 are the Google career certificates still worth it in 2023? That is going to be the topic of today's video. And we're going to be talking about what the Google professional certificates are, how long it takes to complete the certificates, the cost, the basic qualifications, the skills you can gain, the relevance of the certs, the pros and cons of the certificates. And then at the end, I'm going to give you my opinion on whether they are still worth it or not in 2023. And I made a video about this last year when I saw all these videos blowing up on the internet talking about how you can get these free certifications and make $100,000 a year in one month. And these are just totally crazy claims like that. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there was a bunch of people saying it's a complete scam. And so what did I do? I went, I made a video that was actually objective. I talked about the pros, the cons, the good, the bad, and the ugly of the certificates. And that's exactly what I'm going to do now as well. But things have actually changed since then. And I'm going to go over exactly what has changed a little bit later in the video. But if you appreciate me keeping it real, giving you the pros and the cons of these certificates, go ahead, gently tap that like button, and let's jump into it. All right. So first of all, let's talk about the Google career certificates. These are hosted by the company Coursera. And Coursera is a global online learning platform that offers anyone anywhere access to online courses and degrees from leading universities and companies. They have over 113 million learners and more than 7,000 campuses, businesses and governments have come to Coursera to access world-class learning anytime, anywhere. Now, the reason that Google partnered with Coursera and started creating these courses on their platform is simply because there were certain careers where they could not find enough people who had those skill sets. And this shows a lack of adequate experience and training from the current traditional education system. Universities were not keeping up with the needs of the market and they're started to become a massive imbalance in supply and demand. And even when universities were training people for these different types of careers, they weren't teaching them the skills that they actually needed to know to be valuable in the workforce. So Google came out with their professional certificate program and they started training people for these highly in-demand skills. And when I made that video last year, it was still at a point where the jury really wasn't in and not a lot of people had taken the certificates at that time, but since then a ton of people had taken them and the positive feedback started pouring in. So here's some of the comments that people left on my channel. And honestly, it was even better than I thought it was going to be. So for instance, this person said, I obtained a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology and a master's in health informatics. With my master's degree, I could barely get a job to pay me over $50,000 a year. I completed the Google data analytics certificate in July 2021, added this to my resume. And in September of 2021, I got hired as the lead data governance specialist for S&P Global, which pays me six figures for the price and knowledge gained from this certificate. It's definitely worth it. Here's another person who talked about getting the IT certificate. They said took the IT certification finished it in a little over a month, ended up getting an easy IT job. The pay was okay. And I got to work for a Fortune 100 company, which was neat. So I'd say it was worth it. I came from a strong sales background and didn't know too much about the tech industry. But it was a nice experience and a career switch at the time ended up not being for me. But if that's your desired career path, then go for it much, much cheaper than my degree. This person said I'm currently on the fourth of five courses. I have over five years of IT support in my past roles and just wanted to add something to my resume to stand out more. And that's because they only had a high school diploma. And I have yet to finish this class and have already experienced an increase in calls from recruiters just by the fact that I'm enrolled in the course and have it on my resume. Also, when completing the course, it counts as 12 college credits. I definitely recommend this to anybody that already has IT experience and wants to further their career, especially during this current pandemic and job crisis. I believe this program got me my work from home job that I start this Monday. God bless and best of luck to everybody. This person says I finished the Google IT automation with Python certificate. After a few months, I got a job in tech support. And yes, it was entry level. Therefore, I think it was worth it. And these are just a few of the reviews that I got. Literally, there's hundreds and hundreds of reviews from people who took these certificates and had positive outcomes from them. So at the end of that video I did last year, I did have positive things to say about the certificates, but since then my estimation of them has gone up even more. And luckily Coursera does currently have a New Year's promo where you get $200 off Coursera Plus. And Coursera Plus is the cheapest way to get access to these certificates because with Coursera Plus you get access to over 7,000 different courses and the certificates are included. So this came on my radar just a few days ago and from the time I'm going to try to get this video out on because I'm trying to get this video done really quickly, I don't think this promotion is going to last any more than like 10 days or so. So I