SAS Certification Tips: Trends, Career Advice and Getting Started

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hello there welcome to an exciting panel discussion today on sas certification tips i'm your host anna brown and i can't wait to talk with this panel of experts on certification tips trends you're going to get some advice on ways to get started on a path to certification and get an idea of what areas of certification are pretty popular out there so we have lots to get into i cannot wait for these uh these smart and talented people to share what they know with you um speaking of those smart and talented people i am joined by matt chicatano sask global certification manager uh craig bushman hi craig with person view he's vp of marketing at person view and gita corcellius who is a senior data analyst um and she has lots to share with you about her experience getting certified and currently she's at mount sinai everyone thank you so much for joining um let's take a few minutes to get some more background on each of you matt why don't you um why don't you kick us off sure and i thank you for the the introduction i'll try to live up to it here um my name is matthiatano and i manage the certification program here at sas and i've been in certification related roles for a little over 15 years now five here at sas uh five formerly at teradata was my most recent engagement and prior to that in in account management at exam delivery provider um as well so i've been doing this for a while and i just want to say i'm excited to be here uh welcome to everybody for this part of uh your experience with programmer week here at sas and also just a quick thanks to my co-panelists uh craig and gita i'm excited craig thank you for taking the time and thank you for the business relationship between pearson and sas we really appreciate that strategic partnership and gita i really look forward to hearing your personal experiences because that really helps us formulate what the future of our certification program is going to look like based on you know a lot of the feedback we get from our audience so thanks for having me and i'm pretty excited excellent all right how about you craig well thanks for having me anna my name is craig bush and i'm the vice president of marketing for the it pro business at pearson vue i've spent 11 years here at pearson vue and prior to that 23 years in the it software market and you know we've made a business out of delivering the fourth most stressful thing in a person's life behind death of a loved one divorce and and moving to a new house but we're trying to make that a smooth and positive experience for those who who seek certification and we'll talk more about that today wonderful gita good morning everyone thank you for having me i'm really excited to be part of this panel discussion um so a little bit about myself i have earned a dual degree master's program offered through rutgers university where i completed a master's in public health with specialization epidemiology and a master's in biomedical science i also have 10 years of experience in the public health industry serving in both the public and private sectors and i'm currently as anna mentioned working as a senior data analyst within mount sinai's world trade center health program data center so thank you wow we're so glad to have you uh and before we get going let me orient the viewers a bit there is a live q a chat on this youtube panel so feel free to chime in provide your feedback ask your questions we do have some moderators available to address those and throughout the panel today we'll be rolling out some some statistics and some concepts and there'll be some links to related resources in that live q a and also below the youtube video in perpetuity so let's get going with our first topic of the day which is trends general trends let's set some context here what are we seeing um in terms of certification trends craig that's a really good question you know in such a market of uncertainty with cobit and its impact on businesses worldwide it's important to understand what trends are impacting those businesses and pearson vue is the largest assessment business in the world and we deliver well over 16 million exams annually through a network of 17 000 testing centers and that's in a footprint of over 180 countries when you look at that volume that equates to about an exam delivered every 1.7 seconds somewhere in the world so with that kind of footprint we get a pretty good perspective on the trends and macro trends that are happening in the certification industry and matt i know that you you folks also deliver quite a few exams through our network as well that's right yeah we i think just looking back we're over 165 000 actual certified individuals right so you can think with uh pass rates not being 100 obviously that's uh more than that in exams delivered uh through the pearson platform and i i can't take credit for all of that right i think in 1999 that's the inception of the program i was uh i was graduating high school i think so it's over the period of that period of time um we deliver a lot of certified individuals and that is roughly what 22 years and i'd say 20 of those 22 we saw growth in our certification program year over year which is uh pretty exciting for us well and that's not surprising and you know for us looking at the data is important to i observe trends but hearing from those who go through that certification process is perhaps even more important and so to that end every other year we conduct a value of certification survey to candidates who've gone through the certification process this past summer we just produced our biannual value of certification survey that's available on our website and we had almost 30 000 candidates participate in responding how their experience was what motivated them and sas participated in that global survey and and some of the interesting things that we saw that came out of that data was that the average survey respondent already holds seven certifications so these are groups of people that have already understood the value that certification brings whether in in college or professional success in fact the demand for it certification really is growing and we saw in 2020 a 16 increase in exam deliveries over 20 over 2019 which really is remarkable considering the covet 19 disruption of those 86 of those respondents indicated that they plan to pursue additional certifications so again they're recognizing the value it's bringing to them additionally 73 percent certified out of a desired upskill and you know there really is a tangible roi on certification of our respondents 7 out of 10 indicated that they met their goals for certification and would recommend getting certified if they're seeking a career in i.t you know as we dove a little bit deeper into what motivates people to pursue it certifications as mentioned 73 percent indicated that it was for getting the exact the desired skills you see having spent a lot of time in my career in the soccer world you know the software continues to update those skills continue to need to be upskilled as well to keep pace with new releases and new demands in in business we saw that 56 percent desired