AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate 50% off certification exam fees $75

So it looks like the training is free but the exams are not. Personally I'd take the training and skip the exam. These certs are pretty useless and definitely not worth $75. If anything they just demonstrate how much of a noob you are.

Don't get punked by some unemployed dumbass on SD into not getting a certification. Having a cert or degree/concentration goes a long way to even getting an interview, and it can both help you and your company with marketability. Government contractors also sign NDAs and cannot give professional work examples, making these more important when switching projects. I have 15 years IT experience in both corporate and small business, been screening and hiring for the past 4. I know what I'm talking about.

secretclean and madpup are both right. I have not quite double secretcleans experience but have been in the industry for about 25 years. Having the cert doesn't hurt and does set up apart in a highly competive industry where there are tons of qualified people with experience.

Experience trumps all. But the cert can set you apart and open doors.

I have double your experience and I'd only expect to see these types of certs on the resumes of people...*snipped*

A lot of these types of certs rely on learning lists of facts rather than concepts, and facts tend to quickly change over time whereas concepts generally hold true. A course like this can help an interviewee provide concrete examples of concepts in areas where they have little or no experience. Being able to talk about something even though they haven't worked with it is a really good sign to an interviewer for multiple reasons. A course like this can also help firm up a candidate's knowledge of a technology that they have some experience of but haven't used to its full extent. Too many people have a laundry list of technologies on their resume but an interviewer who spot checks their knowledge on these will often find that their experience is trivial. "I played with it once a while back and I can't remember much about it" is something I've heard of a lot. Meanwhile I'm thinking "why-t-f is it on your resume then?"

tl;dr the primary benefit of a course like this is in expanding your knowledge. If you're the sort of person who needs an exam to focus your attention then taking the certification might be money well spent. Depending on your experience level it may not hurt to have the certification listed on your resume but I would avoid doing so if you aren't beginning your IT career and you don't have professional experience with these technologies.

Personally, I'm going to go thru this course and skip the certification. I have a ton of cloud engineering experience but not so much of it in AWS. It's always good to see how different companies solve the same problems.

And BTW (speaking with my resume screening hat on) one red flag for this specific certification is the "Associate part in the title....
*Snipped*

I just want to say I appreciate the input from all on the hiring side. I screen and interview in my field (I was working with IT years ago and transitioned careers...also looking to transition back).

In my current field certifications have varying impact. I am currently a power equipment technician...I work with other techs that have over 30 years professional experience band currently hold no certifications. The experience is very important but lacking the certification means you are lacking some training especially on newer items, lacking access to support services and unfamiliar with new products. May not be that case in IT, but where IT changes so fast I would expect everyone is in that boat.

If I get an applicant with the most basic level (associate type cert) from one of the manufacturers that tells me what they know and that they can access and understand the vender/manufacturers systems and processes.

A tech with 30 yes experience who let their recertification lapse 5 years ago, or never completed certs (I have several of those situations working with me) have different skills and and that has to be taken in consideration.
It is very similar to automotive techs with ASE certification and recertification.

Is this only applicable for AWS Solutions Arch certification? How about for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner?

I have double your experience and I'd only expect to see these types of certs on the resumes of people with little else to talk about. A resume should fill one side of one page and if you can find space to list these types of certs then that says a lot about you - not necessarily bad, but it's an indication of your proficiencies. I'm just giving my experience of having worked in, and hired for, both small and big tech for many years. If you are hiring for relatively low-level IT gigs (operations, support, boiler-plate implementations, etc.) then these certifications might be of interest to you as a hiring manager. If you are hiring software engineers for the long run, not so much.

A lot of these types of certs rely on learning lists of facts rather than concepts, and facts tend to quickly change over time whereas concepts generally hold true. A course like this can help an interviewee provide concrete examples of concepts in areas where they have little or no experience. Being able to talk about something even though they haven't worked with it is a really good sign to an interviewer for multiple reasons. A course like this can also help firm up a candidate's knowledge of a technology that they have some experience of but haven't used to its full extent. Too many people have a laundry list of technologies on their resume but an interviewer who spot checks their knowledge on these will often find that their experience is trivial. "I played with it once a while back and I can't remember much about it" is something I've heard of a lot. Meanwhile I'm thinking "why-t-f is it on your resume then?" https://static.slickdealscdn.com/ima...lies/smile.gif

tl;dr the primary benefit of a course like this is in expanding your knowledge. If you're the sort of person who needs an exam to focus your attention then taking the certification might be money well spent. Depending on your experience level it may not hurt to have the certification listed on your resume but I would avoid doing so if you aren't beginning your IT career and you don't have professional experience with these technologies.

Personally, I'm going to go thru this course and skip the certification. I have a ton of cloud engineering experience but not so much of it in AWS. It's always good to see how different companies solve the same problems.

And BTW (speaking with my resume screening hat on) one red flag for this specific certification is the "Associate" part in the title. That basically says "Solutions Architect - but not really". No one in their right mind would hire someone to architect a system based on having this cert. If this cert was to be named appropriately it might be "A tour of AWS offerings and a high-level overview of building solutions with them".

Think what you want when hiring people, but you cannot pass the AWS Certs without real, hands-on experience. And yes, I recently passed the Solution Architect - Professional level exam so I might be biased, but you cannot take a course and pass this exam, even the Associate level which I took a year ago.

I'm not a fan of getting a ton of certs, but this is on that has real world value based on the amount of info you have to have to pass them.

That is good to know. The problem is, your recruiter needs to know that too. Like I said most certifications are of dubious quality, but the law of averages means there must be some good ones. Ultimately it most likely won't be the line on your resume that gets you the job, it's being able to talk about what you learned, assuming you get the chance.