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TIL the difference between chasing certifications and actually building a portfolio
I spent 3 years stacking Google certs and Microsoft badges thinking that was the fast track, but a buddy who just posts his side projects on GitHub got hired at a 6-figure role in Chicago last month. Which do you think actually moves the needle for hiring managers in 2025?
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lopez.simon1mo ago
My cousin spent four years getting every AWS cert he could find and still got passed over for a kid who had a clean little weather app on GitHub that showed he actually knew how to build something. I see this same thing at my gym too, the guy with the biggest cert collection on his wall is usually the one who asks me how to use the cable machine, while the fit dude just shows up and does the work. Employers want proof you can ship, not proof you can pass a multiple choice test.
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thomas.parker1mo ago
And my buddy swapped a stack of certs for a single Python project on GitHub and landed a remote job paying 90k.
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