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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?

#411

Post by phpisthebest »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #407
phpisthebest wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there needs to be some kind of sea change, and my comment was just proposing some kind of workable solution to what I see in the employment market where employers have degree requirements. most people are entering university for vocational reasons, not academic achievement. The vast majority of students are students for the sole purpose of career placement, no other reason. The push by universities to extract as…

> my comment was just proposing some kind of workable solution to what I see in the employment market where employers have degree requirements Again, it's no solution. Employers would not consider such honorary degrees to be equivalent to regular degrees. > The vast majority of students are students for the sole purpose of career placement, no other reason. Plenty of people study philosophy, despite having little dir…

>>Employers would not consider such honorary degrees to be equivalent to regular degrees

I disgree, it is purely a checkbox for many organizations, a way to filter out people. Provided the degree is accredited it would resolve the primary issue I have with the current state of employment requirements

>>Plenty of people study philosophy

that was not my comment or statement, I am sure there are "plenty" but for more than 20 years now High Schools, parents, employers, the government, and the universities themselves has been telling students that path to vocational success is via the university system, and a 4 year degree program. Are you attempting to deny this reality?

>>Academic degrees were never about vocational studies.

Then High Schools, parents, employers, the government, and the universities need to stop selling the idea of vocational achievement via 4 year Academic study.

At some point perception becomes reality, and decades of selling Academia as de facto vocational study to the masses, has cut out and reduced actual vocational programs almost entirely from the educational landscape to the point that most K-12 schools do not even have vocational programs, it is General Education or College Prep, those are the 2 tracks, with Extreme pressure on students to go for the College Prep track.

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

#412

Post by phpisthebest »

giaour wrote: post #408
phpisthebest wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>wouldn't universities get the most money by lowering standards? You making the case that they have not done exactly that? That they do not attempt to get as many students through, and put pressure on professors to pass students for the purpose of getting as much tuition as possible? Given the statics, and the looming student loan debt crisis I am pretty sure the evidence is to the contrary of your statement

Yes, it's currently difficult to sell a degree because you have to fake the whole shebang. There are some institutions that do exactly what you propose, but market forces leave only the ones with zero standards standing. They are called "diploma mills," they have existed for a very long time, and accreditation bodies stripped them of official status long ago. There are plenty of places that let you test out of indivi…

Instead they have just added attendance requirements to the old school "diploma mill" situation, so now instead of just paying a fee, you have to pay a fee and waste a bunch of time to still not learn anything, and dont have to prove you learned anything

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

#413

Post by ElemenoPicuares »

leaflets2 wrote: post #410
michaelcampbell wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems circuitous. You pre-suppose that the 50 ones you reject are "bad" because of this signal, then support the use of this signal because you rejected them. And then go further to assume the ratio of good:bad of people with this signal is 1-2:50. I mean, you do you, but it seems that if you were actually interested in the truth you'd have a blind-interview strategy where you interview and judge based solely on…

She wrote: > My experience from dozens of interviews That's not pre-supposing, instead, sounds to me like learning from one's job? > blind-interview strategy I liked that -- how does one make it scale though?

All overgeneralizations start out as conclusions based on observation. Having certificates could not possibly decrease someone’s ability to do a job. Assuming that everybody with certificates is a certain type of person and those types of people make bad workers is clearly not based on rational analysis. Might it generally indicate a some kinds of shortcomings? Maybe. If that merely leads one to investigate, that’s one thing. If that turns into a check in the con column for that candidate, that’s the very definition of bias.

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

#414

Post by fn-mote »

prepend wrote: post #110
Waterluvian wrote: post #28

Fair or not, if someone has flooded their email signature with certs, my expectations lower.

I worked with someone who was a certified yoga instructor and uninronically had it on her business cards and email signature. She was a tech consultant. After I looked up “CYT” I think that made me not think positively of her. I mean it’s good that someone is proud of their accomplishment, but such a weird thing to announce to the world.

I know nothing about yoga instruction, but I have a qualification that might be parallel and acquiring it certainly required a lot of dedication and practice. I guess I'd say ask why it's on the resume instead of assuming; you might hear something interesting.

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

#415

Post by aus_sua »

I did the GCP Data Engineer certificate last year. I was able to ask 25% salary raise the next month and got a job at Google as a consultant this year. Of course, everything else including my experience also mattered, but I believe the certificate played a vital role as well.

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

#416

Post by prepend »

fn-mote wrote: post #414
prepend wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with someone who was a certified yoga instructor and uninronically had it on her business cards and email signature. She was a tech consultant. After I looked up “CYT” I think that made me not think positively of her. I mean it’s good that someone is proud of their accomplishment, but such a weird thing to announce to the world.

I know nothing about yoga instruction, but I have a qualification that might be parallel and acquiring it certainly required a lot of dedication and practice. I guess I'd say ask why it's on the resume instead of assuming; you might hear something interesting.

I did ask, she said something like she was proud of the credential.

There’s lots of things that require effort and people are proud of. Not everyone needs to know.

Being on the resume makes sense as lots of stuff is on there. I think it’s pretentious because it’s on business cards and email signatures.

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

#418

Post by rdl »

musicale wrote: post #372
rdl wrote: post #55

I'm generally not a big fan of security certs, especially for mid career or later (and a lot of people I know got involved well before certificates were a thing; they might have gotten certificates early on had they entered the industry later). However, DOD (8570/8140), some specific regulations, and some specific clients sometimes require them. I also dropped out of both high school and MIT undergraduate so having a…

> I also dropped out of both high school and MIT undergraduate An MIT degree seems like it would actually be helpful in one's career. They seem to be pretty good in terms of engineering courses, faculty and student body. Did you skip directly to a graduate program?

No, I dropped out to do a startup, partially because I couldn't afford to pay for my tuition (I was ineligible for loans because my parents wouldn't sign/provide info, and MIT offered zero financial aid.)

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

#419

Post by mvid »

shkkmo wrote: post #386
mvid wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a negative, though, and I have experienced it diving. Diving is often a razor thin or no margin business, and selling cert courses can be easy money. Few scuba schools will fail students who are not up to snuff, because they might have to issue a refund or endure bad reviews. Some of these certifications will give incompetent divers a false sense of ability, and in an emergency situation, rather than staying…

The solution to that would seem to be recommending that people choose dive schools that take their Job seriously and don't pass people who haven't mastered the skills. Recommending against getting training is throwing the baby out with the bath water. If you have no experience, just a cert, then you should stay out of the way with those with experience and help as requested. However, with many dive accidents, you don…

The people should definitely get the training, but probably without the cert. The cert for certain things, like rescue in particular, should probably be validated by an external agency that isn't the school

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

#420

Post by franzez83 »

I have a Master's in Public Administration but recently I obtained my certification in Data Analytics from Google. I got hired by Google less than 2 months later as a Policy Analyst and it has helped tremendously with my proficiency with spreadsheets and dashboards.
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