to get certified to enhance their professional profiles and 56 respondents saw that saw that certification was a vehicle for advancement and promotion so we asked respondents you know of your desire to upskill or or or get a certification what was one of the key factors of your motivation or the result and one of those that really stood out to us was that 36 percent indicated that they achieved a new job as a result of their certification 23 percent were within the same industry they were in and that 21 saw a job promotion so what when the rubber really hits the road it's what does it do to impact salaries what is it what more can it bring to money in your pocket and we saw that 28 of candidates that took certification indicated that they got a pay raise 28 percent and and i know that that equates also to the sas uh certificate holders as well matt right yeah that's right so i you know looking across and sharing the data while we were preparing for this craig and just reviewing i i wait with uh baited breath for that report to come out every two years because we use so much of it and i think we're gonna share the link to that a little bit later for everybody that might be interested in hurting out some of the statistics but sas so pearson this year also shared the individual sas statistics with us so i think we had over 250 folks that that participated in that survey and i couldn't find a a specific statistic where we were that far off of what the entire landscape of certification is seeing so i think you said somewhere around 28 had seen pay raises or more money in their pocket right around 21 of the sas respondents as well so we're pretty close there and i think they you know they got those raises relatively quickly right um yeah i'll say this we might have been a little bit lower in percentage of folks that got a raise but they got it faster than the majority of the group as well because i think we compared it to uh to what you were presenting in the value of certification survey and it was 55 percent got it within three months at sas it was 62 percent got a raise within three months and uh 86 within six months so i think that you know the the turnaround or the roi for the folks that are on the fence um can be pretty quick for these certifications yeah you're right matt and as you indicated of our respondents 55 indicated that they got a salary increase within three months and yours was 62 percent and globally yeah globally 77 were rewarded within six months of certification and sas specific certificate holders were 86 and so it just demonstrates the value that sas certification holds um globally and and it's it's a high valued certification sure you know i would just add i think employers uh are are realizing that as well right because we're seeing a huge push in upskilling in this environment after covid you know and those of us lucky enough right to still have jobs or to have jobs that lended themselves to remote work um we've had the opportunity to to see these things happen from from earning these certifications and um you know i just think that that's fantastic i think if i read the stats right from um your survey is that folks were actually 13 so there was this oh there's this old adage right what if we train them what if we certify them and then they leave and it's always been a fair um concern for employers but what we've actually seen i believe is they're 13 less likely to leave if the employer paid for that training or certification so i think we can you know put to rest some of those concerns that employers have seen as well so i think there's a lot of momentum in certification not just at the individual level but at the employer level as well in investing in in those certifications you're absolutely right and you know another trend that we've seen this past year is where the majority well where the highest growth is and 28 of all it certifications earned in 2020 through our our ecosystem were in cloud computing which was 164 growth from the prior year and i don't think that's a real surprise to anybody that you know when we're moving into remote working environments and a lot of people having to push things into the cloud that makes sense but other high growth areas also include devops and enterprise architecture and of course business skills are always a high a high growth area matt what about in the sas ecosystem what are you seeing sure it fits there um with what you're reporting as well and you know we've seen i don't say a huge shift because you know historically um sas programming has been our highest level of certification um we have two two various levels of an advanced level certified uh certification that we offer um but there's been more interest in our via products so moving away from from kind of the traditional sas to our cloud native in-memory analytics engine which is via sas via if you're not familiar with that we've seen a lot more uh folks moving to certifications that have been built around the via platform so that's things like ai and machine learning that's via programming so we now have via programming offerings as well which are brand new i'd say within the last i think 90 days or so we released those certifications um and then one that i'm really excited about and i've just been hearing feedback from the market that we're making the right decision here is a move to a model op certification so kind of in line with the devops which you mentioned um that's not exactly where sas has our expertise but uh in model ops it makes sense so when you want to take a model a data model that you build out and then operationalize it there needs to be communication between the folks that are building and refining those models and then the the folks that are putting those models into production and kind of working towards that democratization of data right putting that that data and those models in the hands of the people that make to then need to make the decisions based on what the data is telling them so we're really excited about that and that one that is not out yet but that is slated to be out here towards the end of the year so hopefully we're we're hitting that mark and uh i'm bullish we may even be a little bit ahead of that so stay tuned for that that's great and i'll just mention last two last trends that we're also seeing one is an interest in security certifications highest primarily in the greater china region and also throughout north america and another one that uh we're seeing a trend of more certificate holders having a desire to take or identify curriculum that aligns to the exam's objectives practice tests to help prepare them for the exam and then of course the exam itself we call that learn practice certify so curriculum practice test and the certification exam which has proven be an effective model of success so those are some of the trends that we're seeing excellent learn practice certify that's a logical flow there gita tell me what is your reaction to these trends do you find any of them surprising or they're are they pretty much in line with your experience yeah um so i think that they are not any surprising trends that i didn't align with in my own personal development so i pursued sas certifications for some of the main