So I looked it up and Google is offering certifications in various fields through Coursera, and they claim it’ll help one get a good paying IT job.
People have made videos on Youtube talking about them with varying answers and in the comments, people often discuss using them as a springboard to get CompTIA certs.
But are these certifications actually worth the money financially? Do people actually get hired if that’s all an employee has? Don’t employers want people with degrees too?
I’ve been in IT for a few decades now with no degree. Just got a raise, I’m officially pulling in 12K a month pre-tax.
Here’s how I did it:
Work a series of crappy non-tech jobs where I became “the computer guy” because nobody else knew anything.
Tear a calf muscle and have to get a desk job.
Get a phone monkey job answering tech questions. That job had an opportunity to start training other people.
Took the training skills and got a job teaching at a for profit tech school. They wanted me to teach their A+, Microsoft and Linux classes so paid for my certs.
School folded after 9/11, so I took the certs and became a system administrator. Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix phone systems.
After about a decade of that, had a bad experience, burned out, went back to a phone monkey gig for a tiny start up company.
Got IPO shares. Paid for my kids college.
Got bought by a GIANT tech company. Not FAANG level, but a few steps below that.
Now…
My KID… went to college, got his Computer Science Degree. Interned at Intel, had his first paying job at Intel, jumped ship to Oracle, and is now out engineering those AI systems that have everyone creeped out.
After getting a 4 year degree, he went from making the same money I did more or less immediately to making 3x what I do in less than 5 years.