This was my response to a post on the Python-Brasil list about the importance of certifications.

A few years ago, I hired over 100 IT professionals… developers in C++, Java, testers etc. During this period, I learned not to trust any diploma whatsoever.

I hired people from private universities who were better than those from federal or state universities, although this was not the rule, but an exception. If the person hiring is the same one who will work with you, for example your future boss, he looks for someone who can solve his problems, and leaves the diploma and certificate to the HR department to check. I knew many good people who didn’t have a university degree, but that was rare and not the norm. For some IT positions, having a university degree is a luxury… for others it’s absolutely necessary. I know that for network administration, certification is fundamental.

The issue of diplomas/certifications comes up when you try to work in a larger company where:

a) Someone from HR or an external company will do the pre-selection for IT personnel. In this case, the first selection is almost mechanical with a checklist on the CV: does it have a university degree? Is it in computer science or engineering? How many years of experience… etc.? Normally, HR doesn’t risk passing a CV to interview if they haven’t found some prerequisites. Some companies even have quotas for quality and education, where a certain percentage must have a master’s, Ph.D. or undergraduate degree.

Where I worked, our client asked for an inventory of talents and diplomas. In this case, it’s important to appear the word Python, whether in your experience or in the name of a course you took (more below).

b) The person receives an excessive number of CVs for the same position, at that time I received over 2200. In this case, they will do research like HR people. Normally, they privilege experience in these cases, but without diplomas, it depends a lot.

I started working early with IT (beginning of the 90s) and until my 28th birthday I didn’t have an undergraduate degree. At that time, what was important to me was to earn money. I got great jobs in small companies, just with a technical school diploma. Never did any certification. Never worked in mega-companies, as the salary depended on the level of education and never paid well.

After that, I graduated and did my master’s degree. It was worth it when working abroad, as to get permission to work, a university degree is required (at least in Belgium). Here, neither certifications nor diplomas are mentioned, but an “engineer” can graduate after 5 years of full-time study.

As you said, all forms of acquiring knowledge are important. If I lived in SP, I would attend Luciano’s course, I’m sure that the networking and Python buzzwords would appear, regardless of my level of education or experience. An online course can be great, but it depends a lot. I took some on Coursera, excellent ones and others where I couldn’t even finish them. It all depends on experimenting.

Regarding the certificate from an open course, honestly, they have never served for anything in my experience. If you’re taking the course, do it to learn. The certificate only serves for HR to make that talent inventory later and if so, it’s worth it.

If I had to hire again today, I would give preference to people who can learn on their own. Whether with books, face-to-face courses or online ones, but someone who can adapt to learning a subject. In this list, even those who learned Python by reading the documentation online, which is excellent. But if I had to choose between two candidates with equivalent experience, but one was an undergraduate and the other wasn’t, the one with the diploma would get the job.

Three things are important on a CV: experience, higher education and in some cases certifications.

I wouldn’t put open courses on a CV, unless it’s really thin. If you took a Python course, it’s more important to say that you know how to use the language and what you’ve done with it. The open course can appear during an interview. The networking from the course can help more than the course itself, but remember that this can be a double-edged sword, as these people will remember how you behaved in the course, during breaks, etc.

In short, I would do an online course, regardless of the certificate, if I wanted to accelerate learning a language or subject. But that’s not all.