reasons that craig had mentioned for professional development and also to increase my techno competency i think that the statistics that both matt and craig mentioned illuminate our perspective about the continued interest in certifications among sas users and also the i.t community so i i feel like it's a really good path to pursue sas certifications and i'm an advocate to recommend it for anybody what about you matt any any surprising trends there i i you know not so much a surprise but something that was refreshing to me because um you know it's not it's not all about the money is what we picked up from from the data as well so so we did highlight a few of the the aspects uh around how quickly might you get a raise what might that raise be you know how many people in the the the audience as a whole are looking to get a raise but um there were two uh specific outcomes that folks desire that were ahead of of a raise a salary increase or a wage increase and those were desire to obtain skills knowledge or competency or desire to enhance my professional profile so i think people are getting the message too you know there's more intangible benefits to this which long term may result in in those wage increases or the potential for a better job or a new job if you're coming into this fresh or you might have the background but this you know you want to shift industries that type of thing so that wasn't i can't say i was surprised but i it was definitely refreshing to see that that uh that was true sure sure there's a longer game at hand uh there so all right so we talked about some areas that were increasing in popularity to get certified for like cloud computing devops craig what are some others um craig and and matt and then and then we'll go back to you gita yeah well as as you mentioned cloud computing is very very popular with aws and azure cyber security um very high um demand and cyber security also digital literacy as we've seen what covett has done across the world there is a high demand for remote working remote learning which is putting more and more demand on ensuring that that workforce and those students and teachers have the digital skills necessary to be effective in that remote learning and remote working experience so those are some additional topics that we see are very popular these days yeah and i would just reiterate i think what i've already mentioned but just the via certifications right um being certifications that are also open to open source right um so so via accepts r python lula java etc so we've been able to build some certifications that aren't just focused on on sas specifically and the ai and machine learning and then the the data scientist certification which um i think agita you've been been working maybe on some of the components of that certification and i'm curious to to hear a little bit about your experience there yeah so um i'm currently certified in the base level programming certification i completed that in 2016. i did the advanced level certification in 2017 and i'm also certified in public health which is the cph credential and important for the industry that i'm working in and i'm also currently as matt mentioned pursuing the data curation professional certification offered through sas's academy for data science and so one of the main reasons actually that i got interested in obtaining that particular certification for data science was after attending sas global forum in 2019 so during the general session dr melissa strong she presented her work and i just found it very inspirational and quite stimulating so um she actually is using sas's machine learning techniques and integrating that to improve health outcomes and so i find that like really interesting and i wanted to learn more about data science and i think that when you see how sas is being able to use this kind of software and to solve real world challenges you know in a real world setting it takes on a whole new meaning for data science and data analytics so i think it's really really really um important that is so wonderful gita that um dr strong inspired you and her company is indie omix or ndo mix um i believe and there's a there's a full story on that if you're interested on that really um impactful work and that's awesome that now you're putting those data science machine learning skills in action um to improve health outcomes um based on that experience at sas global forum so we love hearing that okay um so we've talked about some trends and certification what levels of certification are people getting are they super advanced are they beginner are they somewhere in the middle what are you seeing there craig well as we as i mentioned at the beginning we we deliver millions over 16 million exams a year and of that we have a split of roughly 60 our professional certifications and 40 percent are in academia you know it we believe it's very important to expose students early on about job roles and pathways that will help them craft a plan to achieve their career goals through certifications and so we you know i think it's important and professionals as i mentioned before seven certifications were the average that people who responded to our survey already held and so they are recognizing the value of having that certification pathway throughout their career and especially in it where there is so much change occurring every year you recognize the importance of keeping up with the industry and the importance of of providing that value to your employer by proving your skills through a company that's industry recognized like sas and matt what about you i think you've probably seen some trends between elementary or uh professional exams sure sure and then uh interestingly enough and i think we may be a little unique in the it market um we're kind of the flip uh of what craig mentioned there that i think 60 or more professional focused and then 40 would be your kind of academic audience across the certifications um sas has always had a strong foothold in academia we've been very um fortunate to to basically be born of a collaboration with nc state years and years ago but we've always kind of held tight to teaching and learning and building the pipeline for our customers longer term through uh developing that at early stages um when folks are still in university so we're about 60 percent of academia and i think that's had a bit of an impact or we're kind of shifted our volume so we did struggle a little with covet in terms of volume of certifications but it's it's starting to to come back and i think the disruption to the standard academic schedule really was a a challenge for us to try to um you know focus with those folks who sometimes were sent home to other countries right and then couldn't come back for uh university for a semester or two or are still unfortunately not able to get back and um all of that so that's a little bit uniqueness to the sas program but then as far as kind of like levels we we have certifications that fall at our specialist level which is a little bit of the kind of i don't say the lower level but the three to six months uh experience level um and then we have our more advanced certifications our professional certifications which are you know over a