Google Career Certificates: 6 Months Professional Courses Is Set to Replace College Degrees
Google will consider these certificates equivalent to four-year degrees in related job roles in their hiring process.
Google has recently announced that it will add three new certificate courses in high-demand fields to help people find jobs without having to complete a full-time college degree. The courses are entirely developed by Google and have said that the company will accept the certificates during the hiring process.
Here is the list of courses that will be launched through Coursera:
- Data Analyst
- Project Manager
- UX Designer
Already a few of the top companies have opened up their recruitment process to people who do not have a formal college degree. Hence, the certificate holders will have multiple companies to apply for. Google also announced that it would provide resources to facilitate job search and interview preparation for the candidates who complete the courses.
How to Access the Google Certificate Course?
The new courses will be launched soon in Coursera. Coursera already has two similar courses offered by Google.
The three new courses that are going to be added by Google needs absolutely no previous job or educational experience.
What Is the Cost and Duration of the Google Certificate Courses?
According to Google, each of these courses will be charged at 49 USD per month.
Google even announced that it would provide grants and 100,000 need-based scholarships.
As per Google, it might take somewhere about six months to complete each course.
The course duration is entirely flexible. It will be on the students to decide how long it will take for them to complete. People can spend a lot of hours in a day and complete the course in less than six months. The course completion might take more than six months period for the people who want to take it slow.
What Is Salary Expectation From a Job Landed Using These Certificates?
As per Google, one can expect to have the following median annual wage for the courses based on the market standard for the respective skillset —
Data Analyst — USD 66,000
Project Manager — USD 93,000
UX Designer — USD 75,000
Are Google Certificate Courses Useful?
The big question that is on everyone’s mind is how useful will be these courses offered by Google. Will they add any value in the current job market scenario?
Similar programs already exist in various fields. There are diploma courses which are of short duration. Vocational education also serves a similar purpose of acquiring a job through a targetted skill set. Hence, what is the differentiator between what we already have in the current education format and these new Google Career Certificates?
The difference, in this case, is that these courses are designed and backed by Google. That itself is going to add a lot of weight to the certificates. Companies will be more willing to consider the resume of candidates who have completed Google Career Certificates.
Not only new hires, but the companies can also use these programs to enhance the skillset of existing employees in relevant fields.
This is going to add significant value to the company and its employees. Companies will gain from having a higher-skilled talent pool, and the employees will benefit by learning the latest skills from a course certified by Google. It will be a win-win situation.
On the other hand, Google Career Certificates may not be able to replace fulltime college education completely. There are so many fields of education. Not every area can be replaced with a few months of online courses.
The four years of a college education has its own advantage. It is not just about getting a job in one of the technology companies. The graduation program helps students gain a broader knowledge and also helps them learn critical thinking. Agree — the advantage of acquired knowledge through a full-time college degree might not be very obvious in the day to day job, but I feel they do help.
Given the current education scenario where the cost of a full-time college degree is skyrocketing and it is becoming more and more out of reach of common people — a quick self-paced six months course with a cost of 49 USD per month seems to be a good alternative.
Take Away
I am sure Google Career Certificate Courses are going to add value to both employers and the job aspirants.
We have some time until the first batch of students complete the courses and start searching for a job. In a year from now, there will be much better information on how relevant these certificates are and also how effectively it is going to help candidates to land a job in the respective fields.
Ultimately, the result matters.
If the courses are going to help a lot of people get jobs — who cannot complete college degrees for various reasons — then it is going to make a huge difference. Depending on the success rate, the courses might even be disruptive to the current format of education.