Feeling under the weather? Don't worry, so is our co-host, Clark! This episode packs a punch, blending together the unlikely mix of illness, horror movies, and workplace certifications. We're sorry for the delay in delivery, but when one host is 90% virus, things can get a little chaotic. Now, Clark might be battling a cold, but it doesn't stop him from sharing his thoughts on the latest AI developments, our mutual love for hair-raising horror flicks, and the controversial concept of a limb-chopping hero story.
Ever wondered if certifications are your golden ticket to success in the corporate world? Squid Boy and Individual Contributor have! So, we decided it was high time we addressed this ongoing debate. While Clark and I are in agreement that certifications can be advantageous, especially if your company foots the bill, we don't view them as an essential element of success. And yes, we also share how certifications could give your resume's SEO a nice little boost!
But we don't stop there. Our curiosity piques as we further delve into various IT certifications, including those from Cisco, AWS, and CompTIA Linux Plus. We believe that certifications can play a pivotal role in climbing the corporate ladder, especially if your chosen field is tech-oriented. So, if your company offers to pay for them, why not grab the opportunity? Let's unpick the world of certifications, their relevance in the fast-paced tech industry, and how they can help future-proof your career. Don't forget to tune in for our unique blend of tech talk, movie madness, and the latest on Clark's health, only on our podcast.
Everything Corporate Strategy:
All the links!
Elevator Music by Julian Avila
Promoted by MrSnooze
Don't forget ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ it helps!
Feeling under the weather? Don't worry, so is our co-host, Clark! This episode packs a punch, blending together the unlikely mix of illness, horror movies, and workplace certifications. We're sorry for the delay in delivery, but when one host is 90% virus, things can get a little chaotic. Now, Clark might be battling a cold, but it doesn't stop him from sharing his thoughts on the latest AI developments, our mutual love for hair-raising horror flicks, and the controversial concept of a limb-chopping hero story.
Ever wondered if certifications are your golden ticket to success in the corporate world? Squid Boy and Individual Contributor have! So, we decided it was high time we addressed this ongoing debate. While Clark and I are in agreement that certifications can be advantageous, especially if your company foots the bill, we don't view them as an essential element of success. And yes, we also share how certifications could give your resume's SEO a nice little boost!
But we don't stop there. Our curiosity piques as we further delve into various IT certifications, including those from Cisco, AWS, and CompTIA Linux Plus. We believe that certifications can play a pivotal role in climbing the corporate ladder, especially if your chosen field is tech-oriented. So, if your company offers to pay for them, why not grab the opportunity? Let's unpick the world of certifications, their relevance in the fast-paced tech industry, and how they can help future-proof your career. Don't forget to tune in for our unique blend of tech talk, movie madness, and the latest on Clark's health, only on our podcast.
Everything Corporate Strategy:
All the links!
Elevator Music by Julian Avila
Promoted by MrSnooze
Don't forget ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ it helps!
Every time Craig is creeping, creeping, craig's always creeping.
Speaker 1:Always creeping my voice kind of sounds like Craig. Today it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys could be brothers. You're so robotic and dead inside.
Speaker 1:Definitely dead inside, Definitely the sickness will do that to you and just being a product manager in general right.
Speaker 2:You're like 50% virus bacteria now, so I don't even know if you're a real Clark Just talking to some weird conglomeration of cells and things that are trying to kill you.
Speaker 1:I mean with AI these days. Who could it be? Who could it be? Who could it be? Yeah, I know who you're talking to.
Speaker 2:That's true, I know who I'm talking to. Who's that? Welcome back to Corporate Strategies. A podcast Could have been an email. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and I'm talking to the listeners of our podcast. Firstly, sorry we did not have a pod this week. Poor Clark has been sick as a dog. He's like 90% virus right now. He's not even a human being, Just an amalgamation of cells.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'm evolving yeah, maybe I'm evolving to a VP level product manager. Is that how that works? You just evolve over time and your body changes with it.
Speaker 2:You're totally engulfed your body. Your immune system is trying to kill you because it doesn't want you to become that thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Maybe it's like hey, you're going the wrong direction, buddy.