highly recommend if you're trying to do these certificates to use this promotion and I'll put that link down in the description as well as the pinned comment below. Keep in mind I am an affiliate of Coursera, so if you click on that link and you choose to buy it, I will get a small commission from that. But with that being said, at the time I made that video I wasn't even an affiliate of Coursera and I still had really good things to say about them. You can go back and watch the video if you don't believe me. And this is something that I've recommended many times without ever getting paid for it. All right, so let's go ahead and go over the basic qualifications that you need before starting these certificates. And this is one of the great things is you pretty much don't need any qualifications to start the certs. And the reason for that is because most of these certificates that I talk about are entry level, right? So this person, for instance, I got the Google cert before I started the A+, what they're referring to is CompTIA A+, which is a very common IT certification and got hired despite not having any other tech experience. When I finished the second part of A+, they didn't even care, right? So the CompTIA A+, certification, that's kind of like the industry gold standard. And apparently, according to this person, they didn't even care that they got that certification, they cared more about the Google cert. So that is the power of these certs. And I'm going to talk about in this video why they're so powerful, right? Why do they get people jobs left and right? You know, why do they have such good reviews online from reputable sites? So for instance, this website right here, reliablesoft.net, they say you can take this course entirely online at your own pace and time. The exams are easy to pass and hands-on labs will help you build practical skills and projects to add to your portfolio. Now, not all the certificates are entry level. For instance, there's some really good deep learning AI machine learning type certificates that are going to be more, you know, mid level or even higher level. But typically the ones that you hear about the most are the entry level ones. Next, let's talk about the time that it takes for you to get through these certs. Now, first of all, all of the certificates are 100% online and you can study them from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. And yes, this is one question I get all the time on this channel because some of the stuff that I talk about on this channel is only available to Americans and Canadians. Some of the other stuff I talk about this channel is only available to people in first world English speaking countries such as the United States, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Australia, etc. But Coursera is available to anybody anywhere. And that's kind of the beauty of these certifications is they give options to all people all over the world. Now, in terms of how long it takes to actually get through these certificates, a lot of the time they're going to say something like six to eight months. But in reality, many people actually report that they can get through them in something like one month, two months, sometimes even less than that. But in reality, they are self-paced, right? So if you're super busy, you got a full-time job, you got a family, obviously that's going to take you longer. If you're somebody who just graduated from high school and you have all the time in the world, you might be able to knock these out in a few weeks. And obviously, if you're somebody who already has knowledge in that field and you're just taking this to kind of bolster your resume, again, you might be able to knock it out really quickly as well. So for instance, this person took the UX design certificate from Google and they were able to finish all seven courses in 44 days. This person said they were 60% done with the certificate studying about one to two hours a day. And if you study more like four to eight hours a day, you could probably get it done in less than a month. This person took the Google data analytics certificate, they finished it in about three months. And they were able to land a $97,000 year job with a $10,000 sign-on bonus. So you do see a wide variety of answers and of course, some of these certs are likely going to be more difficult than the other ones. But generally speaking, if you are able to dedicate a lot of time to them, you can finish them in one to two months or maybe even less. Next, let's talk about the cost of the certs. And this is where it gets very interesting because Coursera is extremely affordable. It only costs about $39 a month. And that's at the time of recording this video. And I wouldn't be surprised if they raised the price because that's honestly a steal. And if you want to test the waters out before fully committing, there is a seven-day free trial. I'll put links to some of the most common Coursera certifications down in the description as well as the pinned comment below. I'll do Google certs, some of the most common ones like the IT UX UI design cert. And then I'll also include some other ones from good companies as well. So for instance, Meta makes certs, IBM makes certs. There's even a really good bookkeeping certification. So I'll include all of those down in the description below as well as the pinned comment. Now, Coursera also does have financial aid available for those who are not able to afford a subscription. So definitely check that out. So 60% of financial aid applications come from learners in countries considered to have developing economies, despite the fact that those learners represent only 38% of the total course enrollments. So the financial aid program is helping a lot of people