Google IT Support Professional Certificate

J_86

Interesting announcement from Google today about some new training they are offering. It's aimed at entry level tech support, but I would speculate it's probably pretty good training and material coming from Google.


https://about.coursera.org/google-it-support/


Course information: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/google-it-support
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yoba222

That is interesting. I personally have the impression that having Coursera on a resume isn't something anyone would ever take seriously, but then that's just me. I suppose other than the A+, there aren't many other alternatives aside from some expensive trade school or college certificate on the entry level end.

Edit: So it's $50 a month for 8-12 months. This costs $400-600.

J_86

yoba222 wrote: »

That is interesting. I personally have the impression that having Coursera on a resume isn't something anyone would ever take seriously, but then that's just me. I suppose other than the A+, there aren't many other alternatives aside from some expensive trade school or college certificate on the entry level end.

Edit: So it's $50 a month for 8-12 months. This costs $400-600.

Agree about Coursera, but I bet a cert from Google looks pretty good on the resume (for this level). From my understanding, they are also going to offer some kind of financial assistance or scholarships as well.

satam55

Would this cert be worthless to someone who has an A+?

J_86

satam55 wrote: »

Would this cert be worthless to someone who has an A+?

Looking at the course descriptions, I would say it appears to go much deeper then the A+. Might be some overlap with the A+, but if you are looking for entry level looks like some good content from reading the descriptions.

satam55

satam55 wrote: »

Would this cert be worthless to someone who has an A+?

J_86 wrote: »

Looking at the course descriptions, I would say it appears to go much deeper then the A+. Might be some overlap with the A+, but if you are looking for entry level looks like some good content from reading the descriptions.

Yeah, reading through the cirrulculm of the 1st course, this cert isn't comparable to a professional IT cert. It's comparable to graduating with a IT AAS degree or undergraduate certificate from your local community college.

--chris--

I came here to post this, I think its fantastic. Review the course list, I think its a broad base to build off from if you have little to no experience in IT.

It would pair well with something like A+ since that cert is hardware centric and this introduces concepts like networking, scripting/automation, OS manipulation and basic security concepts.

DatabaseHead

+1 Chris

In regards to the cost, I went ahead and signed up for 7 days and powered through one of the certifications and ended up completing it and getting the cert before my trial was over. I removed my CC and never got charged.....

Just saying if you are tight on money or just cheap like me, then it's worth a look.

Daneil3144

That's great that you guys think it's fantastic - but what the average HR person, will this hold any weight in an interview?

satam55

Daneil3144 wrote: »

That's great that you guys think it's fantastic - but what the average HR person, will this hold any weight in an interview?

Google already has big name employers & staffing agencies lined up for use with this certificate is good with if you read the article.

Danielm7

Yeah for a random new vendor that decides to do a certification I'd say it's probably worthless. When Google decides to do one they have a lot of weight behind them, it'll probably gain momentum. This really looks like a solid training program and very reasonable. I know too many people who call themselves Sr sysadmins who probably don't know most of the section on automation yet.

Daneil3144

Good strategy on their part: flood the market with more credentialed (but not qualified) candidates and drive down the price.

It’s like these big names are effectively creating a “minimum wage worker group“ for the IT industry. Instead of raising wages for competent help

Danielm7

Daneil3144 wrote: »

Good strategy on their part: flood the market with more credentialed (but not qualified) candidates and drive down the price.

It’s like these big names are effectively creating a “minimum wage worker group“ for the IT industry. Instead of raising wages for competent help

I can be pretty cynical, but with that logic isn't every training, education and certification program designed to get people into the IT industry? How exactly is Google going to raise wages of the entire industry? If anything they pay really well, they should be commended for trying to increase the skillset of the average IT person.

NetworkNewb

One of the things they cover:

- utilize common problem-solving methodologies and soft skills in an Information Technology setting


I was so hoping this was just going to be their main focus when I read it was aimed at entry level support. You know, just teach you how to "Google" things on Google... I was a little disappointed.

Pseudonymous

DatabaseHead wrote: »

+1 Chris

In regards to the cost, I went ahead and signed up for 7 days and powered through one of the certifications and ended up completing it and getting the cert before my trial was over. I removed my CC and never got charged.....

Just saying if you are tight on money or just cheap like me, then it's worth a look.

I wasn't really interested in this certification til I read this. If I can power through it in a week for free... might as well give see what's it's all about. I don't know how far it would help me in my career right now, but I'm assuming it will likely just be a refresher of some of the things I learned when I took the A+, N+, and S+.

DatabaseHead

Cameron M wrote: »

I wasn't really interested in this certification til I read this. If I can power through it in a week for free... might as well give see what's it's all about. I don't know how far it would help me in my career right now, but I'm assuming it will likely just be a refresher of some of the things I learned when I took the A+, N+, and S+.

