“The person with the certification is the one that is going to get hired” – Robert Blanchard, Director of Support Services Aspen Skiing Services Co.

Perhaps it is true what they say about candidates having credible certifications.

While some may disagree stating that too many certifications are easy to earn and do not reflect real knowledge. Well, not if you choose the right tech certifications.

Nearly 91 percent of employers believe IT certifications play a critical part in hiring the relevant candidate.

Here’s why?

  • As technology keeps evolving so will the skills in the field change. Therefore, employers will need candidates with the latest skillset.
  • Not only does an IT certification help land a job but also helps demonstrate your skills to the right employer.
  • Certifications are great indicators of proven knowledge in the field – data analytics, AI, machine learning, IoT, and cloud computing.  

With jobs at risk due to the pandemic hit, a tech certification such as AI certification or big data certification could keep your career safe.

Below are two job roles that are likely to grow in the tech sector in 2021:

Big data engineer

Data is the new oil, there’s no denying the fact. Thus, it will always be a significant asset to most industries. As the world continues to fight the battle against the pandemic, the dataset available has been a great help to the industry, especially the healthcare sector.

With AI-based data analytics and predictive modeling, these sectors can now understand the disease in a better manner, providing multiple pathways to deal with the response mechanism or even act in any event of urgency.

Besides healthcare, almost every industry out there has started leveraging big data for their business gains.

AI architect or AI engineer

Earning a career in AI will likely future-proof your career. This simply means that these jobs will survive till the foreseeable future. A McKinsey report states that nearly one-third of the workforce in the U.S. might need to switch their job roles by 2030.

Especially workers in areas like legal support, sales clerk, finance professionals, and administrative professionals are likely to become vulnerable.

However, this does not specifically mean that AI or automation will replace jobs but in fact, become a substitute for certain activities that require time-consuming manual labor.

Although, this has sparked anxiety and worry amongst workers seeking aid through an AI certification could keep your career safe.

AI and automation are here to uplift productivity among workers and help with the growth of the economy. However, to stay in sync workers will need to constantly upgrade skills or upskill themselves, or even switch occupations to remain relevant in the competitive IT job market.

On a recent survey by Pearson VUE, it is said that IT certifications are indeed great indicators to stay relevant especially in the technology industry.

The survey was conducted amongst 10,000 respondents from the country India.

  • Nearly 55 percent of the candidates confirmed stating the knowledge gained through certification programs was likely transferable with real-world scenarios.
  • While 35 percent of these respondents said, IT certifications helped increase their wages.
  • And 21 percent of them received a significant hike of 11 to 20 percent in the wages.

AI is said to transform the world as we see, therefore job roles such as becoming an artificial intelligence engineer or a big data engineer or data scientist will be upped in the foreseeable future.

Confidence, curiosity, and perseverance are certain traits that an aspiring AI professional or a big data architect/engineer needs to have.

While the job trajectories for both fields look bright, it is still up to the candidate to define their learning journey.