The Google Career Certificate and the new job market
With COVID-19 still very much being active and crippling the global economy, there is an often overlooked part of society that is looking for alternatives.
While many people have a friend that got kids that have trouble now getting back into school, there are also colleague students who are a little less stressful to handle but still are unsure what the feature holds for them.
The number of universities and other educational entities that are announcing that the next educational term will not be held with attendance classes on campus are growing. And students are more and more wondering if the high fees are worth it.
Overall the educational system has been in question globally, from big student loans piling up in the US to the discussion within Europe if the bachelor / master has really improved it for students.
The Google Certificate
Right into an uncertain time Google is pushing again the boundaries and is creating a new space themselves. While creating certificates or online courses for that matter are nothing fundamentally new, what has gained the traction is what Kent Walker (SVP, Global Affairs @Google) posted on Twitter:
In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles
The certificates which should take around 6 months to complete according to Google, at a fraction (unannounced) of the cost could become a new second path for getting a job ready education.
And the new Career Certificates are in relevant fields with: Data Analytics, Project Management, and User Experience (UX) Design.
More news around this topic can be found directly at Google.
Who will recognize the certificates?
The biggest question for potential students will be the recognition it will yield going forward. With many employees already discarding basic certificates like the Google Ads / Google Ads or the Google Analytics certificates that you can get, it is not a long shot to assume that some companies will just ignore them.
Something the general online course world has been suffering under for quite some time, with many HR departments not having any real contact with them before and thinking all of them are just fake and have no meaning.
But this is where the power of Google might come in, they didn’t just start creating those career certificates (not released yet), they also created a consortium of employees who can participate in interview days and have access to job boards.
Companies in that consortium include Sprint, Best Buy, Walmart, intel, hulu, Bank of America, The Home Depot, jet.com, BONOBOS and many more. This makes sure that the effort is not purely based on the chance getting hired at Google (which might be still small).
Final note
Overall, it seems kind of clear that the entire educational system will undergo more and more changes going forward. There is very little to gain from employees to have candidates pile up student debts and then often not having the necessary skills to do the job they are hired for.
However, there is also a different side to the story. With more and more companies starting remote job positions, this is also a great way to reduce overall hiring costs. Something we will need to see going forward when the dust settles.