year of experience right experience can be um a loose term right that can be sometimes just training or or work through your university programs i can be on the job training it could be internship related type things but we we kind of find an even split our bread and butter has historically been that specialist level exam um or that what was referred to as base programming prior to moving that to a performance-based test a few years ago but then we did in 2019 add a associate level certification in programming so we now have three levels in programming and we do have a slide out there i think we'll we're not a slide but a link from sas.com certification i think we'll share that that overall url with you guys in a little bit later but there's a comparison chart that we have out there under the programming certifications that helps direct an individual to what makes sense for me because our certification journeys are different we have a lot of folks who are graduating from a university program and they may not go on to be a daily programmer or user of sas but they still want to show that they have that fundamental knowledge should they go on to work in a position that that it makes sense to to understand things at that level and also maybe even somebody at the management level who's not going to be hands-on programming but they need to understand what the programmers that work for them are doing right so we have so we actually saw some of that volume at the specialist level kind of trickle out into the fundamental level so it kind of was a little bit of a split so now we have um need to know need to understand and then we have two performance based exams which are show me show me how you program show me the core of of of what you can do kind of at that base level and then we have our advanced folks who can go on and use those advanced features and functions of sas um moving forward so we're kind of an even split but i'd say that we kind of fall in the fundamental and then specialist level probably about 80 20 rule and then about 20 percent go on to to dig into the advanced topics and then some of our other certifications you know have started to kind of build on each other so we spoke a little bit about the data scientist which has various pieces of data curation and some other things incorporated in it and we have our ai and machine learning professional right and that incorporates aspects of data curation data cleansing all of those those fun things right and then um using forecasting and optimization or um computer vision and natural language processing um and combining all of that to really be this ai and machine learning professional which is a growing leaps and bounds out there in the market these days in terms of um skills require job requisitions requiring those those ai machine learning skills yeah i bet so gita when did you complete your certifications at what point in your career so i actually completed the two um certifications in sas that i mentioned the base programming and the advanced level programming certifications after graduating from my master's program um so i in retrospect when i think about it i feel like i should have maybe done the certifications as i was in my program so i would have been a stronger candidate when i was applying for positions as a recent graduate and i gave this advice actually in another panel discussion to current public health students because i feel like it would just help their profile but nonetheless you can always get fast certified at any point in your career and i'm a perfect example of it um so that's that's wonderful so what um what might be some barriers for students getting certified while they're in college just too much to do there are too many courses they don't have enough time like what um you know what did you run up against or maybe some of your your colleagues yeah i think that it's definitely you're juggling a lot of coursework so i mean that's definitely you've got to be having good time management skills in order to incorporate that along with all the curriculum that you're currently taking which sometimes can be very rigorous especially if you're in a graduate level program um and then as another um when i was doing a mentoring session as another recent graduate of the same university that i went to she mentioned a barrier uh as cost so um i mean now it's kind of like after the fact for her but if she had known before maybe she could have gotten like an academic discount because i know sas offers that um and it might have been a little bit easier for her to enroll in the course while she was in school um versus now she's gonna have her waiting maybe you know some time before she gets a position while she's applying for different jobs and then once she gets into the company trying to allow them to maybe pay for a training course i was fortunate actually that even though i didn't get to do the certification while i was in school i was able to get my um company to pay for the two certification courses that i had taken and i know there's sometimes like a myth that you know you're going to leave the company but i actually stayed with that company for four and a half years because i was very appreciative of the supportive environment and the encouragement that they gave me in my professional pursuits and um after that i was able to use the advanced level skills that i had acquired especially through the advanced level programming certification and become versatile across different software platforms to understand microsoft sql and i just like love prop sql and using that in the sas environment i think it's really cool and because i had that knowledge i was able to be a backup to an application engineer and do weekly imports when she wasn't in the office in order to import the data into an sql server database and i'm not sure if i would have had all of that knowledge and that background you know if i had didn't have the the concepts that were solidified through the sas certification so i think that it really helped my career and you know maybe not all um the companies will not be supportive you know so like i think you should definitely you know ask your supervisor take a chance like i did because you never know it might work out yeah yeah absolutely okay so i'm hearing cos as maybe a barrier um matt do you do you want to speak to that a bit on sure sure yeah and i think the first thing is is opm right now other people's money right as gita kind of alluded to there and i didn't i did mention earlier um check with your supervisor if you are early career if you are mid-career they are investing in folks now um and and you know it doesn't matter whether you are or aren't going to leave someday but what we're finding is that it's not necessarily because i learned this certification now i'm going to go or you're going to have to pay me more it's not not necessarily the case we also do some other things here at sas to assist let's if we talk about the academic audience earlier because i think if it's anything like i was in in school you know i was eating um kraft macaroni and cheese three times a day or whatever so um you didn't have a lot of extra money to throw around so that's a particular audience that if you're not