Is a Data Science Certification Necessary to Get a Data Scientist Job?
Well, Yes and No!
In Simple Words
Certifications do matter, but not because of the certificate itself, but because of the skills you have gained as part of the certification. Over the decade, many data science certification courses have popped up, leading to the generalization of these courses. Now anyone can just take up a certification and claim to be a data scientist, but it doesn’t work like that when you apply for a job.
What Recruiters Look for
Recruiters receive tons of applications and they don’t have the time to skim through the certifications and then check its authenticity. Instead, they focus on the skillsets and projects completed by the candidates. Having a well-developed systematic course that imparts education and skills better than random learning is crucial. An examination is a measure of one’s commitment to learning.
Although anybody can have knowledge and skills, the one who has a certification will have an upper hand if two people have equal knowledge and skills. If you are considering getting a certification, you can contact organizations like Upgrad, Simplilearn, or MentorEver Edutech for training and examinations.
Skills and Experience Matter More
No, you don’t need a certification. Certifications aren’t valued very highly, if at all, in data science. What truly matters is that you have higher education and proven skills in programming, statistics, and machine learning.
Preferably, you need a CV with relevant job experience to get interviews, and you need to be able to demonstrate your technical skills in the interviews. In the field of data science, the ability to code and apply statistical measures is essential. Concepts around machine learning are becoming more useful, and signal processing could be very helpful. However, I rarely see these skills in candidates with just a certificate, especially those from social sciences.
Some boot camp places approach me to sell access to their graduates in data science. The people and descriptions I saw as a preview were all from social sciences who had just picked up R and Spark. They all had certificates, but I would not hire any of them, let alone pay to get access to them.
To sum up, while certifications can help demonstrate your commitment and certain skills, they are not the only or most important factor in the hiring process. Your education, skills, and practical experience are the key to landing a data scientist job.
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Keywords: data science certification, data scientist job, essential skills