Have you ever hired one because of certificates?

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Hello everyone,

this question is especially for those of you in executive positions and/or for those of you who are directly involved in hiring decissions.

Have you ever hired someone for a junior or senior position because of his completed certificates and why? How do you weight one or more certificates compared to some university degree?

Thanks for reading & for your answers!

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From your exprience, how long would it take me to get a job in AI if I'm starting courses today?
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Same question!

This is the topic I am interesting in.

Is it possible to find the job after getting completed coursera certificates at all?

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I have never been a hiring manager for ML/DL related positions, but I spent a large part of my career (I am now retired) as a hiring manager for software engineering positions mostly in areas like operating systems internals and embedded systems in Silicon Valley in the US. So I can talk about how hiring works for engineering positions in general and the answer is simple: no, I have never hired anyone purely because of any kind of credential, even if it’s a degree in a relevant field from a respected university. The most that a credential (or anything else on your c.v.) gets you is an interview either over the phone or in person. Then the question is what you actually know and can talk about in a conversation.

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It was many years ago and I was impressed by a candidate who finished the Deep Learning Specialization which was quite a bit of work and the course’s medium, English, isn’t the candidate’s mother tongue. We had talked about it in the interview. I gave a very good feedback, not really for the certificate but it’s more based on our conversation. I had seen a lot of potential in the candidate. The candidate was hired.

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I’m no hiring manager, but I did get hired by one AI Fund company as an backend engineer for Gen AI, and from what I’ve heard, having those certificates does help. I’ve done the Deep Learning Specialization, and the Machine Learning Specialization. These courses are really good in my opinion and they definitely left me well equipped for interviews in the AI/ML space. Plus, having worked on some personal projects with the skills earned from the courses definitely gave me a lot to talk about during technical interviews. Can’t say that I was hired because of the certificates, but I’d lean to say that they did help, by probably helping me get through the filters (like @paulinpaloalto mentions), and by giving me relevant skills.

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I have never hired someone because of their certificate. When hiring, I evaluate no just the person resume and experience but their potential to learn and adapt. Personally I value the knowledge and the potential more than a piece of paper.

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I have been a hiring manager for several data science and ML teams. There is often a lot of very fierce competition, so if two candidates have roughly equivalent experience but one of them is pursuing certificates and learning about new ml tools and applications in their spare time, that will really set them apart. To me, it is a demonstration of their passion for the field and dedication to continually learning that makes them an asset and helps them stand out compared to many applicants who just switched into the field because they want to make money.

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+1 on this idea, but I suggest take it even further.

Back when I was a hiring manager there were no MOOCs or certifications, but if I was still doing that I would not be impressed at all if a candidate merely posted a link to their certificate or, perhaps worse in my opinion, posted their exercise solution on GitHub and thought that that proved anything. Most of the DeepLearning exercise solutions have been out on the web since forever, so posting another one doesn’t impress me.

What would, however, is to take @andresap ’s idea one step further. Start with the MOOC exercise and expand on it. Use a different, larger, data set. Modify the default model and compare and contrast performance. Demonstrate how the exercise relates to a seminal paper, how it improved on SOTA at the time, offer ideas for further improvement etc

Several hundred thousand people have completed the DL.AI specializations, so I need a candidate to show why I should prefer them out of that pool.

V/R

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Just want to say thank you to all of you for your valueable insides “behind the doors” !

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I have got a question: does the certification helps in the filtering from the pool of resumes? Like the chances of getting an call for interview is higher when certifications are mentioned in the resume compared to when it’s not? I want to know this.

Thank you.

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