Hi. I'm Katie Richardson, a Program Manager on the Google Cloud Certifications team. In this video, I'll introduce you to the Google Cloud Certification Program and share why certification might be right for you. Google Cloud is the fastest growing cloud, with significant advantages in big data processing and analytics at scale. Whether you are just beginning your career in Cloud, or have more experience with other Cloud solutions, validating your technical expertise by getting certified on Google Cloud will help demonstrate that you have the skills critical to drive business success in today's highly competitive market. Certification is essential in today's market to validate mastery and competency of technologies that are critical to business success. For individuals, certification provides credibility and a testament to your skills and proficiency in Google Cloud Platform. It also provides industry recognition. A certification is a formal recognition of professionals who meet established proficiency standards. Career advancement. Certifications can give you a competitive advantage over someone who has not certified. Finally, personal and professional development. Certifications ensure that you stay up-to-date with industry and technology developments. We also have a Google Cloud certified community that provides opportunities to network and exchange ideas. Let's take a look at what some of our customers and partners are saying about the value of certification. What certification offers that experience doesn't is peace of mind. I'm not only talking about self-confidence, but also for our customers. Having us certified working on their projects really gives them peace of mind that they're working with a partner who really knows what they're doing. Certification proves that an engineer not only has that real-world experience, but also has the technical knowledge to be able to be certified and to operate at the level that is required. The Google Cloud Certification Program includes two levels of certifications, professional and associate. The associate certification is focused on core Google Cloud Platform technology and is a good starting point for those new to Cloud or new to Google Cloud Platform. Achieving this certification can also help you on your path to professional certifications, by validating your core technical skills that will help you be successful in more advanced or specialized job roles. The professional certifications are job role-based certifications and assess advanced design and implementation skills, developed through hands-on experience. These certifications are focused on the core job roles in Cloud infrastructure, data and machine learning, application development, networking and security. Now that we've covered the basics of our program, let's talk about the steps to prepare for a Google Cloud Certification. Your professional and your classroom experience is the most critical part of your preparation journey. Use the exam guide to gauge how your skills and knowledge might match up to the job skills that will be evaluated in the certification exam. You can also use training and hands-on labs to refresh your knowledge and get additional hands-on experience. We also recommend taking the practice exams that are available for our certifications. These practice exams will familiarize you with the types of questions you may encounter on certification exam and help you determine your readiness or if you need more preparation or experience. You can find all of these resources on the Google Cloud Certification website at cloud.google.com/certification. We also recommend checking out some of the additional resources, like our cloud documentation pages and the Google Cloud Platform YouTube channel for videos and tutorials on Google Cloud products and solutions. Visit the Google Cloud Certification website for more information and take the first step to becoming Google Cloud certified.
