85% of IT professionals have completed at least one IT certification over the past year, according to the 2019 IT Skills and Salary Report.
Plus, two-thirds of IT professionals will obtain additional certifications within the next year.
What’s behind this drive for certifications? The IT Skills Gap is partly to blame (or praise, in this case).
Can Certifications Reduce the IT Skills Gap?
Organizations have been inundated with new technologies and applications, fueling a boom in new IT jobs, roles, and responsibilities. However, the number of people entering the IT job market has not kept pace with this growth.
Plus, many of the biggest technologies in IT —cloud computing, AI, automation, big data— are so cutting-edge that most IT professionals have not had the opportunity to build sufficient experience in these fields.
In response to this skills gap, many IT departments are relying in part on employee training and certification programs. Why? Because certification courses enable IT professionals to gain expertise in new tools and technologies, which in turn makes it easier for IT teams to:
- Develop new capabilities that benefit the organization’s value stream
- Improve ROI for new applications, tools, and technologies
- Increase the efficiency of critical, day-to-day processes
- Optimize both operations and infrastructure
IT Certifications Can Accelerate Your Career
“In all regions, the salaries of certified professionals surpass the salaries of non-certified staff. The largest discrepancy between certified and non-certified staff is in Latin America (21% difference) and Asia-Pacific (11%). In North America, certified professionals make seven percent more than peers with no certifications.
“The number of certifications earned also impacts salary. In North America, an individual with six or more IT certifications makes over $10,000 more than those with just one certification on their resume. With few exceptions, each additional certification earned results in at least a minor salary bump.”
—2019 IT Skills and Salary Report
Certifications validate your knowledge and ability to develop skills to meet new challenges, while demonstrating your dedication and initiative.
There is a demonstrable benefit to IT certifications, but there is also a vast wealth of certifications available. So where should you start? What certifications will help your career the most?
According to a report from CompTIA, the two top skills gaps that organizations are looking to fill are in “Emerging tech, i.e., IoT, AI, automation (59%),” and “Integrating different apps, data sources, platforms, devices (59%).”
Why Automation Certifications are Important
IT automation is a versatile, powerful field that includes capabilities as diverse as batch processing and AI-powered analytics. Automation helps organizations operate more efficiently, accomplish more with fewer resources, and accelerate their digital transformation goals.
Plus, automation is the only technology that straddles the top two IT Skills Gaps identified by CompTIA —automation, after all, is enabling organizations to integrate everything from AI to BI to big data, while creating new efficiencies and scalable processes.
“And the opportunities extend far beyond labor savings. When we modeled the potential of automation to transform business processes across several industries, we found that the benefits (ranging from increased output to higher quality and improved reliability, as well as the potential to perform some tasks at superhuman levels) typically are between three and ten times the cost.”
—McKinsey, Four Fundamentals of Workplace Automation
If you’re looking for IT certifications that can benefit your employees, your organization, and your career, consider a certification program for an automation solution that can help you integrate new tools and close your organization’s skills gaps.
Introducing the ActiveBatch User Certification Program
The ActiveBatch User Certification Program offers three paths to certification, designed for specific user roles (administrator, operator, and developer), each path comprised of two courses and a certification exam.
Each pathway to certification has been designed to transform ActiveBatch users into ActiveBatch IT Automation experts that can drive automation to accelerate ROI for their organizations.
The ActiveBatch User Certification Program was designed for you —with your needs in mind. That’s why courses are divided into bite-sized modules that easily fit your work schedule.
View the modules when you have the time. Start with the modules that interest you the most. You can re-watch, rewind, skip around. Use them as resources. Then, when you’ve completed the courses, pass the exam and receive your certification.
Push your skills further.
Take your career to new heights by becoming an ActiveBatch Certified Expert.
