Certification, is it overrated?
A couple of years ago, I was thinking about learning a new concept in a field that I have no real experience in.
I started a Machine learning course. During my learning journey, the idea of getting a certification for “validating” what I was acquiring was tempting me. But in the end, I was still skeptical regarding the certification system.
Let’s think about it, together …
Hard work
I have acquired some certifications in the old days, mainly professional-level IT certifications. I can tell you that it required dedication and hard work, even for the ones that were in my ‘comfort zone’. Those who have tried will understand me.
You could ask, why was it so hard?
Well, mainly because when you have a full-time job, you study during your free time (which is no longer free …), if you add a family to the equation, it becomes hard. That was my case.
Moreover, you get to practice every aspect (or almost) of the subject you want to be certified on. And in general, it is quite rare that you get to use all the knowledge that exists around that subject in your everyday job, so you have many new things to learn or at least to recall.
Benefits
After the struggle, time to enjoy the feeling of obtaining your certification ultimately, and you start of course telling everyone about it. But after some time you begin asking … was it worth it?
In my opinion, certifications have benefits, the obvious ones are for the organizations that get the subscription money, you know which companies I am talking about right?
There are many certification systems that have expiry dates, in IT, for example, you could understand that certification is related to a specific version of a software or a framework. So when you get certified you have to stay up to date, which is not free. In the end, it is similar to a yearly subscription.
Do not get me wrong, you get some benefits yourself. Well you should get something in return for your time and money, right?
So in addition to the editor’s specific goodies; you have certification paths that are opened for you if you want to continue getting certified in a specific field. In general, you have to get 2, 3, or more ‘small’ certifications to get to the ‘big’ one that is more recognized in the industry.
From another point of view, a certification is a type of standard that makes it easy for recruiters/managers to know that an engineer has a certain level of knowledge in a specific field, so when you get certified you can use it when negotiating your salary for instance. It is also precious when working as a freelancer when having contacts with new clients in particular.
In my opinion, there is an important benefit in the fact that certifications make you work towards a goal, a target that you have set for yourself to achieve. It is great for self-growth in general, not specific to certifications of course. But these kinds of goal-setting mechanisms, make you work hard and improve while doing so.
“The journey is more important than the destination”
Also, when you achieve regularly small goals, you develop in the long term the habit of finishing tasks, which is a remedy to procrastination and a source of confidence.
Certification vs Experience
As I said earlier, being certified has a number of benefits, but are these benefits worth the hard work, does it really make a difference?
From my personal experience, no. A certification is a means of putting a tag on the knowledge or experience you have. But real project experience is the one that should matter, and that matters in the long run.
Often, you could achieve certification by learning hard concepts and techniques, and for some certifications, you even practice real-world examples a little bit. But it is not the real world, in the ‘real world’ you experience things, you encounter problems and you solve them the easy or hard way, you benefit from a team effort sometimes, you discuss with the colleagues … and so on. This is the ultimate learning experience. You develop reflexes that you cannot have the academic way.
Conclusion
To sum up, I would say that a clever mix between certifications and experience is the best.
Get visibility, to be able to show what you can do. Choosing certifications that are backed-up by real-world experience is, for me, the way to go.
It could be a certification in one's current field of work, for validating and complementing the expertise. Or the other way around, the hard way, to discover a field that you probably are going to work on later, because otherwise, you risk forgetting what you have learned if you do not apply your newly acquired knowledge.