Speaker 2:Don't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely apologize for the delay. Yeah, international travel followed by just getting deathly ill for about five days, yeah, not fun, not fun, but I'm back at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we recorded that AI episode y'all heard last week, like three weeks ago, because we knew Clark was traveling and then we had Keelan for the labor union episode. So it's been a minute since we've actually been on mic. I didn't even know Clark existed. To be honest, it's been two and a half weeks. I assumed he was dead.
Speaker 1:I literally didn't say to wear in the discord. I feel terrible, but I went and I replied to stuff today and now I'm going to be more active. Yeah, the sickness was, it was rough. It was one of those sicknesses where, like, you can't sleep anymore because I've already knikwilled myself out and your body's, like super, already rested, but then you just can't, like, you're so torn up and just the way you feel because it's you're hot, you're cold, you're a Katy Perry song and you literally can't concentrate on anything.
Speaker 2:That's the worst. And then you're going to have the post sickness fog which lasts for months now.
Speaker 1:So I hope you're ready for that funness yeah maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll lose my ability to smell and taste. If I'm lucky, yeah, we will just keep going downhill. Maybe I'll just be a fraction of myself every time we meet and my voice will just continue to grading more and more and more until I turn into Craig.
Speaker 2:Man. That would be the ultimate twist. One of my favorite movies, which I never recommend anyone to watch because it's well. I'll tell you why it's called Tusk. It's about a man who gets kidnapped by a guy and turned into a warren.
Speaker 1:You told me about this, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:No, you. Let me look at a picture.
Speaker 1:You made me look at a picture. It's burning my memory forever.
Speaker 2:Don't Google it. I mean, I think the movie is hilarious, but most people are like wigged out by it. It's like ironic. Anyway, Clark, you're going to Tusk into Craig.
Speaker 1:This is like a silence of the lamb stuff right here.
Speaker 2:Like that's the level of this thing. This is my favorite month of the year. I love horror movies. I love spooky crap, I love all the gross body horror and all that we saw saw 10 and theaters. It was good. I'm here for it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's in a saw movie, since like saw one, the original.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a sequel to saw one and oddly enough, the plot is like something I can get behind. Basically, the jigsaw guy, you know he has cancer. So he goes to a clinic and they tell him there's, you got like six months to live, you're not going to make it. So he, this experimental treatment group, reaches out to him and you know they charge him like millions of dollars for this procedure. But he's like, you know, if it means I get to live, why not? And you know they grift him. So the whole premise of the movie is he saws these, these grifters, and I'm like you know what? He's a hero.
Speaker 1:He's a hero. There you go. It's a hero story. That's what it is. It is.
Speaker 2:It's a hero tale of a man who, you know, forces people to cut off their limbs. It's a great time.
Speaker 1:And your children. They'll learn a valuable lesson.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, don't. There is. There is no cure. You're just going to die Sad alone.
Speaker 1:That's the moral of the story. Oh my goodness, you ready for a terrible transition. Yeah, speaking of children, is that what people are in the workplace now, as they're getting these certifications that are nothing more than like an elementary level education?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, clark. I know you know, I know you've commented in the past about how I transition. That was masterful, my friend. Well done Our topic. Good job, clark. Our topic comes from frequent contributor and much beloved commenter Squid Boy, who requested we do a topic on certifications of the corporate world. And they said I feel like it's an unnecessarily huge emphasis and usually people with the most certifications know less than the guy with just one. And then individual contributor also a favorite said how about a certification tier list episode? We actually found a tier list online. We're going to go through and talk through today. But before we do that, clark, just give me this certification vibe check. How do you feel about these things?
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, I mean it's so for you freshers out there, you people who are brand new in your career. I'm using it all the time. Now, you people who are brand new in your career, you're just getting started Like it feels like you should go get all these certificates. Yeah, because that's how you learn, that's how you master these topics. You think it makes it look better on a resume. I'm going to give you my opinion. I don't have any certificates. No way, I have none. You?
Speaker 1:have none, I've never had a need for it.
