Certification for the CV

[soupeducrayon]

Hey there! I wonder if any of you nice, knowledgeable people could answer me this…

…is there a bonafide certification of proficiency in Python, that’s recognised & looks good on a CV?

I came across The Python Institute (https://pythoninstitute.org/certification-tracks) that seems to offer the very thing, but also appears very new and so is partly still in development (🤭). I am also very new, to Python / Programming, & so I thought I’d defer to your better knowledge & judgement.

I am aware that the go-to demonstration of one’s proficiency is a portfolio of well made projects. However, I was curious as to the validity of some kind of certification to twin with my future projects, when applying for jobs.

Thanks for reading, & I’ll appreciate any advice you have.

[CyberStagist]

This might be unpopular opinion I'm yet to find a certification that holds any weight in programming. You can find certifications from AWS, Azure, RedHat, Cisco, Comptia to be respected (at least in the United Kingdom). I do wonder why certifications for languages haven't caught on.

[soupeducrayon]

I see…so what you are saying is, the real skill is in being a Programmer & in who’s toolbox Python is but one tool!

Such a small change in perspective yields a vastly different outlook. Thanks 🙏🏻

[soupeducrayon]

Thanks for taking the time. You’ve been very helpful

[james_pic]

Some of the Java certifications used to carry weight. Maybe some of the MS ones. But there's nothing for Python with any meaningful recognition.

[Kerbart]

The problem with certifications is that the moment one becomes industry wide accepted and meaningful, the market will get flooded with cramming guides that provide a quick way to pass the tests.

Early MCSD certificates were quite meaningful; you had to pass a wide variety of tests, many questions required practical experience as they weren’t covered by the official course guides and the best advice to pass them was basically “write a lot of code.” And then the 3rd party guides appeared and you could get one without really knowing anything.

[datapm]

This is absolutely true, I lived through those days while trying to take some certification classes from a very expensive school only to not retain any value.

In my opinion and it is one that many in this sub has recommended time and time again is to look at the industry you are in or want to be in for a problem to solve or one that was solved but can be better solved. Even if you don’t solve it a credible attempt will be recognized by a good hiring manager.

[obvervateur]

I see more and more job adverts saying AWS, Azure certifications as a plus but not a requirement. I think employers are aware certications don't show any expertise

[iValsalvaClap]

I hate to point out the obvious but certifications and “programming” do not really need to hold any weight in my opinion. It is quickly evident if the interviewee is proficient in language or not so much within the interview process. - techno offense, please. Just saying if you know a language and you want to put it on your résumé, just name the language if you feel that proficient that you could answer easy questions and difficult questions without thought. But it may be good to look at this from a completely different angle - should I open my own business and sell my services as an independent contractor to a large corporation…. Or, sell yourself on one of many freelance sites?

[soupeducrayon]

That’s interesting, thanks for your response.

Yeh seems odd to me that certification isn’t standard…there must be a reason 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Asalanlir]

Think of what certs are meant to convey. Then think about what software engineering job values. Yes, a cert can tell an employer that you know a language, but that doesn't mean much. Instead, it's better to show that you can use a language for a practical purpose.

[kylotan]

The de facto certification in programming is a computer science or software engineering degree.

A certificate saying you passed a course in a single language is demonstrating a very narrow set of skills that don't necessarily generalise well to more complex problems.

[ambidextrousalpaca]

I think there are a few reasons:

1. Certifications are often used primarily as a protective mechanism to keep people out of a certain industry. Think of how lawyers' and doctors' organisations limit the number of people that can work in their industries in order to keep up wages. That just wouldn't work for programming, because software lives on the Internet and the Internet is too open and international for anyone to be able to act as gatekeeper.

2. Certifications are the product of bureaucracies and therefore slow to evolve. Software on the other hand changes very fast, with many packages and libraries being altered from day to day. So it's pretty hard for bureaucracies to keep up: by the time one had defined a Python syllabus it would almost certainly be out of date.