enrolled in a particular program um where you're going to get a certification exam as a portion of that for free or that type of thing then um you may need to come up with some of that out of pocket so and i think we're going to share a list of a lot of these urls so you have to remember this right off the top of your head we'll go back and put them in the description of the youtube video and everywhere else or even if you google sas for academics you're going to come across all of this stuff so we offer for academics um depending on whether you're the school that you go to is tied into um sas and you know offers curriculum through the organization so there's some some caveats to this but we offer free software for practicing right for students free e-learning courses for students and then we have at the very least and maybe even more a 50 discount for all certification candidates that are part of a four-year university program or an accredited university i should say so um there you go that that's that's half off the exam you know right off the bat um through the end of this year for those of you that are what do we have 90 days a little bit more here left in the year um if those of you that that may be on the cusp or about ready or or feel as though um or we've convinced you maybe today that the certification is right for you we're offering a 55 discount globally uh i believe with the exception of india and china i should say that um but uh pretty the rest of the the world can take advantage of that 55 percent off um you can just google sas certification discount you'll come up with it we're going to share some of those urls at the end so that we do offer these things from time to time and typically in the fall kind of the folks are going back to school we like to offer a promotion to get them back into the flow of things we also offer for some of our more popular certifications uh different bundles that that you can purchase where you're actually getting some of the training at a discounted cost as well as um the exam voucher uh to take the examination thrown in uh essentially for free at the end there so that's i think fifty percent off uh for programming one and programming two which are the components the underlying training courses that would roll into our uh certification or our programming certifications um and i i believe that's 50 off and then the voucher we included as well as a certification prep guide and a practice exam as well to go so to go back to craig's um prescription for uh you know training and then practicing and then certifying all of that is within these bundles so you can keep a lookout for those bundles that's one way to get it a little bit cheaper and currently um started with covid we offered freeze learning subscription here at sas for a period of time and we still have that as a 30-day free trial so depending on how much additional training you need to do you could potentially get that learning subscription for for free take your training and then ultimately go take your certification exam or you know i hope you would find the value in that that subscription for an ongoing period of time thereafter so those are some of the options i think i covered pretty much everything where we offer a you know a discount to try to give access to our certifications to folks that otherwise might have challenges to do that that's wonderful thank you for for outlining those um i'm sure a lot of the viewers will be super interested in taking advantage of those those discounts so that they can get certified so that their employers will find them equality candidates so let me switch to some career advice here all right there are two angles here with employers um finding importance in certification one is wanting to hire those that are certified and the others um the other is wanting to upskill their existing employee base with certification so let's uh with those kind of two lenses um craig can you tell me why it's important to be um to have certified employees from the employer perspective yeah in fact you know we always talk about the value of certification to individuals and what it can do for them the holy grail of information is really what do employers think and that's really difficult information to get and in a couple of weeks we're going to be releasing our first ever value certification employer report and so i'm going to share a few data points never shared yet of some of that holy grail information from from that data first we find that that myth that people will leave if you certify them is not true in fact employers are prioritizing upskilling efforts 67 of business respondents or a majority of this company surveyed indicate that they will cover all its staff training and credentialing costs that's great news also i t certification helps employers find and hire the best talent so 60 of our employer respondents or more than half of the i.t managers indicated that job applications that come in that have i t certifications listed are significantly more likely to be reviewed than those without certification so we we also look at global knowledge i.t survey about additional employer benefits and that's some really interesting data about how they've indicated that there's an estimated roi a tangible roi of credential employees of ten thousand dollars added value to the business with a credentialed employee we also see that 81 increase in quality and value of work contributions are are highly valued by employers and that they've indicated that 80 percent have a greater ability to mentor and support co-workers when they're certified so we've seen additionally in this data report that we're going to be publishing in the coming weeks 77 percent have an increased ability to innovate in their jobs so it's clear from the data that employees with it certifications outperform their non-credentialed peers which leads to a measurable return on employer investment so 66 percent or two-thirds of the it managers surveyed said employees with it certifications produce a higher quality of work in their businesses so that's really really valuable information that proves the value certification a sas certification can really significantly alter the productivity within an organization you know so we we also talk about intrinsic values or you know what what does it do to the employees in our survey our value certification candidate survey we found that 91 percent felt an increased confidence when they were certified 76 percent indicated an increased respect from their peers 76 percent indicate an increased job satisfaction and 74 indicated a greater work autonomy and independence who wouldn't want that those are great indicators of the value certifications not only to individuals but to employees just this week i've had probably six employees come to me asking about upskilling efforts and a desire to get further certifications to improve their ability to be productive and as an employer i want them to be highly productive so i said yes to all and so i think employers are finding that a valued workforce are is a certified workforce if i if i could just jump in and reiterate two things that that craig said that are huge in my opinion the first that that ten thousand dollar