Speaker 1:Like every time I think about I'm going to get a sync. Well, I don't know, I don't think I have any. Maybe there's like one way back when I started software engineering, maybe. But I always thought about should I do this? And I always thought it was interesting. But then it's never helped me in any way, shape or form. And generally when I look at people who have certifications and organizations I work with, it's no more than truly like almost getting a college degree these days. It's showed up, you did the thing, you paid the money and you got a certificate out of it.
Speaker 2:Ask me how many certificates.
Speaker 1:Do you feel differently?
Speaker 2:Certifications I have Clark.
Speaker 1:How many do you have? Yes, four.
Speaker 2:One, and it's not real Because I showed up, I did the thing, I paid the money and they gave me the certification. It's a pragmatic marketing certificate which is about as useful as the time I spent there, which is to say, marketing is pretty obvious and if you know how to do it, you don't need to go. So I actually probably have zero. But I agree with your assessment.
Speaker 1:Yeah get it Because we're kind of dumping on. There's nothing wrong with trying to learn more and if your company is paying for you to do this and get paid on the job to go get the certificate, take hours out of your day to invest in getting a certificate that they are paying for, sure, by all means do it. If they're going to pay for it and you're going to get paid for doing it, to me that's kind of a no-brainer. If you have that opportunity and if it's about continuous learning, don't just do it to do it, but if it helps you in some way, if it sparks your curiosity, there's nothing wrong with continuous learning and doing it. So I want to set that straight. But generally the people who pay to do it themselves or their company pays for it, but they have to do it on their own hours. It's not generally correlated to any skill level, any sort of importance, any help in getting a job.
Speaker 2:I've never seen it really make that big of an impact For the ultra uninitiated, the freshest of the fresh we're talking freshly sliced roast beef sandwich fresh. A certification in corporate industry is essentially a test you take with a diploma at the tail end that says you completed the test in the course on a thing. The thing can be marketing, it can be technology, it can be how to do HR or finance. There's certifications for everything under the sun. And I say all of this to make the point that, as a marketer by trade, certifications are some of the best marketing material a company can come up with, because it creates the FOMO. Hey, you're AWS certified, you're an AWS architect. Wow, you must know a lot about Amazon Web Services. I need to become certified too and pay the money to go do the course and go take the test and you think it's benefiting you and the knowledge, like you said, absolutely does benefit the receiver. And I'll use AWS as another example.
Speaker 2:I took the course but never got certified in Amazon Web Services and it was incredibly educational. The reason I didn't get certified is because I think it is a waste of time. I know it is a badge of honor and for them it's something they can market and sell and make money off of and get other people to buy into it. And everyone thinks if I'm going to go use Amazon Web Services, I have to be Amazon Web certified, which is not true. I'm not and I know how to use Amazon Web Services as an example. Right, but all that is to say that I think the thing you have to consider is what are you actually trying to get out of the cert? Is it a badge on LinkedIn? Is it the knowledge? Is it credibility in the industry? Are you trying to make your resume look better? Because all of those things do have weight? But great, yeah, you got to do the math to figure out. Is this actually worth my time, energy and money?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And the only other thing I'd add because, as we're kind of talking about this, I'm thinking about other situations Sometimes a certification is required, so I don't want to look over that. Some companies are working on some software or being in a certain industry, like defense or something like that. Sometimes there are certain requirements that you do have to achieve, so I think we're not really talking about those. We're kind of talking about those things that are specific to certain careers that just kind of give you more fluff, that you know what you're talking about, right. So I definitely wanted to lineate those two and, to your point, I actually think there are.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about the pros of this. By putting it in your LinkedIn resume, it does create almost an SEO for you, right? So, like, if you people are looking on LinkedIn, I want to find certified scrum product owners and they search that tag like your, your product, your profile is going to come up, and that's a good thing. So these are all the good things about having those. I think what we're saying is, like, in the real world, when you're working with these people, some of these people who are just out there to get as many certifications as they can. They usually aren't the really good people in the company Like they're, usually like the low performers and the people who don't really do anything.
