IBM Introduces New Certification Achievement
Information technology (IT) professionals get IT certifications for a variety of different reasons, including acquisition of knowledge and skills, career advancement, and the hope of gaining increased compensation from one's employer. One reason to get a certification that maybe gets a little less attention than others is to add visibility to one's profile of skills and showcase professional versatility. That's the sweet spot that's being targeted by a new certification initiative that has just rolled off the assembly line at IBM. The new offering, dubbed IBM Certification Plus, is also one of the first efforts – if not the very first effort – to blend the strengths of two very potent certification programs. The first is IBM's own program, of course, but the partner program drawn into IBM Certification Plus is the long-lived and venerable Red Hat certification program, a collaboration directly facilitated by IBM's acquisition of Red Hat at the end of 2018. IBM Certification Plus will create stackable combinations that pair up IBM credentials and Red Hat credentials. In particular, IBM Certification Plus will be designed to pair up and feature credentials that cover IBM Cloud Paks with credentials that cover Red Hat OpenShift. Cloud computing is increasingly woven through all areas of IT, so it's cool to see this very momentous team-up start here.
Microsoft Learn: Certification Helps Women Build IT Careers
The notable overall absence of women from IT career realms is a much discussed and widely lamented aspect of the global professional workforce. So anything that helps facilitate the entrance of women into IT career paths is a worthwhile piece of the overarching solution to a persistent problem. There's a good piece at the Microsoft Learn Blog this week that highlights the impact of certification in helping women with Microsoft certifications get established in tech jobs and move forward. Blogger Karina Ung, a senior product marketing manager at Microsoft Learn, focuses in particular on two different women who drew on certification to help them grow their IT skill sets and advance their careers. For example, product manager Jacqueline Ye shared information about her certification achievements on LinkedIn, which led directly to her launching a campaign to encourage and support other professionals with a desire to get certified. In the first six months of Ye's effort, more than 60 individuals joined in, racking up more than 100 certifications. Ung's post is an important reminder of the crucial role that certification can play in strengthening the overall IT workforce by dipping into its largest pool of untapped potential.
CompTIA Breaks Down Benefits of Security+ Certification
Every so often, over at the official blog of tech industry association CompTIA, one of the regular bloggers will pump out a provocatively titled post asking some variation of the following question: "Is (Thing Associated with CompTIA Certification) actually of any value ot anyone anywhere?" This week, it's a post by blogger Jessalynne Madden that is titled as follows: "Is CompTIA Security+ Worth It in 2021?" We see what you did there, Jessalynne: as will anyone else who reads the post, which it turns out – plot twist! – is not actually dedicated to tearing down CompTIA's widely popular Security+ credential and explaining why you should look elsewhere to establish your certified journeyman information security professional bona fides. If you're pondering whether to add Security+ to your certification resume then you'll find some good information here.
What Does a Data Warehouse Analyst Do?
Not every IT job title is overflowing with results on standard job search sites. One popular job search engine has only 79 results for the specific job tile "data warehouse analyst." That could change in the near future, however, as specialized data science jobs gain traction in a marketplace that is still just beginning to unlock the monetization potential of vast caches of digital data. Along those lines, there is an interesting job profile piece over at CertMag.com, the official website of Certification Magazine, that offers advice to anyone considering becoming a data warehouse analyst. Tech writer Nathan Kimpel (an occasional contributor here at GoCertify) begins his discussion of this somewhat rarefied specialization by dissecting the term "data warehouse." So you're really getting two breakdowns for the price of one: an explanation of data warehousing itself, and an explanation of how an analyst would function in that realm.
That's all for this edition of Certification Watch. Please keep your certification news and tips coming to the GoCertify News Editor.