roi on certified individuals right i think to me that's that's the no-brainer because i can't imagine for at least you know sas certifications uh the cost to get those even if you incorporate the training and upfront costs it's nowhere near ten thousand dollars so it's a no-brainer to the employer employer to to make that investment and the other piece that i think is is kind of inferred from from what craig said sometimes when we talk about employers we think about you know the fat cats at the top and and all of them but really sometimes it's just your peers right and who would you prefer to work with somebody who is semi-competent that may or may not have have proven skills etc or does it make more sense to say yeah i want certified people on my team because i can trust them i can uh you know they have skills they've been verified they've been validated and i know when they're working independently they're going to come back with a quality work product that that i can leverage and that i can use within my team to for for better business results so you know it's not always that that high level what's the employer getting but i think that all trickles up right um but i i do think that sometimes it's just just the peers right yes i'd much rather have competent people on my team that i know have the skills that that are required to do the job right sure um gita does does that resonate with with your experience at all yeah um and i you know i previously mentioned i had basically expressed my desire to my supervisors and i was lucky to be in that supportive environment and of course yeah it builds your confidence it builds your knowledge your mastery of the skills and makes you a qualified candidate if you're in the process of searching for a position you know i don't feel like i've ever seen that come up as a requirement when i was searching for previous positions that you need to be sas certified um but i still strongly believe that it's an important it would be an important role in boosting your profile candidate profile and also your resume so i think that it's you know as craig mentioned with all these statistics it's important for you to be sas certified if you're considering to use sas in the future yeah yeah i know that's and that's a great point you bring up on um on two fronts so are is it important for employers to look for um certification and their recruiting efforts and then um how important it is is it on for those who are seeking a job to include certification on their resumes um craig what are you seeing there are hr professionals looking for certification in their recruitment efforts you know honestly not enough we're targeting a lot of our marketing for hr professionals to ask for specific certifications in their applications this helps them filter out applicants to really find that um that skill set quickly and i think it's it's managers hiring managers working closely with hr managers to tell them specifically i need somebody with sas skills in fact really somebody with sas certification that that really is what they need to be doing is asking for those certifications you know as i mentioned before i spent 23 years in the i t software world working for some of the world's largest software companies and i see companies invest a lot in technology they want the best of the best in their hardware and software to be productive but many employers also recognize the value of investing in the productivity of their employees that are using that technology to maximize their investments in it sure sure what about you matt what are you saying yeah i i completely agree that that that the actual certification is is too rarely listed in the job requirements when it comes to i.t certifications um you know you do see a lot of pmp and those type of things listed um right and even if it's in that section of preferred skills right maybe we don't require the certification but it's a it's a preference however you do see the underlying skills listed throughout the job the job wreck so i i think it's it's good to hear that uh that pearson for one is is leading that uh charge with hr professionals we're doing the same as well as we can on on our end right and we're also putting it out there through means like like today talking to individuals and saying um you know a little bit of that burden is on you to say hey these are the skills that you're asking for in the job wreck and guess what i have this certification and if you look at my my badge my digital badge out on credly or other places right it defines those skills right there for you i have them and guess what they've been validated i'm not just here talking about it making it up but you know i've gone through the rigor of earning that certification um and and i do think i just mentioned credley who is another another vendor of ours um and and that's who we do our digital badging through right so this this digital badge is an opportunity for individuals to share those those skills and those micro skill sets that that they have and we are doing some work and and uh crudley and others you know you can go in and look at your badge today and see job requisitions associated with those skills that are associated with that badge right through what they call labor market insights so today you can go out and see a number of skills associated with those particular um skills that you earned through through the certification process tied to you as an individual through your digital badge so um we're working on all of that getting it to be you know more of a requirement within the job rex but i agree it needs to be um more than it is today and if i could just mention i was going to say if you're if you have a certification do a search for that certification if you're looking for a job in in a specific area look for that level of certification i did recently just out of curiosity uh indeed search for sas skills in the seattle washington area and it popped up almost 500 open jobs looking for that specific specific skill set and there is a big difference between somebody saying experience with sas and certified in sas because sure it shows the employer that the producer of that software has validated the skills of that individual you know i always say sorry to cut you off there hannah but i always say that that certification you know for me is the differentiator right your resume moves to the to the top of the pile it might not be um i absolutely get a job or a better job because i got this certification but when it's when it's apples to apples it's that going to push you you know over the edge essentially and and we have had some anecdotal stories in the reverse we had a a gentleman that was that was at one of our certification prep sessions a few weeks ago and he said that i failed two interviews with two separate banking organizations because i didn't have the certification um so you know that if you don't hold the certification it can and somebody else does you know you might lose out you might get left behind so um probably worth mentioning that as well sure it can set your set you apart and i certainly see the i guess crudley powered um digital badges all over linkedin these days and twitter so that's certainly becoming more commonplace