Speaker 2:And that's Squid Boy's point entirely, and you know I hate to say it. There is an individual who I'm not a big fan of. That Unfortunately I violently agree with, and it's Elon Musk. On the idea of certifications and education in general, he made the statement that you know he was going to stop hiring people with higher education degrees and people who only focused on certs because they didn't have practical experience. And while I just agree with a lot of things the man said, I do believe that he is correct in that assessment, what you find and this is Squid Boy's point as well is the more certifications you have, eventually it starts to hurt your actual practical knowledge and I think it's because you're becoming academically educated but you have no actual experience.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely. Yeah, it's one thing to understand it. In theory, it's and you know this, bruce, and anybody who has done this in any corporate tech environment like Agile. Right, it's like everybody says they're Agile now, but everyone does Agile differently. Yes, so if you get an Agile certification, you come into an organization. You're like we're doing Agile. It's going to be exactly like I learned in the class. It never is.
Speaker 1:Every company does like a combination of waterfall Agile and this is just a way of doing for people who don't know. Like software delivery, we don't ship things in boxes anymore. The goal is to, you know, actually get them into the cloud and deployed seamlessly to every single application everywhere, because, thanks internet. But that's why we don't work in these giant waterfall year-long plannings where we have to get something on a shelf anymore. So the Agile terminology is like how do we be less rigid and actually get things done faster and out to market faster? And so there's all these principles that are around it, and it's never that way in any corporation. At least, I've never seen anything. I'll say even this. This might be bold. I've never even seen corporations do like 60% of what pure Agile is. I've seen about maybe up to 60%, and that's the most, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I completely agree with that, and I do think you mentioned it earlier and I do want to hit on it, and I think we're actually going to talk about this when we get into our tier list. Certain certifications act as good primers for the industry at large. And then there are others and I think this mostly falls under things like security whether you're certifying yourself or your product where it truly is an all or none type cert and you do actually have to invite the whole thing, Otherwise you could actually be a security risk for your company. So I do want to set that aside as a when it comes to security certs, take those very seriously, because chances are, if you need it for your job or you need it for your product, you do need it and you need it in its entirety, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you just point to be made.
Speaker 2:Everything's fuzzy these days and everything changes too. So, clark, in my experience with this maybe vastly different than it was 10 years ago. I remember do you remember, clark, when we started Like everyone was putting like Syspa and all kinds of things, and it meant a lot, even like five years back?
Speaker 1:I remember one of those because both you and I started on an IT degree, so it was like, yeah, comptia was the biggest one. You get your A plus certification and right out of school that's a big thing to have on your resume. But now I never hear anything about that.
Speaker 2:Okay, I like that you said CompTIA, because that gives us a chance to go into our tier list here. So we're looking at the 591labscom best IT certifications for 2023. We're just doing IT because that's what Clark and I know. There's a thousand other certs out there but we're going to look at this list and talk through them. Number one tier one based certifications Cisco certified network associate.
Speaker 2:The article says this should be your first certification, as it remains the most popular and it helps build a strong foundation of networking skills. It introduces you to technologies like cybersecurity, cloud and data centers. Agree or disagree, clark? I feel like disagree.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I feel like modern technology and maybe I'm completely wrong here Like Cisco is not that company anymore. No, you know what I mean. Like Cisco, sorry, you're way back when. You're the 80s 90s, no one cares about Cisco anymore. I don't know. That's just my thought. Maybe I'm not close enough to networking.
Speaker 2:I feel like you do need a cert to work with Cisco, because it's not easy, that's so hard, have you?
Speaker 1:used in every conference room, every corporate world. When you walk in your next conference room, look at your telecommunication system.
Speaker 2:It's probably Cisco.
Speaker 1:Dial one to connect to meeting Press.
Speaker 2:Two, to unmute the line. It's like come on, man, just make buttons. The funny thing is there are buttons on the phone to do this, but for whatever reason, cisco's weird meeting system is just archaic as all get out. Maybe you do need the cert, because they're so bad.