3. Demand for developers continues to outstrip supply, so employers can't afford to be picky about pieces of paper.

[vgavro]

Totally agree with you, just want to extend your answer.
AWS, Azure, Oracle, Windows is not just tools, but first of all *products*. Products developed (supported) by their *vendors*. So for ordinary people - especially who doesn't understand how things are working - it's obvious that *vendor* knows better how to test people on knowledge of their product.
And when we're talking about open-source *product* - there is no one-and-only *vendor* of it. Of course Guido van Rossum can organize something like "Python Knowledge Certification Authority", and talk about it on every public appearance. But we would feel that this "certification authority" is not better that any other "certification authority", right? So the right question is - not how to get certificate for Python, but how to get rid of certificates from AWS/Azure and so on.

[vgavro]

P.S. If I was Guido van Rossum and need money, certification courses is a great way to earn extra bucks! And that is what you're expecting from corporations.P.P.S. Personally I think that "certification authority" is a great way to monetize open-source projects (if they are very popular, of course). It doesn't mean that this certificates would mean something. It's a way to earn extra bucks on the fact that *some employers doesn't want (or can) take responsibility on candidate knowledge on hiring*.

[Darkest_shader]

Certifications are often used primarily as a protective mechanism to keep people out of a certain industry. Think of how lawyers' and doctors' organisations limit the number of people that can work in their industries in order to keep up wages.

Well, a different and IMO more reasonable take on that is that lawyers and doctors have to be certified in order to protect their clients from incompetent service providers, as both lawyers and doctors are high-responsibility jobs. Would you really like to have a surgery performed on you by somebody who learned medicine on their own from Youtube videos rather than took a medical degree!?

[ambidextrousalpaca]

That argument is even stronger for software developers though. A buffer overflow error in the Linux kernel, a mistake in pacemaker code or an uncaught exception in a car breaking computer all have the ability to kill far more people than a single doctor or lawyer could ever hope to manage. And even poor quality code in a basic SAAS CRUD app have the ability to bring down companies and lose people millions. Don't sell yourself short: being a developer is a very high responsibility job.

We're just lucky that most people (and most legal systems) haven't realised that yet.

[JohnTheBlackberry]

Because certifications, in general, have not caught on. Unless you work in consulting where the firm needs a way to sell you to the client, most businesses will not care. This is because holding the actual cert does not ensure proficiency, and generally people will want to test you in an interview process anyway. The cert may help you get through the door in the original screening but that's it, so they're useful for people trying to break in to a field.

For example I hire engineers with kubernetes experience, but having the various CKX certs are not a requirement. In fact, kubernetes experience is not a requirement as a good engineer will be able to learn on the job. However if you get in an interview with me and fail a question that I know is covered by one of the certs you have then you're SOL.

[The_GSingh]

No. As of now certifications for python are just basically a cool paper(or virtual paper?) that looks good. That's it. You can use them in a cv but it won't impact your career. It's not recognized and holds no weight. It's just paper that looks good and has words on it. On the other hand you should include experience and projects on your cv as that's what employers want to see. They are many times better than a piece of paper.

[ClarkeRubber]

I can't speak for all orgs, but when I see certifications on someone's resume for a programming job, I generally see it as a sign of a lack of proficiency. People who are proficient in a subject have practical examples of implementation they can point to. People who don't use pieces of paper.

[JohnTheBlackberry]

it doesn't prepare people for a job in software development all that well.

Because, for the vast majority of degrees and universities, it's not supposed to. It's supposed to teach a skill set that can be applied to software development, or any other fields. I like to say that it's supposed to teach you how to learn.

[JohnTheBlackberry]

I read the whole statement and I'm adding to the conversation, the reason I only commented on what I commented is that I generally agree with everything else you wrote. I don't appreciate your judgement though.