and expected i would think in in the marketplace all right let's add something anna oh sorry yeah um yeah so um even though i didn't see it like in when i did indeed searches that it was a requirement i did mention it during interviews that i am certified so i think you know they know from the beginning okay she's qualified for this position because we're applying those skills and she's certified so i think that's you know a good tool to add during the interview sure sure it's something it's another egg in your basket um not to put words in your mouth but i bet it gave you even more confidence i mean speaking to that that stat on it increases your confidence but confidence to say right out of the gate i'm certified certified i have all these skills fresh in my head and i can apply it to uh further your objectives all right well so let's give some the viewers some tips on ways to get started um on their path to certification it sounds like of course the the um kind of general statement is it all depends on your situation and your interest level and where you are in your career um but i would love to get some specific insights from each of you um matt what what are some good um paths to get started on certification sure and we have uh done webinars specifically on that um so so you know we've devoted an entire hour to this conversation of kind of how to get started and how to prepare um so so go ahead and you know feel free to go out and search for some of those um on the sas blogs we've done uh blogs just about how to prepare and we've done that at the higher level you know what are some some things that you should be doing in preparation for your certification exam as well as very specific to if you're preparing for this particular exam these are some of the the things that you're going to to want to do so make sure you leverage that but i think first you got to start with a little bit of soul searching um you know if you've heard gita talk here a little bit about kind of her certification journey um it started with some inspiration right it sounded like so she was inspired to go out and and work in on particular skills particular things within a particular industry based on something that she had been exposed to um so so think a little bit about what's right for you what do you like to do about your with your current job what what are you interested in in doing in the future you know we we're in the in the midst of this great resignation we call it and um on some of the webinars we've done recently we've had a lot of the question of how do i get started and this is from people that that don't have a background in computer science or other things and and i wouldn't rule them out um these are not skills that are impossible to learn if you go through the right steps so the first thing is do that soul-searching and make sure your heart's going to be in it um we're all very busy these days you've got to find the time right so you're going to be able to to dedicate that time to it we had i think a dentist the other day on one of the webinars say hey i'm a dentist but i want to get into sas programming sure and here's how um so there's a whole bunch of resources that you can use once you've you've kind of gone through that process of what is my certification goal i like to say get the test on your calendar right think about how long you think it's going to take you from a training standpoint look at when you can schedule that type of thing what are you going to do to to help prepare are you going to take a practice test you know kind of kind of get that that timeline together and then say i think by december i could be ready or i think by you know the end of next first quarter next year i could be ready get your exam on the calendar you can always move it cancel it change it if you need to but get it on the calendar because you're working towards a goal and then go out to if you don't remember any of the other urls or anything we told you today sas.com certification is a great place to start for all of this but again we have blogs written specifically on preparing we have blogs written on individual exams we have blogs written about the efficacy of practice tests all of those types of things are out there um we have training obviously that sas offers um specific to all of the certifications so as you go through the credentials you'll see how many courses or or uh how many um days you may have to devote to you know learning this content we have certification preparation sessions that we offer specifically helping you prepare for certification sometimes they cost something sometimes they don't depending on kind of your background or whether you're in school or those types of things we have office hour sessions that you can join ahead of your exam to kind of cram and ask some of the specific questions that you might have again webinar series where we cover everything from certification basics to what's new in certification to hey if you're preparing for the performance based test here's what it's going to look like and here's the types of questions you're going to get and here's what we're looking for in your answers the you know one thing is use your content guide for the exam a lot of people we get questions sometimes they say i didn't know i was going to be tested on this it says well it's in the content guide and they say well what content guide i said that's the very first thing you should go to it's every objective every task level thing defined take that print it put it on your pillow take it to class with you you know know it inside and out and then you can do a self-assessment as to where i feel i'm strong and where i feel like i could use a little bit more more work or practice again prep guides we have prep guides for not every exam but some those are in print or digital formats we have a whole um if you subscribe to the youtube channel here as anna recommended you do and i strongly suggest that as well there's a whole set of youtube tutorials that walk through specific things that tie right into certification objectives as well as some certification prep videos practice exams we have practice exams for at least 80 or so of the the certification tests we have um and some of them are currently free most of them are moving to a platform where we can have them available for free by the end of the year so that's another resource um you know and learn when to kind of use these things take a practice exam at the end to assess your your preparedness for the exam versus kind of using that as a skill and a learning tool at the very front end and then the last thing that i would plug is the sas communities we have a lot of folks that are in there we have a complete community dedicated to certification and people answer each other's questions we have someone on our team that that's uh what we call a super freak right there um little play on proc freak i think and they uh they answer a lot of questions in there um you know they're obviously not gonna answer questions that are actually on the test but uh yeah they're going to help you focus your efforts your training efforts your studying efforts um so definitely leverage the sas communities and get that study plan together um you