Google certificates instead of college

Inc Magazine writes,

The three new programs Google is offering, together with the median annual wage for each position (as quoted by Google), are:

Project manager ($93,000)
Data analyst ($66,000)
UX designer ($75,000)
Google claims the programs “equip participants with the essential skills they need to get a job,” with “no degree or prior experience required to take the courses.” Each course is designed and taught by Google employees who are working in the respective fields.

The courses take only 6 months and cost way, way, less than going to college. They are not a status symbol for parents (nobody is bragging that their kid got into Google), but still. . .

21 thoughts on “Google certificates instead of college

  1. Despite the marketing that this is an alternative to a traditional college degree, I’m guessing that the most relevant group to take advantage of programs like these are recent college graduates who majored in worthless topics. It’s not like this is going to attract mall workers at the local H&M who all of a sudden discover that IQ demanding tasks like coding are the path to success.

    Also, note the median salaries. Good luck raising a family on this in the SF Bay Area. Hint to @asdf the margins won’t be 47%.

    • At first I thought that completing this course netted someone a job at Google, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. How is it therefore different then lots of online certification courses, many of which have the prestige or Google behind them too.

      “80% of learners in our Google IT Support Professional Certificate program in the U.S. report a career impact within 6 months, such as finding a new job, getting a raise, or starting a new business.”

      *Career Impact*, such a tricksy phrase.

    • That’s not true. These coding boot camp type programs absolutely attract a wide range of adults. I know people who’ve successfully transitioned from working at Walmart to being salaried programmers. And I know others that are taking classes like this, although not specifically at Google.

      In response to Kling:

      They are not a status symbol for parents (nobody is bragging that their kid got into Google)

      Wrong. To the upper class, this type of get-a-job-fast training is low status. But to the lower class, this can be high status.

      I know people (through my wife) from low class backgrounds doing fast track nursing programs at non-prestigious schools that are superstars among their families and peers. This fast track tech job program is similar.

      • “That’s not true. These coding boot camp type programs absolutely attract a wide range of adults. I know people who’ve successfully transitioned from working at Walmart to being salaried programmers.”

        From Walmart greeter to salaried programmer. That’s a feel good story and I’m a total sucker for feel good stories. Please publish your results. How large is your sample size? How did your sample perform vs. the control group?

        • My story was clearly an anecdote and not a formal study. This is just a comment + discussion section. I presume none of us, not even Kling, are actually conducting their own formal studies.

          And the guy wasn’t a greeter, I never said he was a greeter, he went from a small position team lead at Walmart to software QA to actual software developer which was his career goal.

          • Bingo! Sample size of n =1. Not sure how you went from that to the rather bold statements in your original comment, which is why it’s being critiqued.

            BTW – I am a Target kind of guy and the Walmart experience completely depresses me, but I always loved the concept of Walmart greeters. The prices are basically the same.

    • Educated by google does not = hired by google. Please stop bundling the two.

      MSFT has been offering similar certification and training programs since at least the 90s.

      As far as I can tell, the primary difference here is that google (purportedly) claims that the certification is viewed the same as a college degree in hiring practices. Of course, they can say whatever they would like to on paper…the reality from the hiring manager’s perspective is likely to be something else entirely. And, at the end of the day, the hiring manager has the ultimate say.

      • Or, to state it more bluntly:

        college degree (in a worthless major) + google training vs. google training only without a college degree.

        As the hiring manager, which resume gets set off to the side vs. saved for an initial phone interview? Is it even close?

      • The hiring manager’s opinion would not stop me from bragging, regardless of whether my bragging was justified or not.

        • Hate to break it to you, but your kids ain’t going to be hired at google based on a 6 month certification program alone. There is way too much competition, particularly amongst those that took a more traditional college approach.

          The hiring manager gets this and he/she is the only person that counts.

          You, ASK and others can keep deluding yourselves as much as you’d like. I wish that the world worked differently, but it doesn’t…

          • Certification programs can often serve as alternatives to graduate school, but rarely undergrad. There are professions, like my own, where 4 years state school + certification is enough to reach the upper echelons.

            I don’t see many people wanting to hire 18 year olds for important jobs though.

  2. “ They are not a status symbol for parents (nobody is bragging that their kid got into Google), but still. . .”

