> I remember a time when online certificates was an anti signal.
I have never interviewed someone with many certifications and thought the person would be a good addition to a team, and I have never worked with someone who has many online certifications and thought they are good at the things they are certified in.
Thinking this way tends to carry a bias against historically underrepresented backgrounds in the tech industry. In some cases certifications might be the only way to get ones foot in the door.
It's fairer to just focus on competency, certified or not.
I have over 100 Coursera/edX/Udacity certificates and work on the bleeding edge of tech (AI). MIT's Underactuated Robotics got me into the first cohort of Udacity's Self-driving Car Nanodegree. I think you are shooting yourself in the feet if you plainly reject people like me who just want to keep learning new things.
I think there's a big difference between these two types of people:
1. Collects certifications just to pad their resume, and get there probably by mostly studying brain-dumps and memorizing the answers. Often have little or no actual experience with the technology in question.
2. Gains certifications related to things they have actually done / are actually doing, and use the certification process as a "forcing function" to motivate doing a deeper dive into obscure or less frequently used corners of the technology that they may not currently be strong in. Puts the certification on their resume but only expecting it to be a "weak signal" that complements their actual experience.
I think there may also be a 3rd category which may be relate to (1) but specifically relates to people who are just beginning their careers and seek a few certifications just to give them "something to hang their hat on" as far as getting in the door somewhere.
Anyway, I consider myself a representative of group (2) and as such I tend to default to an assumption that most people are also in that group. As such, I consider certifications a positive (if weak) signal, unless there is some other "red flag" to suggest the person is in "group 1". Like having 100 certifications, but not documented experience actually working with any of those technologies, or something like that.
I group cert-seekers together. I don't see motivation mattering. People who have time to 'prove' their knowledge/skill are really just showing that they aren't really into the thing, they are into being recognized as being into the thing.
The exceptions are certifications that are required by law.
I feel it's a bit more nuanced. If someone is early in their career and they have some decent certs (CCNA, RHCSA, Sec+) then I see it as a positive. What really matters is how they present that knowledge. As you have alluded to, a lot of candidates just memorize and regurgitate to get the cert. Unfortunately, at big firms the resume robots filter out plenty of great candidates simply because they lack ITIL or some other kind of useless cert. They don't get a chance to show off what they know.
> Unfortunately, at big firms the resume robots filter out plenty of great candidates simply because they lack ITIL or some other kind of useless cert. They don't get a chance to show off what they know.
Fair enough.
If someone it doing it satisfy a bureaucratic machine, I'll suspend judgement. If they think that makes them actually better than someone who actually does the thing, hard pass. It's usually pretty easy to tell where people fall based on their general behavior.
I don't care about who someone is, or where they to school. I care about what they can do. Certs don't show any of that.
They’re not saying that though. They’re saying they’ve never experienced it being a positive signal. I haven’t either. But I don’t think we’re claiming people like you don’t exist and we’re not judging people because of their certs. Just observing the correlation.
Edit: to add to this, you know what signal I’ve also never observed in 11 years? A PhD indicating someone will be an exceptional engineer.
I mean this in the nicest way possible. I genuinely have nothing agaisnt you and this is as far as I know the first time i've ever read one of your comments.
You appear unsufferable. If i was in charge of deciding whether or not to hire you, I would not, based on this comment.
>If i was in charge of deciding whether or not to hire you, I would not, based on this comment.
Good thing we don't hire people based on social media comments then! It really looks like you just took an opportunity to use careful language to bully someone that you just didn't need to.
there's a difference between certs as a signal and certs as actually learning something
the former tend to be the type that list as many of those 100 certs as they can on your resume - I assume you're the latter and actually tailor mentioning those to very relevant / the best of the best
Nobody will fault you for learning programming through an online course. They will, however, mark you down for listing that on your resume as your sole programming experience.
People within companies are all different, so we can't say.
Some hiring managers might, others actually prefer no degree, others might focus more "shipped".
