AWS Certifications vs Skills | Azure Certifications vs Skills (The Hiring Managers View)
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Michael Gibbs, founder of GoCloud Careers, discusses the importance of certifications versus skills from a hiring manager's perspective. He emphasizes that while certifications can open doors, it's the skills that secure employment. Suggesting a balance, Gibbs advises obtaining challenging certifications to build your brand and complement them with the necessary skills. He also notes that certifications are more critical early in one's career and offers free resources to help viewers develop a successful tech career.
Takeaways
- 😀 Employers hire to get work done, they need people with the skills to accomplish specific tasks.
- 📈 Certifications can help you get an interview but skills are crucial to get hired and perform well in the job.
- 🏆 Challenging certifications like CCIE are highly valued as they often come with strong skills.
- 🚫 Not all certifications guarantee job skills; some may only test knowledge of service names or configurations.
- 🔑 Certifications, even easier ones, can still be valuable for learning and to get your foot in the door.
- 📚 Employers value both certifications and skills, but the ability to do the job well is paramount.
- 💼 As you progress in your career, the importance of certifications decreases, and the focus shifts to planning and strategy.
- 🌟 Getting 2-3 challenging certifications can significantly enhance your brand and open up interview opportunities.
- 📈 In early career stages, certifications play a more significant role in getting interviews due to less experience.
- 🎓 Free resources and webinars are available to help build skills and understand the tech career landscape.
Q & A
What is the primary reason employers hire employees?
-Employers hire because they have work to be done and need people with the skills to accomplish it.
What perspective does Michael Gibbs provide in the video?
-Michael Gibbs provides the perspective of a hiring manager, having been both an individual contributor and a manager in the tech industry.
Why are certifications important according to Michael Gibbs?
-Certifications are important because they build your brand and can help you get an interview, which is a stepping stone towards getting hired.
How do certifications and skills relate to each other in the hiring process?
-Certifications can indicate that you have the skills needed for a job, but having both certifications and skills is ideal as it increases your chances of getting hired.
What is an example of a certification that builds skills, as mentioned by Michael Gibbs?
-An example of a certification that builds skills is the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE), which is known for being challenging and thus often equates to having good skills.
What is the role of AWS certifications in the hiring process?
-AWS certifications can be valuable for learning AWS features and functionalities, but they may not necessarily provide the practical skills required for a job, such as a Cloud Architect.
Why might an AWS Solutions Architect Professional exam not fully prepare you for a Cloud Architect role?
-The AWS Solutions Architect Professional exam focuses on learning the names and configurations of AWS services, but the actual Cloud Architect role involves much more, such as understanding business goals, rearchitecturing, and managing stakeholders, which are not covered in the exam.
What is the impact of easier certifications with free retakes on their value?
-Easier certifications with free retakes may lose their value because more people can pass them, and if they don't correlate with the required skills for a job, their significance diminishes.
What advice does Michael Gibbs give regarding the pursuit of certifications?
-Michael Gibbs advises getting two to three challenging certifications that will help build skills and brand, which are more likely to get you good interviews.
How do certifications become less significant as you progress in your career?
-As you move up in your career, the focus shifts from hands-on work to planning and strategy, which is why certifications become less significant for higher-level positions like CEO or CIO.
What resources does Michael Gibbs offer to help viewers build their tech careers?
-Michael Gibbs offers free documents and webinars that can help viewers learn the right skills and build their careers in technology.
Outlines
📈 The Importance of Certifications and Skills for Employment
Michael Gibbs, founder and CEO of GoCloud Careers, discusses the significance of certifications versus skills from a hiring manager's perspective. He highlights that employers hire to get work done and they are interested in candidates who can perform the job well. Certifications can help secure an interview but skills are crucial for getting hired. Gibbs emphasizes that while certifications are valuable, they do not always equate to job skills. He suggests that having both certifications and skills is ideal, as certifications can build a candidate's brand. He also points out that challenging certifications like the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) are highly regarded because they typically indicate strong skills. However, easier certifications might not necessarily reflect the necessary job skills.
🎓 Balancing Certifications and Skills for Career Growth
Gibbs advises not to skip certifications as they can help secure interviews, especially early in one's career. He recommends obtaining two to three challenging certifications to build a strong brand. However, he also stresses the importance of developing skills, as certifications alone are not enough to guarantee job success. He warns against the devaluation of certifications that are easy to pass or can be memorized, as they may not accurately reflect a candidate's abilities. As one progresses in their career, the focus should shift from hands-on work to planning, and certifications become less significant. Gibbs offers free resources and webinars to help viewers build their careers and develop the necessary skills for their desired roles.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Certifications
💡Skills
💡Employers
💡Hiring Managers
💡Interview
💡Cloud Architect
💡AWS Certifications
💡CCIE
💡Career Development
💡Brand Building
💡Free Webinars
Highlights
Employers hire because they have work to be done.
Certifications and skills are both important for job seekers.
Hiring managers look for the ability to do the job well.
CCIE certification is an example of a challenging exam that builds skills.
Some certifications may not directly translate to job skills.
AWS certifications can help you learn AWS features but may not provide all necessary skills.
Certifications can be valuable for getting interviews, especially early in your career.
As you progress in your career, the importance of certifications decreases.
Certifications can be weakened if they are easy to pass or have free retakes.
It's recommended to get 2-3 challenging certifications to build your brand.
In the early stages of your career, certifications are more significant.
As you move up, focus shifts from hands-on to planning, reducing the importance of certifications.
Combining certifications with skills is a winning strategy.
Free resources are available to help you learn the right skills and build your career.
Free webinars are offered to discuss tech careers and answer questions.
The video provides insights to help with your technology career.