Speaker 1:You just need to do it to just operate your telecom, I guess to just operate a meeting room. I feel like I have to understand the ins and outs of Cisco and end up troubleshooting and unplugging ethernet wires and some NAS every single time, To your point. Maybe this certification would have helped me, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think this ties perfectly into their number two pick, which is the CompTIA Linux Plus. This certification helps build a solid foundation in. Linux is an essential technology with opportunities in cybersecurity, cloud and data center. The exam covers Linux basics and its application to various technologies such as automation and cloud. The first one, linux, is freaking nuts. It's easy to install and kind of dink around with Ubuntu, but once you get into the kernel and the core of it it's like a different world Right.
Speaker 1:Linux is great. I'll say that it's fantastic. You and I have both used it in development environments. When you're developing certain things, we set up, I think, a lot of Python environments on Ubuntu based machines. But yeah, I think it's not really like to know the ins and outs of that is not really essential anymore. It certainly. It is like Linux and Unix are like the base of even Mac, but you don't really need to know the ins and outs of it. I don't know how it would be modern day applicable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think my counter to this one would be Linux is amazing and it's free and you can master that right now if you wanted to, and it's a great tech skill set. To have Linux skills Translate into any tech role, whether you're a developer and marketer. Sales like just being a little bit dangerous. And Linux is a great thing to be, but every company uses it differently it every product and every company uses it differently. And Knowing kind of where to be and where to play, that's not something you're gonna get in the search because it's just too big To to get so. Again, I think this is one of those things. This is too much and I don't think it actually means anything. I think actual experience and the ability to be dangerous and find what you're looking for and how to do it, that's far more valuable. Yeah, absolutely the next two F5 certified big IP administrator or the F5 CA I've never heard this one name just cracks me up on the certified big IP Admin.
Speaker 1:This is just a hilarious name for a certification.
Speaker 2:The F5 big IP is a high-end product market in the security and network applications and, certified to manage their platform, can result in higher than average salaries. Oh, oh well, that's a. That's a good point. If you can get a higher than average salary with big IP, might as well go get that one, the big IP, give me the dollar bills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like this about you know, understanding kind of like the networking and load balancing and firewalls and VPNs. I mean, I guess like it's useful to understand those things. I Don't know how relevant the certification is, yeah, but those things are useful to understand from a technology perspective. I'll give them that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree. I think the next one also the same the Arista cloud engineer level 2 cloud associate. The rare cloud networking certifications hands-on practical lab exam Introduces you to numerous network technologies in a cloud environment, such as software, defined networking, spine and leaf architecture. Lab based certifications exams offer deeper knowledge Compared to written exams and this is going to translate into the next tier we talked to. But Having a little bit of knowledge in all clouds can go a long long way.
Speaker 2:I don't know what this one. I never have taken this one or have heard of it before, but this is probably more desirable than any Specific cloud vendor cert, because you get a little bit of everything right, I'd agree.
Speaker 1:I think this one is probably more important than any of the three above.
Speaker 2:I just Everything's cloud now right.
Speaker 1:So, like understanding cloud and how things are hosted and how the how the internet really works these days and companies really work these days, I think that's probably going to be one of the better ones, based on where the industry is going well, and there's some irony here too because cloud networking is a totally different beast than traditional Cisco style networking and Like what you gonna go for.
Speaker 2:I mean, this list put Cisco is number one, but if many companies are choosing cloud as where they're gonna do their run their business, why wouldn't you go learn networking in the cloud? And you know, if it translates back, that's awesome. But become dangerous in the fresh new thing versus. You know Cisco well, well, that's.
Speaker 1:That's actually really because we're kind of looking at this list it's funny like all those things seem really outdated and then the descendants underneath it that they actually don't give a number, like they don't add this one of the list that's the risk is probably the most important one. A Certified kubernetes application developer. Secad is another hands-on certification. Kubernetes right now is like it's such a, it's a platform staple. It's. It's basically just a Container orchestration system for, like, software deployments. Like every single company Uses kubernetes to basically deploy their services, their applications and be able to, you know, have multiple development environments to work In multiple clouds for different customers in different regions to work on. Like that should be number one these days.