know there's some other things out there i'm curious gita you know what how much of that make sense for for what you've done in the past and and uh you know what you would recommend yeah so um i took the base level certification course before it became the performance um uh report so i have a little bit different um background i guess for like studying i did sign up for the training course i did use the practice exams that were available through sas and i paid for it um and then i also had the certification prep guide and i actually won that in a raffle at a new jersey sas user group and at the time when i had gone to the meeting i didn't really know like what that was or how it would be helpful to me because i wasn't aware of like the certification exam but then when i wanted to take the test it became a very handy piece of material so i was very happy that i had it and i actually shared it with other um working professionals who i um was you know telling and recommending that they should take the exam they took it and they passed so it's nice you know you have other peers and you share share some tips and different materials that you require um i also really strongly believe in attending sas user groups and i know uh one conference that i attended where um kirk lafleur had presented he also recommended you know the importance of sas certifications he reiterated how you should you know go volunteer with your local sas user group and after that i was so inspired and like right before that i was very excited because i had read a paper that he wrote that was called you could be assassinated if dot dot dot and i was like okay i wake up at 2 am thinking about pass code and then i met him in person so it was really cool and um yeah so i i actually reached out to my local sas group after that presentation and i joined them and became very active i was nominated to be the president of the sas user group and i really just feel that when you go to those meetings i've always learned something new you know and then you learn different tips and tricks that maybe you didn't know could be done in sas as a programmer so it's really very very um helpful piece of knowledge and even if you go to these meetings you could maybe acquire a study buddy or have you know a phenomenal networking component i've met people at these meetings that something came up at work or while i was studying for an exam and i you know sent them an email or some message on linkedin like hey i don't understand this topic do you know it i know you've been you know you're a seasoned professional and of course they're everybody when they know you have a desire and a passion they're so willing to help and which is great so i just feel like incorporating all of those components a lot of the stuff that matt mentioned and then of course you know networking other people in the field like that's so amazing to have that kind of you know support from your community either online or just like you know now we're in a pandemic but when we could go to conferences and local sas meetings leverage all of that you know sure sure and there are virtual iterations as we've always all pivoted to virtual events for user groups et cetera um that i'm sure people today could take advantage of and get involved and keep that networking spirit alive that's that's tremendous so we just have a few minutes but i want to wrap up on on just one final lighter note if there is one lesson you have gleaned from the last year and a half or so you know related to life or work um can you share it with our viewers um i think that would be really interesting to hear gita you want to kick us off yeah so my my overall theme in career life is basically to just always be a continuous learner i think that even if we're in a pandemic mode you should continually strive to learn and improve your technical skills and so i'm always doing that and i'm always an advocate for others to do that excellent craig well i think developing a personal brand is really important it's important to build you know strong relationships a strong network of trust with other people and doing so you may never have to apply for a job again they will come looking for you um you know i was thinking i have on my desk um i don't know if you can see this here but this is an original suspension cable from the golden gate bridge and it held up the golden gate bridge from 1936 to 1976 and what's always intrigued me my father-in-law gave me this he's a contractor is we look from a distance at one thing a cable but if you look at the end it's made up of 130 small strands and i like metaphors in life and when you build a personal brand it's made up of a lot of small things that builds the strength of your career and that can be experience relationships and in this case certifications that prove your skill set wow that's really neat that i i can't i can't follow that that was no i you know um it's hard for me actually to answer this question i'm just coming off spending the first almost three weeks of my kids uh school i have the three young ones and uh most of that was in quarantine because we had some exposure and all kinds of different things so we're still dealing with with this and i would say you know the anxiety of not knowing what next week brings is probably affecting a lot of us um but you know stay focused and invest in yourself and change what you can change uh affect what you can affect and you can always affect investing in yourself and putting getting a plan together to you know work towards a positive future for you and your family so i'd say you know what do they say act locally think globally do that and do that for yourself and and you'll have success so good luck for everybody that that's uh working towards that love that um do what you can within your control so what's in your control right now is to find out more information i'm sure you have tons of questions that we didn't even cover today we could talk for hours on this but uh check out the links below in the description below the youtube video um there are links that shot out at you in the live q a and also the if you come away with any two big links there's a um a giant webpage devoted to all things certification on sas.com check that one out and also we through a lot of stats a lot of research at you dig deeper into those stats in the person view report okay thank you matt craig gita for your time i certainly learned a ton and um and have really enjoyed this experience getting to know you and i'm sure our viewers have have as well what else can you do you can subscribe the sas users channel users youtube channel because that's going to get you even more tips and tricks just to um feed your your curiosity and and your desire to learn and and and look to yourself for what the next step is okay that'll do it for today thank you for tuning in and i'll see you later you

Channel: SAS Users

Views: 1,923

Rating: 4.951807 out of 5

Keywords: sas, sas certification, sas certification tips, sas career advice, sas trends, sas programmer week, sas programmer week 2021, it certification trends, it certification, value of sas certification

Id: Tt3JtQXAzj8

Length: 61min 50sec (3710 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021