#CertificationsVsProjects #TechiesOpinions #HiringTips #CareerAdvice
Which one leaves a good first impression on LinkedIn or any hiring platform, the fact that I have 10 certifications or have done 5 personal projects? I really want to start on any one of these but confused as to which one. Would love to hear from some senior techies, hiring folks, or just folks in general!!
🤔 Are you torn between showcasing certifications or personal projects on your profile? It’s a common dilemma many tech enthusiasts face when trying to make a mark in the industry. Fear not, we’ve got you covered with insights from senior techies and hiring managers to help you navigate this conundrum. Let’s dive in to find out what really matters in the eyes of those who hold the key to your next opportunity.
## Certifications or Projects? What’s the Deal?
When it comes to standing out in a competitive tech landscape, both certifications and personal projects play a pivotal role. While certifications validate your knowledge and expertise in a particular technology or skill set, personal projects showcase your hands-on experience and problem-solving capabilities. So, how do you strike the right balance between the two to make a lasting impression?
### What Senior Techies Say
👨💻 Senior techies emphasize the significance of having a blend of certifications and personal projects in your portfolio. They acknowledge the value of certifications in showcasing your commitment to continuous learning and staying updated with industry trends. However, they also stress the importance of personal projects in demonstrating your creativity, problem-solving skills, and practical application of theoretical knowledge.
### Insights from Hiring Folks
💼 Hiring managers are inclined towards candidates who exhibit a well-rounded profile with a mix of certifications and personal projects. They value certifications as a testament to your proficiency in a specific technology or domain, but they are equally impressed by personal projects that exhibit your ability to apply your skills in real-world scenarios. A combination of both can significantly enhance your chances of standing out among a sea of candidates.
## Practical Tips to Strike a Balance
Now that you have a better understanding of the significance of certifications and personal projects, here are some actionable tips to help you effectively showcase both on your profile:
1. **Prioritize Relevance**: Tailor your certifications and personal projects to align with the job roles you are targeting. Choose certifications that are in demand in your desired field and work on projects that demonstrate your ability to solve problems relevant to the industry.
2. **Highlight Achievements**: Showcase your certifications prominently on your profile, emphasizing any awards or accolades you have received. For personal projects, provide detailed descriptions of the problems you solved, technologies you used, and outcomes achieved.
3. **Create a Portfolio**: Develop a professional portfolio to showcase your certifications, personal projects, and any other relevant work samples. This will provide hiring managers with a comprehensive overview of your skills and capabilities.
4. **Seek Feedback**: Don’t hesitate to seek feedback from senior techies, mentors, or industry professionals on your certifications and personal projects. Their insights can help you refine your portfolio and make it more compelling to potential employers.
In conclusion, both certifications and personal projects hold value in the eyes of senior techies and hiring managers. By striking a balance between the two and strategically showcasing them on your profile, you can make a strong impression and increase your chances of landing your dream job. Remember, it’s not about choosing one over the other, but rather leveraging both to showcase your full potential. Good luck! 🌟
With the exception of college/university degrees, most certifications are meaningless. The courses on a lot of sites aren’t vetted or regulated in any way so a lot of the certificates are participation trophies. Even more credible certifications from companies like Amazon demonstrate that you passed some exams but I’ve seen a lot of people wit these certifications that know a lot but can’t apply any of it.
Projects where you had an idea and executed on it show the quality of work you can actually produce so they carry more weight. The idea doesn’t have to be original, but if you did it yourself or followed a tutorial *and* made significant modifications then that will work in your favour.
Personal project which shows you can solve real world problems. No one cares if you can create something by following the exact steps your instructor told you
As a general rule, for someone trying to enter the field, I weigh projects more than certifications.
It is also important to consider that not all certifications are created equally. A certification from Udemy (or any site like that) is not worth much in my eyes, and I’ll ignore them,
**Good** projects are worth far more.
Small scale, tutorial-esque projects will do more harm than good.
Certifications are rarely worth anything.
Write a real, professional scale, challenging project.
The only certificates that carry some weight are AWS/GCP/Azure certifications. Those, however, show you have learned your way around the respective platforms, not that you’re a good engineer.
The rest, like PluralSight, Udemy, Coursera or whatever you have? They’re not standardized tests by any means, the certificates you get there are for yourself and don’t really have any value outside that.
Focus on really building your skills. If courses work for you, then do them. Not to get a certificate, but to really learn.