Speaker 2:And it's kubernetes is a. It is a different mindset of Building applications and delivering software and software environments. It's not something that is just like pick up and play the the. The irony here is, I think it is truly the future. It's not the present because it's difficult and the skill set hasn't been there because everyone's been so focused on the things we talked about prior. But if there was one thing that I could go get more education and certified on, it would be kubernetes. I know that will actually carry me through the next 20 years.
Speaker 1:You 100% agree, and it's kind of funny because you and I were kind of mixing out of software development, like when Kubernetes was officially like GAID, it was probably in like 2011, 12, 13, 14. So, anyways, I think it's like we were on the tail end and now it's so table stakes for every software company. It probably would be good for us to go back and learn and explore a little bit more so that we can understand how these things are built.
Speaker 2:Time to build that product. Clark, let's go build a how to. Kubernetes for idiots.
Speaker 1:Let's do it.
Speaker 2:All right. So we've got two more tiers here and I want to burn too much time on the lesser tier, so we'll just kind of treat these things as the groups. So tier two is your cloud and data center certifications. So this includes AWS, Microsoft Google Cloud and Cisco certified DevNet associate.
Speaker 1:These like this should be tier one.
Speaker 2:Wait, how does this tiering work? Is it best?
Speaker 1:Or is the best?
Speaker 2:They did tier one dot zero your base, and now we're in tier one dot one cloud and data certification. It'll be one dot two flip them.
Speaker 1:This should be number one. This is everything nowadays, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would agree, and the funny thing is, is any of these individual certs your AWS, your Microsoft, your Google's? If you're joining a company and you have the base knowledge of cloud and how to work there, let's say you don't have the cert, these companies will pay for these and the I've done the AWS training. When I did it, I think it was like 14 hours of material. It's a lot.
Speaker 2:I did not take the test because screw that. But I did find the training to be helpful and I'm sure that being knowledgeable in the cloud, especially if you're going to be working in a company with one of these technologies for three years to come, is worth at least doing the training, if nothing else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually you made me think of something because, like all these, I agree, are more valuable AWS, microsoft, google, like those are just great SEO tags, too If you have one of these things.
Speaker 1:Every company works with these things, one of the three. Those are the big three, like cloud providers, so having one of those is only going to help you. If you're going to spend your time doing something in technology, these are probably the things to do and if you can, I think more important than the certification even though the certification might get you're like foot in the door or get you on the radar is showing you've done a project interacting with them. Yeah, to me that's way more valuable, completely agree. You didn't just get the certification. Here's a project that I hosted on GitHub or out of whatever Docker or like whatever it is cloud, whatever hosting provider that you had, and this is an example of how I integrated with Google Cloud to perform whatever I was trying to achieve. And that is way more impressive because that shows practical use of the software itself or of the technology itself.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more. And the last tip I'll offer on these is generally your company will pay for you to get certified on them if you're focused on it, so take advantage of that. If you're in a job and you have this opportunity, you want it, get it. If you're out of a job, then you might come out of your pocket, but, like Clark said, it looks good in the LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Right and actually I mean I think pro tip, you can. Actually, most companies, most managers have budget for continuous training and learning. Yes, and you should always go talk to your manager, especially if you're like working in Google Cloud but you've gotten certified. You might just be able to knock it out of the park really easily and go to them and ask like, hey, I'd like to just get the certification to make sure I understand how the ins and outs of it. You might learn something because you have practical use and then obviously, you get a free certification out of it and argue with free.
Speaker 2:Our last tier is the one that I've actually been mired in for the last year and a half because of my job, but it's the cybersecurity certifications and it includes CompTIA security plus CompTIA pentest, cisco certified cyber ops and Fortinet NSE, and I actually use CompTIA almost every day. I just have alerts set up from them.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:My inbox about. You know cybersecurity things, what's going on in the industry. I'm not certified in them, but I can say this much we're a useful tool to have. Cyber security is one of those things where, unfortunately, it's a necessary evil and it's only becoming more necessary as the world becomes more evil. So if I had to recommend you to go get one of these, I would actually say cybersecurity, because it is going to be a thing that is not going to change or go away anytime soon.
