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  • #2342202

    Certifications?

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    by edhartgrove32 ·

    After 25 years in the IT profession I had to take a mild retirement. My background has mainly been in database, data, oracle erp, development, data warehousing, etc. While getting plenty of interviews I think that I am heading nowhere as in just about every interview I have had ask something about my web experience. Which is almost non-existent, sure I’ve created some web pages with PHP, Dreamweaver, CSS, HTML but I sure do not pretend to be a web guru and am very honest about that in my interviews. Should I try to go online and get as many certifications as I can? Like Javascript, PHP, HTML, CSS, etc. I may not even be asking the correct question or asking the correct content. Confused and dazed……any and all help is appreciated!

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    • #2447412

      Re: certifications

      by morgankennedy548 ·

      In reply to Certifications?

      Hey! From what you have told I assume that it’s not the employers who doesn’t believe in your experience but rather you who do not feel confident about your web development skills?

      Because in this case you should focus more on gaining the needed skills rather than just trying to gather as much certificates as possible. I do not say that certificates are useless as it depends on every employer’s attitude towards it, but what’s the purpose of having all these certificates if you still won’t feel that you are capable of doing things but just have all this information stuffed into your head.

      Therefore, online courses are a great way do deepen your knowledge, but I would go for interactive ones where you can really learn the content by practicing it. I do not want to sound promotional, but one of good examples that I tried myself is Bitdegree platform. They have some interactive web development courses where you need to complete tasks in order to continue further.

      I would suggest you to go for such sites and courses as the more you take them, the more confident you will feel about your capabilities. Cheers!

    • #2420467

      At the signpost up ahead…

      by johntbailey ·

      In reply to Certifications?

      1st, Certs without experience will sink you.

      2nd, get a copy of What Color Is Your Parachute and go through the whole thing, including all the exercises, at least twice.

      3rd, join a local career group like CareerDFW as they can help you focus and practice relevant skills and someone usually brings coffee and donuts.

      4th, failing to plan is planning to fail, so go back and read through What Color Is Your Parachute one more time until you know what I’m saying…

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