    Retirement before age 70 is becoming a status symbol. Much more possible if you have given a good chunk of your wealth to a bunch of Les Miz cosplayers.

  3. I am all for alternatives like this in theory, but I am skeptical that the relevant skills could be taught in 6 months (modulo certain jokes about project managers).

    If they can’t, it would tend to break down in one of two ways:

    A) Already skilled people obtain these certificates as ways of demonstrating their skill in a particular area where they otherwise lack experience (eg, when switching careers).

    B) They become worthless, or possibly of even of negative value.

    If they are really teaching people a skill from scratch, I’d have greater confidence in a longer term apprenticeship program. Apprenticeship in technical fields is an underrated thing.

    • Underneath the label “already skilled” I would include college graduates as well, meshing with the other comments about people with unmarketable degrees.

      I likewise expect that tacking a Google certificate onto your otherwise unmarketable degree has a very strong chance of transmogrifying it into something marketable. And that’s a pretty valuable service, given the number of people with unmarketable degrees.

      I am less confident in its magical powers on those without a degree.

  4. Contra some of the comments above, Google at least claims, “In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles.” Of course, that doesn’t mean that Google will hire *every* graduate that earns a certificate. I could see that this program might become successful if Google uses it as a way to screen/evaluate candidates. After all, they will have data on how each student performs in the courses (beyond just whether or not the student satisfies the minimum requirements for obtaining the certificate), data that other employers will not have access to.

    • I’m sure that’s Google’s real play. This program will train data analysts and user interface designers who can accept lower wages (because they don’t have student loans), who are specifically trained in Google’s style, and about whom Google has sufficient data to identify the top 1%. It’s a six month, you-pay-Google job interview with a certificate of completion at the end.

  5. “MSFT has been offering similar certification and training programs since at least the 90s.”

    Yep. And Microsoft spends millions each year trying and failing to prevent massive cheating rings from rendering the certs largely worthless.

    • One of the guys in my office has a Microsoft Excel certification from 2015. Nobody much cares. It’s not that we doubt his Excel skills, which are pretty good, but that the skills don’t really impress anyone very much or adequately compensate for his other weaknesses.

      I could imagine somebody with a decade-old computer science degree getting a Google certificate to try to prove they’ve kept the skills current, but I have no idea how much credibility that would have.

  6. “They are not a status symbol for parents (nobody is bragging that their kid got into Google), but still. . .”

    Depends on where the family is on the spectrum. Nassim Taleb remarked in his ‘Anti-fragile’ that the merchant made the fortune then the children became magistrates and doctors. For this latter, you need credentials and the more prestigious the better. Diplomas allow families to remain in the middle class after they’ve spent the wealth of the seedy ancestor. (Kindle copy was locked for copying by publisher post-purchase so no direct quote).

    So a Google cert is good for the wealth creator, not so much for offspring seeking to maintain status. It’s an old old opinion as indicated by this observation of the relative value to society between Henry Bessemer and the Prime Minister of the British Empire.

    “For example : The question being propounded, What is the value of the combined services to man of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, as compared with those of Sir Henry Bessemer? Ninety-nine out of a hundred men of sound judgment would doubtless say, ” The value of the services of the two statesmen is quite unimportant, while the value of the services of Mr. Bessemer is enormous, incalculable.” But how many of these ninety-nine men of sound judgment could resist the fascination of the applause accorded to the statesmen? How many of them would have the moral courage to educate their sons for the career of Mr. Bessemer instead of for the career of Mr. Disraeli or of Mr. Gladstone?* Not many in the present state of public sentiment. It will be a great day for man, the day that ushers in the dawn of more sober views of life, the day that inaugurates the era of the mastership of things in the place of the mastership of words. ”
    —Charles H. Ham, Mind and Hand: manual training, the chief factor in education (1900)

    The recipient of the useless degree may seek a Google cert if they are forced to support themselves. That in being the tragedy of the university. The economically useless degrees give status, which far to many who will have to support themselves fall prey to when deciding which major. In the past, a college degree assured a decent job, but actual ability to do something useful for others has become increasingly important in the last 40 years. A fact further obscured by the most ambitious who could major in history and still do well because their hobby was computers and programming just as the information economy took off.

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