Speaker 2:Like we talked about how Kubernetes is the future, or I guess you know it's the present and it will last for the next 20 years. Cyber security is something that it's additive, but the technology doesn't change, it only grows. So your base, foundational knowledge of cyber security will always be useful, and then it's just a matter of keeping up with all the latest and greatest new additions and you know kind of product and corporate level search that come out and understanding what they are, how they work and staying on top of threats and attacks. But this is something that guarantees jobs and you can use these and keep these and run these forever once you have them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think with the dawn of AI to like really becoming a big thing, this becomes more important. As companies expose their intranet to AI, more and more malicious activity is going to happen and AI is also going to get smarter for that activity. So AI is going to be used in a bad way too. So understanding cyber security like this industry is just gone crazy in the last 10 years, and I think you know whether you're a marketer, whether you're an engineer, no matter what you are, I think you're by learning more about cyber security, you are becoming more valuable in your position.
Speaker 2:I completely agree and I know we're kind of we're getting through this list here. We're at the bottom. Clark, what are your ultimate takeaways when it comes to this list and cyber security in general? Or, I guess, certifications? Sorry, certifications in general.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think this out of when this article was published, but I feel like it's just out of order this year.
Speaker 2:okay, so it's really. Maybe it's a joke.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'll be honest with you. Just throw the first year out that we read on Linux and networking. That's a waste of your time. Move directly to the cloud ones through cyber security, I don't know. I mean I don't know if it's one or the other or even like one and the other. I guess it depends what you do. But I think in general you could learn something from those other two tiers. So I think they don't hurt to have.
Speaker 1:If you are trying to find a job in IT and you're trying to show your value, help your SEO on LinkedIn, whatever it might be. Now, if you're an established professional, you know, let's say five plus years, you're in engineering positions on that already Like a certification is probably not going to make you look better. But if you're the associate level, if you're a fresher, you know you can get one of these and it will probably help you not only learn something but also it will essentially help you get that SEO going for you in general. To show that you're willing to put in the extra time to get the certifications to select that. That you're willing to put in the extra time to get these certifications, to show you understand them and do the side projects with them too, because I think that just shows 10x what you've learned in a certification.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. Couldn't have said it better myself. I have no additional nuts. Continuous learning, that's it. That's all I can advocate for. Never stop learning Certifications, they're just the owners. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:Now the agile ones are hard Because the agile, as we said, you'll see this everywhere, like certified agileista and certified scrum product owner and scrum agile list, like there's so many out there and, to be honest with you, these I don't think really help you that much, like I think people are even I don't know the industry is kind of getting a bad taste in their mouth to agile because everyone's been saying it for 20 years now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say the same issue for marketing. I don't think these help you. Yeah, it just the practical experience speaks volumes and doing the thing is so much better.
Speaker 1:Like technology is, I think, a technology certification you have to get hands on. You gotta do work in it. You understand how it all goes down. Like an agile one is really theoretical, right, it's not like tangible. You can read a book. Yeah, you can read exactly. Yeah, it's like reading a book. So sure, you can learn it in theory, but there's no way to actually do it. With technology certs you can usually do something with that and that's much more valuable.
Speaker 2:Completely agree and hopefully this was helpful for y'all. Again, thank you to Squid Boy for submitting the topic. We always love user submitted topics. So if you have them, the way you can get them to us is by going to our pod topics channel in our Discord. And if you're not in our Discord, you are missing out. To get there, all you have to do is go to our website. It's corporatestrategybizbiz stands for business and join our Discord. We have some awesome people in there Great conversations, constant education and learning and sharing knowledge and ideas and jokes and memes and Clark's there Sometimes, sometimes.
Speaker 2:But take advantage of that. Get in there, make jokes at his expense when he's not there. We hope you've enjoyed the episode. We always appreciate your listenership. Again, we're sorry we took so long. Hopefully we'll get back to your regularly scheduled potting after this episode and, as always, thank you for your listenership. If you want to learn anything about us, just go to our website, get in the Discord, do the same, but until next time, I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1:Get out of here, Craig.