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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?

#141

Post by mjul »

ethbr0 wrote: post #50
eranation wrote: post #5

As a hiring manager, I treat AWS certification (professional especially) as relatively a good heuristic. It does not replace hands-on experience of course, but it has good correlation with good hands-on ability. Another one that will catch my eye is any Kubernetes certification. Both are great additions to experience, the certification itself has much less value standalone, but it might be the edge that will help som…

Might the above be generalized into "The best use of certificates is to reduce uncertainty, for the hirer"? I.e. A SWE with a SWE cert says nothing, because you'd expect them to know it. But a SWE with a DevOps cert says something, versus just claiming knowledge.

I remember someone back in the day - perhaps Microsoft - advertising their certs as “so THEY know that YOU know”.

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

#142

Post by hpcjoe »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #47
devoutsalsa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Study almond growing to become certifiably nuts.

Though almonds are technically seeds, not nuts.

"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct" -- Administrator who chaired the committee that selected the cover of the book of rules.

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

#143

Post by MaxBarraclough »

phpisthebest wrote: post #41
protomyth wrote: post #9

Lack of a Masters pretty much ended my ability to teach some intro programming courses according to the accreditation board. So, the answer to the question in reverse. Damn shame given some future plans, but experience isn't the equivalent.

Outside of money I have never seen a logical explanation for why we has a society have not created a purely experienced based "degree", something that if you have say 6 years experience in a field of Computer Science, and can demonstrate either with testing or work product the same level of knowledge one would gain from a 4 year degree program just issue the degree. Even with money, let me pay $10-20,000 , take a tes…

> if you have say 6 years experience in a field of Computer Science

Such as what? An industry research position in computer science? Sounds very unlikely, but I suppose possible.

Middle-of-the-road software development experience is not the equivalent of a degree in computer science, or software engineering, or anything else.

(Interestingly, the University of Cambridge may award you a PhD if you're a Cambridge graduate who has made a PhD-level research contribution to an academic field. [0])

If you have work experience, put it on your resumé.

> let me pay $10-20,000 , take a test

What test? The full suite of coursework assignments and written exams for every module in a 3 or 4 year taught degree course?

> Do the same for masters, make it 8-10 years experience

10 years experience of what? For a degree in what?

You could have a long and successful web-dev career with almost zero knowledge of computer science.

[0] https://www.cambridgestudents.cam.ac.uk/your-course/examinat...

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

#144

Post by btown »

csydas wrote: post #89
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 wouldn't dismiss certs that fast as from my experience hiring for technical roles, it's a wash. I've had people with more certs than braincells, and people with certs that I loved and wanted on my team immediately. It at least gave me something to talk about more directly because I can have some expectation on tech they've worked with. I personally don't chase certs for myself because I don't see the point, but I f…

To this point, occasionally you'll come across candidates who have obtained certs in part because that is the way they were trained to learn in their specific personal & cultural context - but the reason why they chose to learn so much in the first place? It might be indicative of a true, passionate, focus-seeking curiosity that would make them a fantastic team member. And perhaps they hadn't had the opportunity to work in a place that treats learning and growth as a holistic part of the job. These people can become culture carriers in a tremendously positive way.

It's part of the reason I try to make "cover paragraphs" (not necessarily full cover letters) an important part of every application - it's important to give people the opportunity to let their passion shine through at the earliest parts of a process.

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

#145

Post by donatj »

Years ago after our DBA was let go and I took on a significant portion of their responsibilities, my job told me I needed to get MySQL certified. The sign up page for the course they wanted me to take at the time only worked in IE and I only had Macs at home and in the office. I never got around to installing a VM just to sign up. I’m still doing the same job like 8 years later so I’m guessing it really wasn’t that important.

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

#146

Post by lumost »

Certs were mildly useful 10 years ago in launching my career. After the first job no one cared, I’d imagine a boot camp does the same now.

There is a category of company/role that really just needs some basic proof point that you know what your doing.

My first job was auditing user permissions, and refactoring Perl/bash scripts. There was a department of 9 people who provisioned a server once every 1-3 months using a mix of proprietary and open source software, they were also responsible for the operations of the legacy financial service the company offered.

I got the job, because it was boring, contract to hire, and probably a career dead end, had a brutal on all schedule, a penchant for firing people over mistakes, low paid, and made you wear a suit to work. It didn’t hurt that I memorized the answers to 100 Linux admin questions.

I left after a year and a half for a much better tech job at a startup, and transitioned to a standard engineer position within the year.

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

#147

Post by wcchandler »

I picked up my RHCSA this past year, seeing the rise in inflation I wanted an advantage for merit increases. I'll let ya know in a few weeks if I did better than my peers. I work in Higher Ed so I already get paid less than industry average.

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

#148

Post by ksala_ »

scubbo wrote: post #138
weinzierl wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 per…

I cannot reply for that person, but to me a certification would mean that you know a given subject, so I could ask more in-depth questions and expect better answers than the average candidate. Sometimes this is the case (and if so then getting a certification is not harmful in my opinion), but often it just gives you a very high level, very passing understanding of the subject so candidates just end up being judged against a higher bar without the tools/skills to match it.

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

#150

Post by conciliatory »

Certs and the studying associated with certs has always been the biggest unlock in my career. The MCSE gave me a 50% salary uplift in the early 2000’s and the Cisco CCNA/CCNP gave me an invaluable networking background in the mid aughts. Recently, the AWS certs have given me an opportunity to pivot from management back into the technical realm and given me the confidence and framework to think about IT problems in a whole different way (traditional IT vs Cloud native) Throughout my life I’ve always done better by investing in myself and my learning, and certs have always been a huge part of that. My investments, stocks, startups, etc. have always been hit or miss, but my skills and the opportunities they have opened have been huge unlocks. Certs are a structured way to achieve those unlocks and represent them in the professional world. For all the cynicism one hears about certs, my experience has been the exact opposite, I’d do them all over again - I’ve learned a ton and had a rewarding career.
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