There are various types of certificates to prove your skills. For example, if you have AWS Certification, then it means you pass the qualified exam for AWS skills and relevant knowledge. Whenever we get this kind of certificate, we usually put this on our resume and highlight it to others and hope this certificate will get attention from HR staff or other people who involve in the interview process.
Really ?? Does it help?
Now, let's be honest with ourselves. If you were in HR's shoes, one person who has less than one year of experience in a company uses cloud skills and another person who has cloud relative certificate but does not have any industry experience. If you are the HR manager, do you want to hire which person?
The answer might be different, but I am pretty sure that most people will choose the person who has industry experience. Why? it is because that person has "experience", not exploring the solutions and dealing with ideal situations. The real world is not always the same as what we saw in textbooks. Every situation has different solutions to apply. In that sense, it is obvious to have more experience than less experience with many certificates.
Then what? Do you mean the certificate is not valuable?
No, it is absolutely not. However, you should consider certificates as supplementary materials for your career. Always consider work experience as a primary highlight of your resume. It will give the value of your resume that you are ready to deal with the category of your certificate. For example, if you are a developer who works with cloud infrastructure and you have certificates of AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, then they strengthen your resume and give additional value that you have strong points in cloud skills.
If you are a new grad from a college, it relatively provides more benefits than others. Certificates can give HRs and interviewers the impression that you are passionate in those areas.
But, there is more than that.
There are several ways to provide or prove you are interested in the company you want to apply.
Prepare a portfolio of your work expertise
Always trying to have work experience like an internship