Transcripts
would you like to know if employers care
more about your
certifications or your
skills if so this video
is my name is Michael Gibbs and I'm the
founder and CEO of gocloud careers and
I've been working in technology now for
well over 25 years and I've spent more
than two decades helping people just
like you get your first tech job or get
permitted in Tech and I want to answer
the question of certifications versus
skills for you and I want to give you
the perspective from the hiring manager
perspective because I've been both the
individual contributor like the network
engineer the cloud architect the network
architect the Enterprise architect and
I've also been the manager that hires
people and when you look at it from the
manager perspective versus the worker
perspective we often see things
differently and since I want you to
either get the best jobs or get promoted
I want you to be able to understand it
from the hiring managers perspective so
let's talk about why employers hire
employers hire because they have work to
be done whether they need a cloud
architect to say design their Cloud
systems or they need a cloud engineer to
build their Cloud systems or they need
some ssops people to maintain their
systems or even Some Cloud security
people to secure their systems employers
hire because they have work to be done
and what an employer will do is they
will look at the amount of work that
needs to be done they will look at their
current Staffing and say do I have the
people with the skills to get the work
done and if the answer is yes they don't
hire if the answer is no and they need
people to do more work or bring in
additional skills than the employer
hires so when you understand things from
the employer perspective it'll help you
manage your career much better the key
to remember is the employer hires
because they have work to be done so
understanding that let's talk about
certifications versus
skills if the employer has work to be
done they care about your ability to do
the job and they care about your ability
to do it well if you can't do the job it
doesn't matter if you have three phds
and 100 certifications sadly they can't
hire you but if you can do the job and
you can do it well you could and should
be hired assuming you do a good job on
the interview so think about that now
does this mean that we should only focus
on skills and not certifications no
because you are certified and you can do
that job because you've got the good
skills now you're really in a good place
and we'll talk about that but let's go
back to the certifications versus skills
do certifications give you the skills to
do the job because the key is if you
could have both certifications and
skills then you're really good
certifications will build your brand and
help you get an interview and the skills
will get you hired so let's think about
this and evaluate this there are some
certifications that are so challenging
that after completing these
certifications you generally have good
skills my favorite example of a
certification that builds your skills is
the Cisco certified internet expert
otherwise known as the
CCI this is an incredibly challenging
exam people take it every single day and
after 30 years Cisco has only certified
about 65,000 Cisco certified internet
experts and if you pass that exam
chances are you've got really good
skills and hiring managers know that so
if you've got a CCI in your resume and
you're applying for a network
engineering job chances are you're going
to get an interview and chances are
you've got great skills to actually get
hired but what about other kinds of
certifications what about some of the
AWS certifications for example or some
basic
certifications well here's the challenge
you can easily pass these exams and
still not have any of the skills to do
the job I'll give you the example of the
cloud architect if you were to take an
AWS Solutions architect professional
exam you'll learn the name of an AWS
service and how to configure that but
what you will do in your job will have
absolutely nothing to do with that for
example that cloud architect will
interview the executive team of an
organization to find their business
goals and their business Vision that
cloud architect again would then go to
understand the business how the business
operates and then uh the business
processes that exist and that cloud
architect after that would then help
rearchitecturing
after that the cloud architect for
example would learn and examine the
organization's carent technology and
then redesign a technology strategy
based upon that organization's goals and
needs that will include a lot of
documentation a lot of vendor
relationship a lot of stakeholder
management a lot of presentation skills
writing skills and sales skills and
there's much more that goes into the
cloud architect role but none of these
things are covered in the AWS Solutions
architect professional so that doesn't
mean those exams aren't worth they're
very worth it it gives you the
opportunity to learn some AWS things
some AWS features and functionality but
don't count on that exam getting you the
skills to get the job you're going to
have to learn those skills on your own
so certifications plus skills is
honestly a beautiful recipe but
certifications especially the weaker
ones and why are they weaker ones
they're weaker ones because they may
have a free exam retakes and when
there's free exam retakes many more
people can pass them and when we've got
a lot of people that can pass an exam
especially if it doesn't have the
required skills it loses its value you
can also for some of the easier exams
buy a copy of the exam from certain test
providers and literally go memorize the
questions and answers to the test and go
take these tests and there are also
people that will take some of these more
basic exams for you so what do we do do
we skip certification no don't skip your
certifications because certifications
will build your bread and help you get
an interview I suggest you get two to
three very difficult very challenging
big certifications the certifications
that will help you get
skills and the certifications that are
going to build your brand because most
people want to attempt them and that'll
make it more likely for you to get the
good interviews and I will show you with
someone that's willing to work and go
above and beyond and that's something
that every hiring manager needs on their
team now continuing our discussion
earlier in your career the
certifications are much more significant
because they will help you get those
interviews when your resume or your CV
and your LinkedIn profile are lacking As
you move up in your career you go from
typically Hands-On doing things to
planning things and that's why there's
not going to be any certifications for a
CEO or a CIO or an EVP so leverage
certifications build your brand and also
focus on developing the skills for your
career do that and you have the winning
combination have an incredible technical
care if you desire become a cloud
architect or an Enterprise architect or
an AI architect we've got free documents
in the description of this video that
will help you learn the right skills
learn how to build your career and
they're completely free for you we also
have free webinars where we talk about
certain types of tech careers you can
come join us on Zoom you can ask us
questions and we'll do anything we can
to help you through all these webinars
are completely free and if you've
enjoyed this video please give it a like
please subscribe to our Channel and hit
the Bell to be notified of new videos to
assist you and your technology career
this is Mike Gibbs signing off for now
and I'd look forward to seeing you in
another video take care
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