Just for the record I didn't go through that particular certification track, I was going through Tableau.

DoubleD

I think this guy sums it all up in this from 1.20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PupBs57tGc&t=70s

josephandre

DoubleD wrote: »

I think this guy sums it all up in this from 1.20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PupBs57tGc&t=70s

I disagree with almost 90% of what this guy said, outside of the paper tiger syndrome.

DoubleD

josephandre wrote: »

I disagree with almost 90% of what this guy said, outside of the paper tiger syndrome.

why?
?
?

Danielm7

DoubleD wrote: »

why?
?
?

Because it's the same old whining about how certs != knowledge and money, we all know that, but he's got the old vendetta from "25-30 years ago" where he's still bitter that someone was paid more than him for having a cert. Outside of the the rest of the idea that a Google based support training program must be garbage because if he puts in a support ticket for his free service of Youtube or gmail, he gets an automated response... of course you do. Can anyone imagine if the first round of support from a free service that probably hundreds of millions of people use was an in-depth personal reply? Can you see that service being free for long? If you want decent support, pay for it. He's even going on that no one needs to know how to use Google apps and no jobs ever require that, which is completely untrue. Walk into a any large university system and tell me the person who is the admin for a google apps setup for 10s of thousands of people is the person who has "gmail experience".

I'm sorry but the idea that the people who are doing a form letter being the same people who actually provide training is silly. I have no skin in the game here as I've never done this program and I haven't done direct support in forever but this isn't a program to learn google skills, it's a support training program.

He keeps calling the google program a "bait and switch" which makes zero sense. Instead he suggests lynda.com and itpro.tv, neither of which are free and the itpro subscription is even more expensive than the google pricing monthly.

I wish I had my 10 minutes back, not sure why anyone would listen to this guy.

DoubleD

CompTIAs are vendor neutral
I don't know what the Google one is like but I wonder if it based around Google only products?

DatabaseHead

Cameron M wrote: »

I wasn't really interested in this certification til I read this. If I can power through it in a week for free... might as well give see what's it's all about. I don't know how far it would help me in my career right now, but I'm assuming it will likely just be a refresher of some of the things I learned when I took the A+, N+, and S+.

I only completed one course.... You do recieve cert of completion under the trial

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/google-it-support

Looks like they are starting up in August 27th, you could try to power through all the courses. I only had enough time and patience to do one..... You did receive a certificate of completion for the course though.... In fact I am pretty sure any Coursera course is like that if you are under the 7 day trial.....

If you are desperate have time and looking to kick start your career you could try powering through as many as possible in 7 days.....

I did this another time under another email for Tableau, received 3 certs of completion, but they delayed the 4th and final course so I could't get the whole curriculum, but it did help from a learning perspective.....


One other thing to add about the Google track, I believe you can just take one course regardless of where it lies in the track. So if you only wanted to get the infrastructure one, more SA type learning IMO you could do that.... (I think).

Danielm7

DoubleD wrote: »

CompTIAs are vendor neutral
I don't know what the Google one is like but I wonder if it based around Google only products?

The whole syllabus is on the links the the thread. It's vendor neutral as far as I can see, it's not google tool training.

yoba222

Saw a bunch of negative response to this certificate. Heard it was trivially easy to obtain the answers to pass; it's possible to just click through all the slides; things like that.

jinbako

I signed up for a free trial just to check it out and I skipped all of the training and went to the quizzes/tests and they were extremely easy. Granted, I've got over a decade in IT experience with multiple certs but I was expecting more from Google than what they've shown with this so far.

stryder144

That sounds a little like the Rackspace CloudU certificate that was offered a few years back.

josephandre

Danielm7 wrote: »

Because it's the same old whining about how certs != knowledge and money, we all know that, but he's got the old vendetta from "25-30 years ago" where he's still bitter that someone was paid more than him for having a cert. Outside of the the rest of the idea that a Google based support training program must be garbage because if he puts in a support ticket for his free service of Youtube or gmail, he gets an automated response... of course you do. Can anyone imagine if the first round of support from a free service that probably hundreds of millions of people use was an in-depth personal reply? Can you see that service being free for long? If you want decent support, pay for it. He's even going on that no one needs to know how to use Google apps and no jobs ever require that, which is completely untrue. Walk into a any large university system and tell me the person who is the admin for a google apps setup for 10s of thousands of people is the person who has "gmail experience".

I'm sorry but the idea that the people who are doing a form letter being the same people who actually provide training is silly. I have no skin in the game here as I've never done this program and I haven't done direct support in forever but this isn't a program to learn google skills, it's a support training program.

He keeps calling the google program a "bait and switch" which makes zero sense. Instead he suggests lynda.com and itpro.tv, neither of which are free and the itpro subscription is even more expensive than the google pricing monthly.

I wish I had my 10 minutes back, not sure why anyone would listen to this guy.

basically, you nailed it.