Answers
Nov 25, 2018 - 09:56 PM
Probably not as foolproof, but more of like "it's a plus!". Here's why:
I've come across a lot of marketers that can get the stuff done, and can bob and weave in and out like pros but never bothered to take the test, sit through all the sessions, or what not, because they were just so busy trying to get stuff done and didn't feel like they had a shortage of alternative jobs. And believe me, there are a number of those out there. (For some platforms, I confess... I'm one of them. STILL on my to do list but still not done...)
And then there are those that take the tests, because someone says they have to have it if they want to get a job, but haven't actually run up and down in the system a number of times. Those are the FIRST to have ALL their certifications... because they are looking for work.
The people you REALLY want are already working somewhere doing it. And may not have the time. So...
...in my point of view....
if you're too strict, you might pass up someone that is solid for a platform but just too busy in their current work to check the boxes (i.e. like me...lol).
It might be more revealing to look at their experience and ask about the martech stack in each position.
One interviewing technique I was taught by a COO was the "tell me about a time" approach, where you ask someone to describe a particular campaign they ran using the desired platform. Or talk about their opinions on recent changes in the platforms. The idea is to let the nature of their answer reveal their knowledge. Like when I go publicly speak and show experiments and talk cognitive psychology... I have people that challenge me during the Q&A. And then I drop names of academics they've never heard of and recap the studies those academics did on the subject in my own words. And then they realize i'm not a fraud, and I might actually know a thing or two beyond the experiments I've run myself. :)
Or.. you can do the "show me how to do X real quick" with the system pulled up (a lot more work to set up). I only mention this because some nonprofits I've talked to are so strapped on resources that they absolutely have to be sure that someone knows their stuff before they hire them (and don't have the time to train).
Dec 18, 2018 - 12:46 AM
I have seen this question asked many times by recent graduates and people looking to get their feet wet on a new career. Certifications are a nice way to learn about a topic, but most employers and agency owners would confess to you that they would not put a lot of stock in them if they came across them on a resume.
I asked the same question to an employer who has hired hundreds of new employees and he had a rather radical attitude towards these certifications. He told me that he would recommend investing the same amount of time that you would spend studying for the certification in a project relating to that field.
He reckons that you could do something with email, PPC or some other discipline. His mantra when evaluating candidates is that he gets more impressed when he sees something like ‘Launched and grew a 100 person email list on TOPIC X’ than when he sees a ‘Certification in Email Marketing.’
It seems that having practical experience in a skill set, albeit not in a job setting, carries more weight than having a certification in an area. Yet another employer says that he likes to hire people who have shown some initiative in running some sort of a project of their own.
A student can demonstrate this kind of initiative if they have run their own blog before, or have done marketing for a local project or band. This employer says that if these potential recruits are good at what they do, and ask good questions, it does not matter whether they have a certification or not. He was even bold enough to claim that he does not even care about the marketing degree.
Going by this insight, if I had to hire between two unknown people, and neither had any of the skills that the employers highlighted above, but one had a Google Analytics, Facebook Blueprint, or Hubspot certification and the other one did not, I would probably lean slightly towards the certified candidate. But really, I would hold out for the one who has demonstrated some form of initiative.
That’s it. My view of how much value we really should put in online certifications. The list of certifications that you put forth is one that I really respect. There are of course plenty other courses out there, most of them good. Maybe some of them are even better than these courses. So I am not really trying to discount them. But it really is not worth wasting your time going overboard with these.
Certifications can help get decent hires, but they are just a start. The real juicy stuff in marketing can only be learned by doing.
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