It depends
To be clear I'm speaking generally, not on an individual basis. Everyone has their own preferences–I personally don't discount it. But in my experience the average hiring manager does, because certifications are often seen as a thing you just pay money for to get a piece of paper. Of course college degrees are like that too, but the quality of "big state school CS degree" is usually somewhat regulated and "big state school 6 month CS certification" is often not.
No, I know about the courses. They're pretty good. I'm just saying that there's baggage attached to certificates from random courses, even if some of them are good.
I have a formal CS education, although I've hired a bunch of people without. I'm just saying, a Harvard CS degree tells me either you're extremely bad with money, or you (or your parents) are more interested in social signalling than a thorough education.
You also seem to be missing that the content associated with the certificate can be fine, but the validation process broken enough that the certificate per se (and therefore listing it on a resume) is worthless.
(I prefer to hire based primarily on work samples or a take-home project.)
Well the context is online courses from Harvard, MIT. Such as the CS50 course referenced by many even in this thread.
Those courses are free, there is a option for a certification for around 150 dollar.
People actually learn the basics of CS and foundational knowledge in those courses.
And how to use git and GitHub.
I never stated that those certs, or courses alone would be enough.
This comment thread started because someone called it anti-signal.
Listing anything on a Resume is never pointless, it tells us something about the potential hire.
Courses like the one mentioned are open, which means if you wanted to test that knowledge you could, easily.
That could tell you so much about the potential hire:
* Did they actually do the course.
* Did they retain the information.
* Did they understood the material.
* How did they use the information, in their own projects or clients.
From those answers you would even be able to learn more about their seniority level.
The point is, "anti-signals" is just not everywhere the case. It might be for some, sure. But how many of those would like to see formal CS education?
Seems that even you are more on the side of actual code examples. And in order to create great code, allot of deep knowledge is needed. Which those courses provide.
Sorry, but you have absolutely wrong ideas about resumes, how they are read, and what information they convey. Both descriptively and normatively.
> Courses like the one mentioned are open, which means if you wanted to test that knowledge you could, easily.
If I have to test anything, I'm going to test the actual job skills. But actually the point of a degree/certification/whatever on a resume is to show me that someone else already did the testing so I don't have to spend time doing it. Conversely, if I have to test it again, it's pointless to put on a resume.
It seems you are misunderstanding me again, If someone puts something on resume. It's a signalling they think it's important. And in order asses candidates on their strengths, we use the resume.
If you are worried that they are missing the information from the course, I gave how it's actually great tool to asses candidate.
You also thinking that can outsource in some sense if developer will workout at the work place you are hiring for. This is a mistake.
Instead of making blanket statements, and dismissing people on frivolous things. Like going to ivy league universities or having certificate.
It's better to test the person, to get the know more about the strengths and weaknesses.
A resume is just window into the candidate thinking process.
-edit
It's clear from your comments you're not aware of the great work at Harvard with CS50 course.
Are you saying a Harvard CS degree isn’t a thorough education? Or are you assuming that everyone at Harvard pays full freight?
I don’t get the elitism or why you think someone with a degree from a specific school is inherently stupid. That’s as weird as refusing to hire non-formally educated people.
I think you can get a better formal CS education than Harvard for a fraction of the price at two dozen places, probably including at least one state school you have access to.
Harvard is good for signalling, traditional liberal arts, and pre-law (but, I repeat myself). It's not a very good teaching university overall, and especially not in CS.
If you don’t have a high regard for the Harvard CS curriculum, it’s reasonable enough to disqualify people on that basis.
That said, I think you’re completely out of touch with how 18 year olds choose universities. It can be as simple as a friend of theirs is also attending, or the school is close to a parent’s home, or they were actually in a liberal arts program before they switched into CS.
Sometimes as you implied, it’s their parents making that decision for them.
There’s no point in holding the cost of a student’s education over them, especially as you don’t know even how much they paid.
