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Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

interviewing.io

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Re: Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

#31

Post by carabiner »

leeny wrote: post #2

Author/OP here. Just heard an interesting and relevant tidbit from someone who read the post. Apparently a while ago, Google fed resumes of employees into an ML model and correlated several metrics to the success of a specific engineer at Google. There was a lot of interesting data gathered from that but one that stood out was exactly that the number of certifications listed was inversely proportional to the engineer…

People with long About blurbs on their LinkedIn profiles tend to be weaker as well.

Re: Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

#32

Post by soco »

prpl wrote: post #5
leeny wrote: post #2

Author/OP here. Just heard an interesting and relevant tidbit from someone who read the post. Apparently a while ago, Google fed resumes of employees into an ML model and correlated several metrics to the success of a specific engineer at Google. There was a lot of interesting data gathered from that but one that stood out was exactly that the number of certifications listed was inversely proportional to the engineer…

I think that’s largely because people who get certificates often do so because they didn’t have formal (or close to formal, e.g. highly motivated dropouts) education in the field they are getting a certificate. (also - job churn, and/or they may be slightly less autodidactic)

Ymmv: I work in enterprise environment and certifications are often an entry criterion. There's a world outside HN.

Re: Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

#33

Post by outworlder »

> If your profile doesn’t have a reputable school or a top company on it

Which is like 99% of the entire job pool? What's a 'reputable school'? Ivy league? My university was abroad. It's reputable there. It's unknown in the US. Do we even care about schools in IT after a couple of years in the job market?

Likewise, what's a "top company"? FAANG? Fortune 500?

But yes, 'interviewing.io' certification would be BS indeed. All it would signal is that the person is good at interviews. It would be even worse than leetcode.

Re: Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

#35

Post by Mordisquitos »

leeny wrote: post #2

Author/OP here. Just heard an interesting and relevant tidbit from someone who read the post. Apparently a while ago, Google fed resumes of employees into an ML model and correlated several metrics to the success of a specific engineer at Google. There was a lot of interesting data gathered from that but one that stood out was exactly that the number of certifications listed was inversely proportional to the engineer…

That is interesting data, but it's not that clear that you can derive actionable advice from it — particularly for employee candidates themselves.

Is it the listing of certifications that is inversely correlated with the career progress of the employee? Or is it because listing a certification is strongly correlated to having one, with this being what is truly inversely correlated with career progress? And, if so, in what direction is the cause-effect?

Maybe the tendency to list certifications is correlated to certain personality or attitude that is less likely to progress. Or maybe it is accumulating certifications that is correlated to this. In that case, by not listing them, the candidate will succeed in hiding this fact from potential employers, which may help him or her.

However, what if it is not progressing in one's career that makes one more likely to list (or accumulate) certifications in an effort to compensate? And in that case, all else being equal, maybe the would-be certification-lister would be even worse off were they not to list it!

For a silly analogy, I'm betting that, among users of dating apps, total time spent on them is inversely proportional to the probability of being in a long-term relationship at some point in a given timeframe. However, that does not necessarily mean that using them for long has any causal effect on reducing one's chances.

Re: Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

#36

Post by sebastianconcpt »

The author doesn't elaborate a good case on why they would do harm (for readers that didn't go to top universities or have top-only institutional certifications).

For opportunities and recruiters excluding who can't signal top institutions, doesn't matter if you made it to the first screen call because you didn't have them anyway. Forget about them. There is a sea of other opportunities. So no harm.

Re: Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

#37

Post by burnished »

_8j50 wrote: post #27
leeny wrote: post #2

Author/OP here. Just heard an interesting and relevant tidbit from someone who read the post. Apparently a while ago, Google fed resumes of employees into an ML model and correlated several metrics to the success of a specific engineer at Google. There was a lot of interesting data gathered from that but one that stood out was exactly that the number of certifications listed was inversely proportional to the engineer…

I think you made a critical error of being too generic? What field and what certs? If 90% of certs are junk the your takeaway is wrong because people are posting the wrong certs? What about industry? I didn't even know coders had certs but in infosec for example some certs hold a lot of weight. I've been on the other side of an interview a few times and I can tell you, I will ask more specific and technical questions…

Read TFA, they do comparisons based on the certifying agency.

Re: Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

#38

Post by kazinator »

> Top 10% performer on interviewing.io

That is not a legitimate certification of any kind. If you stick that into a resume, that's a good way to get to the reject pile.

All that is communicating is that the candidate spends a lot of time on some website for people obsessed with interviewing, which is a huge red flag.

A certification is like "completed XYZ training offered by ABC, in 2020", if it's something that has industry recognition.

Re: Certifications create wrong incentives for engineers and recruiters

#39

Post by legrande »

I tailor my CV to the job I want. The golden rule of two A4 pages with the relevant badges and certs which apply to the job you want, not a laundry list of every little badge you earned throughout your career. There is sometimes merit in simplicity.
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