out all over the world. So here is somebody who says go for the financial aid. It's super easy and they accept you instantly. I don't know if that's actually true or not. That is a trust me bro sort of thing. So the obvious comparison here is like, let's say it takes you three months to get it done, right? $39 a month or three months. That's around $100 or so. You can compare that to the cost of a college degree in the United States of America, which is about $80,000 on average. So that's kind of the obvious comparison. And you know, going back to time as well, college degree is probably going to take like four to five years of your life. In fact, it's 5.1 years on average in the United States of America. So a certificate that might take you three months and cost you around $100 versus a college degree that will take you five years and cost you $80,000. So yeah, from a time and a cost standpoint, these certs are amazing. And also from a risk standpoint, right? You're not risking all that much like you would be if you went to college. College is a massive risk. And if you take one of these certificates, you might realize halfway through that you don't like it. Maybe you take the data analytics cert and you realize you really don't like data analytics. Well, guess what? You spent like 50 bucks and you spent like a month and a half of your time and you probably learned a lot about yourself along the way. Whereas in college, you might realize like year three that you don't like what you're doing and you're already like $60,000 in debt. So you're really not risking all that much time or money with these certificates, which is another big positive. Next, let's talk about the skills that you can gain. Now, one of the reasons I'm a big fan of Coursera as well as the Google professional certificate specifically is because they teach you skills that are actually needed in the job market. One thing that college does that's absolutely ridiculous is like 80% of the stuff you learn in college is probably going to have either absolutely nothing to do with the career you want to go into or if it does have something to do with it, it's likely going to be outdated. So colleges will make you learn some coding language that hasn't been used in 10 years. They'll make you learn digital marketing strategies that worked five years ago but they don't work now. With these certificates, they are up to date, right? These are the skills that companies want people to have right now. Here's the skills you might learn if you take the Google project management cert, the IBM data analyst cert, the Google IT support cert, the Google data analytics cert, and here is a review that they put on there where this person says the Google IT support professional certificate helped me get a system admin position because the interviewer was specifically looking for someone who understood network and active directory. So this is what I have noticed over and over again, helping people get jobs in as little as 10 days is when you learn what companies are actively looking for, what skills companies actually need people to have, and then you teach people those exact skills and you show them how they can showcase those skills on their resume or portfolio quickly and easily. That is like, it's like a chemical reaction, right? It's just the companies just, they'll almost hire you on the spot. So if you know the exact skills that the companies want and then you know exactly how you can demonstrate those skills on your resume via a portfolio that is very easy for them to access and look at, you are going to notice that you get like 10 times more interviews and you're going to be like five times more likely to get a job offer once you're done with the interviews. And people always wonder how, you know, I interview these people on my channel that are getting jobs in like 10 days, 14 days, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. This is how because you learn the exact skills that companies are looking for, nothing else. You don't learn all this eclectic BS that universities try to teach you and then you put those skills on your resume in the form of a portfolio that is very easy for people to look at. It's really not rocket science and that's how you stand out from the 99% of other people that are going the traditional routes and doing things the hard way. All right, so next let's talk about the post certification support. Okay, so this is basically where they have you do these projects and they have you create portfolios, right? So it's one thing to just learn these skills. It's a whole other thing to apply the skills and that's why it's so important to do projects that you can put on your portfolio. And that's exactly what all of these certs do. So they have hands on projects and that kind of goes back to what I said earlier about being able to demonstrate that you have the skills. And then on top of that, this is probably one of the most underrated parts of getting these Google certs and this is the part that I overlooked when I went over the certs a year ago. You get a shareable certificate that you can put on your LinkedIn. And here's the crazy thing, you don't even have to be done with the Coursera cert before you can say that you're taking it on your LinkedIn. So I can't tell you how many comments I got from people where recruiters started reaching out to them because they put these Coursera and Google certs on their LinkedIn. And in many cases, they weren't even done with the certificate. Recruiters literally use these certs. They will search through LinkedIn of people who are either taking the cert or have already finished it and they have the certificate. And they will reach out to those people and headhunt them for jobs. And this is why