ISACA Has a Fistful of Reasons to Get Certified
It takes five fingers (OK, four fingers and a thumb; you know what we mean) to make a fist, and a fist has power. Even a fist can't solve complex IT problems, however — you need IT skills for that. So instead of telling you what to do with your five fingers (yes, yes, your four fingers and one thumb), cybersecurity and IT governance association ISACA has five reasons that you should make 2023 the year of IT certification. The reasons that the ISACA blog squad has for making IT certification your mission — should you choose to accept it — are not particularly revelatory or revolutionary, but sometimes the facts are the facts because that's what the evidence tells us. And years of evidence would more than suggest, for example, that professional certification is valuable because it validates key skill sets. For IT professionals, certification validates that you have the job-ready IT skills employers across the industry desperately need. If you need an IT certification pep talk, then click over and review the basics.
Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em
No matter how rigorous and thoroughgoing your IT certification exam preparation efforts may be, you probably won't ever walk into a testing center, or sit down at your home workstation, stone cold knowing every answer to every question you're about to see. Sometimes, perhaps especially for those who are young IT professionals just getting into the swing of things, you need to have an exam strategy that gets you out of a jam when you plain don't know the answer. You could just skip the question. But a new article at CertMag.com, the official website of Certification Magazine, suggests that it's better to guess, especially if you have a sound guessing strategy in place. Longtime IT educator Steve Linthicum outlines his fine-tuned approach to "intelligent guessing." Not only that, but Linthicum has advice about how to manage your time while taking an exam so that you directly address as many questions as possible. If you're smarting from a recent exam failure, or you just want to beef up your test-taking confidence, then go check out what he has to say.
CompTIA Previews the Year Ahead in Cybersecurity
Last week in this space, we pointed readers to the official blog of cybersecurity professional association (ISC)² for a look ahead at the looming cybersecurity landscape of 2023. This week, we're pointing to the official blog of tech industry association CompTIA, where there is a similar list of cybersecurity trends and topics to be watching for across the next 12 months. Whereas a single cybersecurity expert composed the (ISC)² list, however, the CompTIA list draws from the wisdom of seven different cybersecurity experts. So if you prefer the prophetic wisdom of the crowd to the prophetic wisdom of just one individual, then you'll be pleased with what you see here.
Amazon Web Services Assesses IT's Most In-Demand Job Skills
There's ongoing debate about which IT job skills are most sought after by employers, and the IT employment landscape frequently shifts. One group well positioned to judge which skills are hot in the current marketplace is training and education provider Coursera, which synthesizes data from roughly 4 million adult learners across more than 100 countries. A new post to the AWS Training and Skills Blog of leading cloud everything provider Amazon Web Services recaps data from Coursera's latest Job Skills Report to pick out some important notes for IT professionals. Guest blogger Zac Rule, a Coursera executive, points out that the report suggests IT and other "digital" skills are in high demand. Rule summarizes digital skills as describing the "range of abilities that allow one to understand, use and create value with and from technology." In addition to analyzing job skill data, the post includes key data points as well, like listing the 10 fastest growing "human skills" alongside the 10 fastest growing "digital skills."
That's all for this edition of Certification Watch. Please keep your certification news and tips coming to the GoCertify News Editor.
