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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?

#131

Post by MaxBarraclough »

phpisthebest wrote: post #77
bigDinosaur wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the actual value of a 'degree' here as opposed to just the work experience? This sounds as much a reason to just ignore the idea of degrees as being uniquely meaningful which is...probably fine. But, degrees and work experience are not (or should not) be the same thing.

Why? The stated purpose of a degree is to educate a person in field of study, the culmination of which is a piece of paper that is suppose to signify to society that you have attained a set level of knowledge in a field of study. Work experience can convey that same level of knowledge, thus the purpose of an experience based degree would be to signify to society that you have attained a set level of knowledge in a fi…

> Work experience can convey that same level of knowledge

What kind of work experience would give you the breadth and depth of knowledge of someone with a degree in maths or physics?

Having a career in software development does not demonstrate a degree-level knowledge of any academic field.

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

#132

Post by eddyschai »

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 read this and thought, damn he sounds a lot like a PM I used to work with at IO. Then I saw the username ;) Hope you're doing well man - Ed

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

#133

Post by jcims »

typhonic wrote: post #82
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…

A co-worker once told me he had two of three certifications for fireworks. I forget what they were exactly, maybe one for manufacturing, one for transportation, and one for operations.

I believe these can vary by state in the US but there’s some ATF requirements as well. ‘Operations’ are called ’exhibitor license’ and there are two of them. I’m getting my assistant exhibitors license now, which is the entry point. Once I have demonstrated sufficient proficiency, a lead exhibitor will sign off on my application to become a lead exhibitor. This will likely take a few years.

There is a separate certification for anything involving open flames. Including things like Dave Chapelle using a lighter to light a cigarette.

Storage, transport and manufacturing certs are independent of these and and all involve the ATF in the US (starting with Form 54). It’s actually pretty complex trying to figure out alone, I had to get plugged into the local pyrotechnics guild for them to lay it out for me.

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

#134

Post by yakak »

hijinks wrote: post #116
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…

as someone in Devops/SRE I hold the same thinking as you. Whenever I see an interview come in loaded with certs, I automatically think they just know how to take tests and study for them. It's almost 100% that they fail the interview because they don't know how to put the learning into real world solutions.

Perhaps they get enough interviews where the cert is accepted that it isn't worth their time to review these technologies ahead of interviews.

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

#135

Post by phpisthebest »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #122
phpisthebest wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The stated purpose of a degree is to educate a person in field of study, the culmination of which is a piece of paper that is suppose to signify to society that you have attained a set level of knowledge in a field of study. Work experience can convey that same level of knowledge, thus the purpose of an experience based degree would be to signify to society that you have attained a set level of knowledge in a fi…

Work experience can be difficult to evaluate, especially since most companies have no incentive to cooperate with the degree granting institution. In addition to the process consuming company resources, there may be sensitive business knowledge they don't want revealed. There's also the issue of turnover making knowledge of an employee's experience with the company very limited. Same for human memory decay or simply…

While I can agree with that, I fail to see how this does not also apply to collegiate based education.

Having interviewed several recent graduates the level of knowledge shown is not on par with what I would expect, it seems from my personal experience that college is more of an attendance standard than educational standards, what years ago we would call diploma mills, pay the fee, attend the class, get the degree, seems to the wider state of the "higher" education system today

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

#136

Post by phpisthebest »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #131
phpisthebest wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The stated purpose of a degree is to educate a person in field of study, the culmination of which is a piece of paper that is suppose to signify to society that you have attained a set level of knowledge in a field of study. Work experience can convey that same level of knowledge, thus the purpose of an experience based degree would be to signify to society that you have attained a set level of knowledge in a fi…

> Work experience can convey that same level of knowledge What kind of work experience would give you the breadth and depth of knowledge of someone with a degree in maths or physics? Having a career in software development does not demonstrate a degree-level knowledge of any academic field.

Having a career in software development, does not demonstrate a degree-level knowledge of software development degree, really?

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

#137

Post by dev_tty01 »

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.

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

#138

Post by scubbo »

weinzierl wrote: post #91
arinlen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god your CV must be a headhunter's wet dream.

It's not. Fit trumps quantity and quality any time. I'm not OP, but I also have quite a bouquet of certifications. Why? Mostly because I love to learn and I also love to work towards goals. Also most certifications[1] are not that hard once you've figured out how to deal with scenario based multiple choice questions. It's a low effort way to focus my learning. When it comes to hiring - and as someone who sat at both…

> When it comes to hiring [...] any certificate outside of what is expected in your industry does more harm than good

Huh - this is surprising to hear. I would have thought that random extra certifications would act as indicators that a) you're a naturally focused and capable person (rather than just cosplaying one for salary), and b) you have interests outside of work (so will be a more well-rounded and pleasant person to work around). Can you elaborate on the ways in which you find non-standard certifications to be harmful?

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

#139

Post by dilDDoS »

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…

> do real-world stuff instead of wasting time on artificial tests that require memorization

Interesting, since the majority of tech interviews (from what I’ve gathered) rely on artificial tests that require memorization.

I’m not disagreeing, I also think real world experience is infinitely more valuable. But it seems like certs could actually be an indicator that a candidate would perform quite well in LC style interviews.

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

#140

Post by DicIfTEx »

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…

If you have a few hours to spare, you can become a certified rat tickler for free here: https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/3rs-resources/rat-tickling/rat-tick...
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