Building a Project on the job > Explaining your Past Projects > Showing Past Projects > Certifications > Github Commit History
There is nothing inherently wrong with certifications, but a cert only shows you passed a test at some point in time. Often this means you practiced up on the learning material for one particular exam, memorized a bunch of answers for questions known to be on that exam, and retained those skills/knowledge only long enough to pass that exam. A certification does not prove you currently have all that knowledge, that you’re an expert in the topics covered by the exam, or that you could even pass that same exam today. If anything certifications are an indication you are capable of learning a limited amount of material for a target result. That itself is a good skill to have in a tech job but in no way does it prove you can develop anything right now.
Here’s a question to ask yourself.
“Is there a job where I could be in a situation where solving a routine, predictable problem under pressure without external resources”.
If so then the cert is valuable. For instance, ops firefighting type things like kubernetes or sysadmin certs.
Anything that’s about problem solving design where ad-hoc learning is possible like actual programming is a worthless cert and a money making exercise.
Certifications are good when dealing with proprietary technology, eg AWS or Azure etc. Generic things like languages or libraries are better shown in projects
Degrees and certifications are useless. The only thing that matters at the end is the amount of value you can provide to the company. And one of the best ways to convey that is by building projects that solve real-world problems.
That’s why Self-Taught developers are often way better than people who went to school because people that study software/web development at schools 99 times out of 100 barely create any projects during their personal time.
(I’m speaking from experience)
Projects count as experience and trumps certs I think
Good projects are more valuable than random certs. But most people massively overvalue how good/useful their projects are. Tbh though when I’m interviewing someone I basically don’t bother looking at their GitHub or their projects at all. Someone with zero projects but who nails the code assesment and interview would still win out over someone with lots of projects but who just does ok in the interview stages
as a recruiter, I’d definitely prefer someone who made some project on their own, even if they aren’t flawless vs some certifications that who know they even mean really
In the programming world, certs don’t mean much.
If you want to work in IT, or cybersecurity realm, you will have to have them. Good luck
If they are to your prospective employer, go somewhere else. (I built my first web site in ’94)
I’d much rather see a well thought out project that exemplifies a real production application than a laundry list of certifications. Have both? Now I’m super interested in hiring you.
I want to know if you can code, if you actually really like to code, if you’ll fit into the team, and if you’ll be able to deliver independently. I don’t actually care about certs, and most projects are just copy pasted from tutorials.
Talent usually shines pretty brightly. It’s easy to spot.
Most juniors I’ve hired have come from internships, bootcamps, or university campuses. You just chat with people, find out who they are and what they like, then if there’s a fit you maybe offer, or else they ask.
Most seniors I’ve hired come from recruiters. A few come from personal recommendations.
Your first completed project is more important then any certification. At some point that turns over, and the certification will be more valuable then one more project. If you are debating 5th project or a cert, I’d go for the cert.
Absolutely not. Showing what you can do is way more important than a certification.
If your sure that you truly studied for and worked towards those certifications and no element of fraud then yes Certs do matter alot. Most reputable cert courses are coupled with some kind of project work that you are required to do to complete the course.
Dev with 10+ years experience here – no, certifications (besides maybe some cloud ones) are useless. Projects way, way, way more critical. Projects (beyond non-trivial ones) show that you can actually code to **some** extent – it may be buggy, it may not be best practices (and those things can be mitigated/taught) but you are capable of writing code in a way that things ultimately work and you have the “stick-with-it-ness” enough to see it through, and that’s really the main whole of the job.
Rather than certifications, rather than demo or tutorial projects, I’d MUCH rather see a junior take on a big (but not too big! Think about appropriate scope) project or two that actually took some novel effort on their part. Nobody cares about a Java cert. Nobody cares that you followed some tutorial to make a todo app. Make something **real** and you’ll stand head and shoulders above other juniors
My first “shipped” project was a “brag” automator – I worked for a website that provided financial advice, and we’d occasionally write formulaic brags. It was almost always the same type of information, just with different numbers, companies thrown in, so I just built a form that could take those variables, a few variations of the text so it wasn’t always the exact same words, and started using it and gave copies to my coworkers (who also sometimes wrote them). Simple, easy to make project with real business value (it saved us maybe 15-20 minutes every few days)
I have never considered certificates when hiring.
projects are king
I don’t know what any of the certifications mean. Let me see your projects.
I do not think that certifications matter at all. Especially if you’re just getting started.
Full time work experience-> internships -> school name -> personal projects/club projects
Without a decent school name you’ll have to use personal projects to land internships.
Generally speaking, where I live in the LA area, I haven’t seen many employers ask for certs except for maybe aws, most seem to care way more about school name and work experience, a lot of entry level jobs are asking for 3 years of experience…
Do your best, the only thing that matters 🖖
I don’t know you, so I’m not gonna look at your project. I do know the questions on the certification tests. Certifications. Sorry!
I’m ST and had 0 certs or courses. I’ve sent 2 personal projects when applying (that was before git) and got the job like right away.
No