As an employer, I take continuing education of any sort as a positive sign when looking at resumes. Software development is a Red Queen field; one has to keep up.
However, I do take most certifications as mild negative signs. E.g., SCJP, CSM, PMP. A lot of for-profit certifications are worthless. A notable exception are some of the Cisco certs, which really put people through their paces. Which makes sense, as Cisco benefits more from having expensive Cisco products work well than from certification revenue.
It'll be interesting to see what bucket Coursera certs fall into. They need to jump on the cheating thing right quick, though.
Considering that the Coursera certificates require you to take a class (usually taught by experts in the respective field) as opposed to cramming for a certification exam, I'd say it's a good bit more valuable.
I took the first AI class last Fall, and if you've never been exposed to the material, it was a very good survey of Artificial Intelligence.
I agree, just as long as the certificate actually means you've taken the course and done the work. If one can cheat one's way through the homework and then just cram for the final, the Coursera certs would end up being of low value. I hope not, though. I'd love to have a good way to tell the continuous learners from the people who get stuck.
> Which makes sense, as Cisco benefits more from having expensive Cisco products work well than from certification revenue.
I'm not sure about the actual comparative amounts, but Cisco makes a lot of money off of certifications. Of course, in the long run making them actually represent something is best for both sides of the business.
> I'm not sure about the actual comparative amounts, but Cisco makes a lot of money off of certifications.
80% of Cisco's revenue is hardware. And even the service side is something close to $2 billion. I suspect the amount of money they make off of certifications is a tiny slice of that. Even if there are 10k CCIEs each paying $1500 for a yearly test, that's only $15 million, which is nothing to Cisco.
> Of course, in the long run making them actually represent something is best for both sides of the business.
That's not true for many certifiers. Take a look at the CSM certificate. It is meaningless, but popular and therefore profitable.
However, I do take most certifications as mild negative signs. E.g., SCJP, CSM, PMP. A lot of for-profit certifications are worthless. A notable exception are some of the Cisco certs, which really put people through their paces. Which makes sense, as Cisco benefits more from having expensive Cisco products work well than from certification revenue.
It'll be interesting to see what bucket Coursera certs fall into. They need to jump on the cheating thing right quick, though.