The Role of IT Certifications in Hiring Decisions (What Your Certifications Say About You)

[@GoCloudArchitects]

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[@tariahlewis9670]

Dear Mike...like all your video, this video is very insightful but my question is this....when you started your career did you start with CCIE? How about Expert level certs that requires an associate level cert as prerequisite? Or are those looking to switch careers not within the scope of your target audience?? Or don't associate level cert help you build a good foundation?

[@GoCloudArchitects]

Hi. Well let’s work on this assumption - employer hire for skills not certifications and I’ll tell you a personal story. In the beginning of my career, I took a CCNA, CCNP and a CCDP. My past career was in healthcare. So networking was a new career. Even with these certifications, I did not know enough to be hired and I was not hired. Then I learned what hiring managers were looking for and I learned those skills. Most of those skills were on the CCIE exam. Within months I was hired and a few months later I was CCIE certified. In my case I should have just started with the CCIE After the CCIE was is when I started to learn networking. I spent the rest of my life learning networking. Now it’s not a problem if someone picks a career, gets and associate, professional, and expert exams all in the same field. And also learns the skills for their career. This person excels. The problem is when someone gets 3-6 associate level certifications and they are all in different fields they generally don’t have the skills for any job. For example an AWS solutions architect associate, DevOps associate, developer associate, SysOps associate and a cloud practitioner. Now they have an intro level in many people’s careers but usually not enough yo get any job. Instead if the person picked one specialty and mastered those skills they could have a great career. From a manager perspective lack of focus is not something we look for in people we hire. But I ask you this - if you needed to hire a surgeon for a family member would you hire the expert surgeon whose life was spent mastering surgery. Or an airplane pilot, lawyer, teacher and part time surgeon. So I like to see expert portfolios as that’s what I like to hire. People with discipline and focus who I believe can do a good job. And it’s what I have seen help our clients get the best results in their careers. Mastering their career and only their career.

[@TheAnthonyGonzales]

How do companies view LinkedIn learning and coursera certifications?

[@GoCloudArchitects]

Hi Anthony. As a rule company’s don’t care about any certificate. They care about the person’s competency, capability, attitude, communication, skills, leadership, skills, and emotional intelligence. In general, a certificate of completion is meaningless. Now if it’s a big certificate like an MBA or PhD or something difficult to achieve them it has value. So there’s nothing wrong with doing some additional LinkedIn training in addition to one’s professional development. Gaining knowledge is always great. But I definitely wouldn’t be any corsara or or LinkedIn certifications on my resume. I also wouldn’t list other easy to do or achieve things such as typing, attending a four hour seminar or anything that doesn’t look substantial