot of certs for fun, but most have not been helpful. I still like to collect them anyway. I think OSCP was the most legitimately useful in tech https://www.offensive-security.com/pwk-oscp/ PMP has been useful to take on Project Manager roles, but really PrM roles aren't all that exciting to begin with. Still helps when you want to run your own projects. I'm currently studying to be a certified parliament…

I got irritated with the size of a quote for my heat pump repair, so I got an HVAC certification and did the repair myself. A little time, $300 worth of equipment from Amazon and it is still running great after several years. I needed the HVAC certification to buy the refrigerant. Saved several thousand dollars.

How long did the certification take and how did you go about getting it?

Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#228

Post by zdragnar »

robcohen wrote: post #188
dorchadas wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at some CEFR ones next!

Sadly I simply am not capable of learning languages. I've tried, really hard. I did 4 years of french, 2 years of spanish, 4 semesters of Arabic, 2 semesters of german, 1 Berlitz tutor session for 3 months in Russian and 3 months of tutoring in Farsi. Most of my grades were AWFUL and I barely qualified for anything. I really tried, but I just don't have the medium/long term memory for language. It also doesn't help t…

I'm in a similar boat. I absorbed German really easily, but when I moved on to picking up another language, my brain constantly switched between the two, even during an intensive study course that was basically several hours a day exclusively in one. I tried beating my brain into the right shape, but no amount of effort made me anything but embarrassing in anything other than my native tongue.

Re: Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?

#229

Post by tootie »

mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #49

This will not apply to all companies, but for our hiring decisions certs have an adverse effect. If someone puts many certifications on their resume my expectations are lower and I likely won't consider them for interviews. It's a negative signal in my experience. Your time is better spent working on side projects, contributing to open source, writing a blog, etc. I.e. do real-world stuff instead of wasting time on a…

I consider side projects to be absolutely meaningless predictors of anything. A cert is a poor substitute for experience but it's a signal of someone willing to learn and grow through diligence. Side projects are usually just arbitrary in value. In the very rare case that someone has a real blockbuster side project with a lot of users I'd be concerned about how much time they'd spend on it. Getting a PR approved on a mainstream project would be impressive though.
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