I've been thinking about taking a data science course for a while to compliment my DB chops but I was just wondering how much weight do these certs pull with actual hiring managers?
Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
1–9 of 9 posts
Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
#2I don't consider them to be much of an influence.
If you can gain something from the course, take it for the knowledge. Don't expect it to make much difference with most employers.
Some legacy businesses may place more weight on certifications and courses, but I always look for relevant experience and demonstrated skills over pretty much anything on paper.
If you are strictly trying to make an impression on hiring managers, your time would be better spent creating a project or becoming involved with an open-source project that would allow you to demonstrate your skills and gain relevant experience with that domain.
Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
#3Certs may act against you at interview time. If you get a data science cert and put it on your resume, then the interviewer may start asking you related "i'm smarter than you" questions about it regardless of whether it has anything to do with the job.
OTOH, Certs may help you at hiring time. If the company is on the fence and is questioning you skills in a particular area, then the cert may be the thing that pushes you over.
One way to play it is to not put it on your resume. If you find out during the interview that the job fits your certs well, send a thank you email explaining that you'll throw in some bonus certs (but wait there's more!) for free and your cert training fits well. This way you delay their knowledge of your training until the person possibly has bought into the idea of hiring you and needs to convince other people.
Certs as a learning tool, I think are great as long as they don't cost a lot. They give you something to feel good about and an excuse to spend all that effort learning the material.
Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
#4I don't consider them to be much of an influence. If you can gain something from the course, take it for the knowledge. Don't expect it to make much difference with most employers. Some legacy businesses may place more weight on certifications and courses, but I always look for relevant experience and demonstrated skills over pretty much anything on paper. If you are strictly trying to make an impression on hiring ma…
that is interesting. How can I find an open source project to contribute to that is actually open to beginners?
Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
#5I don't consider them to be much of an influence. If you can gain something from the course, take it for the knowledge. Don't expect it to make much difference with most employers. Some legacy businesses may place more weight on certifications and courses, but I always look for relevant experience and demonstrated skills over pretty much anything on paper. If you are strictly trying to make an impression on hiring ma…
that is interesting. How can I find an open source project to contribute to that is actually open to beginners?
There are a lot of open source projects that are open to any help at all, as long as it conforms to at least a few best practice guidelines. For an example, take a look at jquery's policy: http://contribute.jquery.org/open-source/. They are very open and inviting for people to contribute.
I would suggest finding an open source tool or application you use often and finding their project (most likely on Github). Take a look at bug reports and issues. See if you can help out with these. Maybe they are just usage mistakes ("I can't get this thing to work right!!" "Oh, have you tried to click the button which does that? Here's a screenshot."). As you go through issues you'll find real bugs and some won't be terribly hard to fix. Jump in and fix it, then submit a pull request to have it merged into the project. The project will either accept the pull request or comment on it if they feel you a) need to add more to it or b) didn't actually solve the problem. You can then learn from their advice and soon you'll be far from a beginner.
Getting started in open source can seem daunting but really it's fun and not nearly as hard as it might seem.
Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
#6I don't consider them to be much of an influence. If you can gain something from the course, take it for the knowledge. Don't expect it to make much difference with most employers. Some legacy businesses may place more weight on certifications and courses, but I always look for relevant experience and demonstrated skills over pretty much anything on paper. If you are strictly trying to make an impression on hiring ma…
that is interesting. How can I find an open source project to contribute to that is actually open to beginners?
Drupal is open to beginners too. See https://www.drupal.org/core-office-hours for more info. Basically, you can join an IRC channel and let them know you're new to the project and want to help, and you'll have a ton of people ready to assist.
Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
#7Specify Certification but do not emphasize that it's "online". Accent on well-known brand names and respected buzzwords.
Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
#8I can't afford to hire the people that I want.
Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, Do you take online certifications seriously?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
that is interesting. How can I find an open source project to contribute to that is actually open to beginners?
There are a lot of open source projects that are open to any help at all, as long as it conforms to at least a few best practice guidelines. For an example, take a look at jquery's policy: http://contribute.jquery.org/open-source/ . They are very open and inviting for people to contribute. I would suggest finding an open source tool or application you use often and finding their project (most likely on Github). Take…
100 times this.
I want to state for the whole world (even though this thread is a bit dead) that Paul Irish is a really nice dude and the barriers to entry to help are tiny in jquery.
I remember one day just showing up in #jquery on freenode and complaining about some spam on their wiki. 10 minutes of talking later it was "Well, do you want the keys to the kingdom to maintain it?"
I think a big reason jquery was adopted so heavily was not just the tool being useful, but the attitude and the community around it.