this is basically like a cheat code right now, right? This is the thing that I overlooked that didn't even look into this when I did the review a year ago. And I got a ton of comments from people who said recruiters were reaching out to them. And then the third thing is in many cases, you will get access to private job boards. So for instance, with the Google certs, you get access to private job boards where a bunch of different big companies have agreed to use those job boards to hire people. And it makes sense because these other companies have the same problem that Google originally had in that they cannot find people who have these skills. So that is another thing that gives you an edge. Next, let's talk about the relevance of the certificates as well as the ratings. So you can actually look at the ratings on all these different certificates and the Google certs have some of the best ratings. So for instance, the Google IT automation with Python professional certificate has a 4.8 star rating with 29,000 people who ranked it. The Google IT support professional certificate has a 4.8 out of 5 with 150,000 ratings. The Google project management professional certificate has a 4.8 out of 5 with 69,000 ratings. The instructors in many cases are world class because a lot of the times these certificates, the instructors will be people who actually just got jobs at these companies, right? So these are the people who in many cases are going to be helping and making the hiring decisions and they know the skills that the company needs. And that's why about 75% of Google certificate grads report career improvement. Now here are some testimonials and reviews from Reddit. And if you know anything about Reddit, they tend to be extremely critical of businesses, certificates, online courses, these sorts of things. They're honestly like really good online courses out there that Reddit is super critical of it because it's just like not perfect. But Reddit tends to just say really good things about the Coursera certs and you can check that out on your own or you can just look at some of these, I'll put them up on the screen. Now one thing I do want to reiterate, I talked about this in the video I made a year ago, is this is not a replacement for a degree. It's ridiculous to say that it's a replacement for a degree. That's like saying an apple is a replacement for an orange or a hammer is a replacement for a wrench, right? They are different things. These things are all tools. If you need to hammer in a nail, you should use a hammer and if you need to drive in a screw, you should use a screwdriver. It is going to depend entirely on your situation which one is best for you. So to say this is better than that is ridiculous because it's an apples to oranges comparison. But with that being said, one thing I will say about the Coursera certificates and it's not just the Google certs. There's a lot of other really good ones. For instance, you know, you've got the IBM certs. You've got the meta certifications. You've also got one from Intuit. It's an academy bookkeeping cert which is great. Bookkeeping is a great career you can get into relatively easily. Is you get to check out a bunch of these in-demand careers without investing a bunch of your time and money into them and that's why it's a really good idea just to sign up for Coursera Plus because you can check out a bunch of different ones and you're going to get a really good idea of what career is going to be good for you. And typically a lot of the careers you're going to see on here are ones that are highly in demand, right? So it's not one of those things where you're going to have to go to school for like 12 years just to get an entry level position like you would for like a psychology career for instance, right? So it's not one of these things where you're going to have to go to school for like 10 to 12 years just to have a shot at getting an entry level position like a sociology degree. If you learn these skills, you are very likely going to get a good job. But the question is, are you going to enjoy that job? And that's one of the great things about these certificates is it's almost like a sample platter, right? You go to a new restaurant, you order their sample platter, you get to check out a bunch of different dishes, you really like one of them, and then you order the main course. You order the entire dish after that. And that's kind of like what Coursera is. You basically get to check out a bunch of different careers and if you really like one of them, you can deep dive on that one. So overall, my summary, the Google career certificate is going to give them a massive thumbs up. Coursera in general, all the other ones they offer as well, going to give them a huge thumbs up too. Highly recommend you check out Coursera Plus as well because it is $200 off right now. That's probably only going to last maybe 10 days to two weeks after this video is posted. I'm going to try to get this posted in the next two or three days. But yeah, right now this is basically a cheat code. I don't know how much longer this is going to last, but I am getting insanely good reviews from everybody that I recommend this to. I'm getting insanely good reviews from the YouTube comments section of other people that have tried this. And by the way, if you have tried these certificates, please leave your comments down below. I want to hear whether you had a good experience or not. And maybe two or three years from now, the market matures and the certificates aren't as good anymore. In that case, I will update this and I'll talk about it again. But right now, this is basically a cheat code. And I definitely recommend you check out this video right here where I talk about the best Google certificates.