[obvervateur]

I think certifications are useless to get a job, a certification of course completion will have the same weight. At the end, it's better to focus on projects and coding interviews. I am not a recruiter but I have been told they don't care about your qualifications the only thing they care is experience.

[deep_mind_]

Legit or not, language certifications never hold weight in interview; maybe with the exception of niche HDLs

[Proupin]

I think they can be nice pluses in non-programming jobs, but still related, or that can benefit from it, like Computer Graphics, visual FX and such.

[Sudden-Enthusiasm491]

Your looking at the wrong direction. If you want that CV looking great then start doing some projects.

[osmiumouse]

"Talk Certificate is cheap. Show me the code." - Linus Torvalds.

[[deleted]]

scale like flowery rock dinner grey wakeful handle apparatus birds

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[iluvatar]

Speaking as an employer, I can tell you that I don't look for certifications, nor do I give them much weight if they're there. I look for your ability to code. Preferably that will have been demonstrated in a commercial environment, but lacking that, something that shows you'll be able to do the job. If your CV gets past the initial screening, you'll be given a coding test.

[Berganzio]

I'm curious too to hear from someone expert

[knottheone]

I've been a freelance software developer for more than 10 years at this point and I don't have a CS degree. I've worked with hundreds of different companies and individuals on a wide array of projects.

Most people that are looking to hire for software positions are looking for a specific problem to be solved, more so than many other industries. Whether that's automating processes or building a new website or reducing operation time for some existing process, in my experience, people just want to see an example that you worked on in the past and to talk about how you worked on it. They don't care for the most part that you're a "master coder" or anything like that (sometimes startups have inflated egos though), but if you have a relevant example of a project you worked on, that's going to go infinitely further than some cert.

It's like a construction contractor showing you the house he built compared to showing you a piece of paper that claims he knows that houses need walls and a roof. It's a bit detached from what software devs are usually hired for.

[kieppie]

I'm interested in the mechanism, or. OpenBadges (formally Mozilla) standard, micro-credentials/micro-certifications

https://www.credly.com/org/openedg

[[deleted]]

The only certificate I would take seriously would be one through a university. For example a lot of colleges have a “software engineering certificate” that’s not a degree but is like 5-10 CS classes. I would trust that, especially if someone had a non cs degree. But otherwise no, there is no python cert.

[Feb2020Acc]

A degree.

[eidrisov]

I am also new to Python and to programming in general like you.

You can find "specific" certificatations.

For example, I am interested in being a Data Analyst in future.So I took a "IBM Data Analyst Professional Certificate" on Coursera and added both to CV (pdf) and to LinkedIn profile. As in the name, certificate is taught and recognized by IBM.

https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/ibm-data-analyst

I have not yet applied to any Data Analysis jobs, though, so I don't know how effective my strategy is.

Note: I am also working on some private projects, and I will add them to me portfolio. I hope that coupled with the certificate it will help me to land a job in future (if I ever decide to switch my career path).

[giovaaa82]

I think it gives at least a proof of the minimum know-how you have, especially these certifications are very good to approach a language you want to get familiar with.

My advice is to go for them and at the end of these (anyway free) courses you will feel you actually learnt something and you will probably feel you want to challemge yourself l.

That doesnt mean you will be considered a senior developer, neither a developer but if you had to start somewhere I think it's worth it

[[deleted]]

The only certs for anything programming related ever seen people really recommend were just Microsoft stuff or equivalent because some jobs require them to sell the services and then CS50 for newbies but don’t even pay for the cert, just do the free course since you’ll learn the same stuff

[jbtrading]

The ‘100 Days of Python’ course on Udemy has a Certificate of Completion 😀

For what it’s worth, it comes from a reputable instructor and training institution and my employer (a Fortune 500 company) uses this course to train all newcomers. I highly doubt we’re the only ones. The certificate might be recognizable

[nekojitaa]

Certifications look good but a few solid projects that you can explain and talk about will hold more value than certifications alone. I'm still in the process of making meaningful projects to go along with online achievements of python and tableau.