Experience vs. Certification The 2024 Winner

The experience vs certification competition has been a big deal for many years, and everyone is trying to find the right answer, since we are all applying for jobs and trying to find our dream job.

As we all see job opportunities with responsibilities, qualifications, and experience requirements, and wonder which is the more important in the ultimate experience vs certification competition!

Many companies share these opening announcements with details highlighting the required experiences and certifications to reach the best possible employees, but could they miss the right employee just because of a lack of certification or experience?

We know experience vs certification is taking a lot of your thinking; thus, our professionals are going to give you the information you are missing about this, with benefits, examples, and the real answer about the experience vs certification dilemma.  

Experience vs. Certification: Which Is More Important?

We know this is taking a lot of your mind, and you are right! As both experience and certification are important to work effectively and succeed; thus, we cannot say that one of them is more important than the other.

Once an HR manager answers this question with the next metaphor: think of experience and certification as your heart and lung, can you live without one of them!? And that is our answer for you about this; however, this is not quite the reality we are living in.

Actually, the real answer relies on the career you seek, not on a general fact or rule, as your career may need certifications or may need experiences; thus, know where you are going to be able to find a good job offer and have a successful job hunting process.

Do Employers Prefer Experience or Education?

In fact, this question is the reason why you are looking for the experience vs certification winner, as to be hired you need to have what the employers and HR managers are looking for, and now we are going to help you to find out the right answer.

Now, if you are doing a job search and want to apply for a position, to know if this company is seeking a work experience certificate, professional experience, or both, you can totally rely on the announcement itself.

For example, if the announcement has a lot of details and specifications on the experience part then they are interested in your experiences more than certifications; however, this could go the other way around.

Moreover, you can run an online search about the company itself and find out what is the company’s workplace culture, what is the quality of the working employees, and find out if this company focus on certification or experience.

And from the above, you now know that there is no general rule that guides the experience vs certification situation; especially, in today’s business world as employers are looking to find the best employees that add up to their company not looking for documents and words.

Although, most people will say that experience is more important now, and that is partially true, but not the whole truth, as even if you have the greatest qualifications, most companies now run an experimental test to ensure that the listed certifications and experiences are real and meet their requirements.

Careers That Require a Certification:

Despite what the employer requires there are some careers in which you will need an official certification, whether we are talking about a college certificate or a training one, to be able to practice it and have a job:

• Doctors and Medical workers.
• Financial managers and accountants.
• Architects and industrial engineers.
• Behavior disorder, and mental health counselors.
• Construction managers.
• HR.
• Web developer and SEOs.

Careers That Require Experience:

And now especially in the last few years, many recent careers do not put certification conditions in its requirement, as these careers need experience, creativity, talent, and handiness more than certification:

• Content writer.
• Social media specialist.
• Painter.
• Graphic designer.
• Flight attendant.
• Massage Therapist.
• Data entry specialist.

Examples of Companies’ Hiring Preferences:

As we said, the concept of certification vs experience is controversial, and these worldwide companies will prove this to you.

Companies That Require Employees to Have a Certification:

To be clearer, now we are going to talk about companies that require a certification despite the general positions’ guidelines:

• Microsoft.
• RealPage Inc.
• Hospitals in general.
• Al-Futtaim.
• KEO International Consultants.

Companies That Do Not Require Employees to Have a Certification:

As we can say that many companies now are eliminating the college degree certification, not the certificates that matter for the position; however, the leading corporates in this area are:

• Google.
• Apple.
• Starbucks.
• IBM.
• Hilton.

On the other hand, keep in mind that some careers will require both certification and experience in order to work, and succeed such as engineering, pharmaceutical work, medicine, and law; moreover, many of these careers have mandatory training periods before being able to actually practice.

Benefits of Having Professional Experience:

Being in the business world, even for one year, will give you a great perspective on the importance of real-life experience, even if you had different theoretical exercises:

• Gain amazing knowledge.
• Develop your soft and hard skills, as your leadership personality.
• Give yourself a stronger growing possibility.
• Empower your personality on the work level and personal level as well.
• Be able to solve problems faster, and analyze different situations better.
• You will explore your industry closely.
• Grow your professional network, and your CV as well.

Benefits of Having Certifications:

Having a certification, especially if from a strong university or institution will open doors for you, as you will:

• Catch the recruiter’s eyes easier.
• Have strong scientific knowledge.
• Boost your earning power, and the expected salary rate.
• Empower your public image, and reputation.
• Establish strong credibility.
• Collect college experience and knowledge.
• Prove your ability to commit and achieve things.

The Experience vs Certification Reality:

In the past couple of years, many rumors highlighted the idea of no certification is required to find a great job, especially because many big companies are not requiring employees to have a certification.

However, we can partially say that this is true, and companies are skipping on the degree thing when they find a perfect employee, but that does not mean that having a certification will not boost your chances to get hired, on the contrary, your odds will be stronger.

Thus, to give you the answer, we must say that employers right now are searching for superheroes who are creative, capable to make changes, and work effectively in different situations, not for regular employees with certifications and experiences.

Therefore, you must work to empower yourself on all the required levels that are related to your career to find the opportunity you wish for.

The Bottom line,

There is for sure an experience vs certification competition, but deciding who is the winner totally relies on the industry you are working in, and the company you are applying for; however, keep in mind that we are here and ready to help you find your dream job.