Top 10 Certifications to Step up in Your Career

Is the progress of your career graph stopped somewhere? Are you not getting the role you are deserved for in your organization? You may be working hard, doing your job honestly but when the time comes to move to the next level, all your work experiences fall short. You may be wondering, asking yourself ‘where am I lacking, what is my fault’?

There are many professionals found themselves in that situation once they reached to a certain point of their career. The humiliation of stagnant career makes them unproductive as the time passes and finally, they end up leaving or losing the job.

So.what is the solution to this problem? As per various studies, the researchers found that earning one or two relevant certifications can surely provide the much-needed boost to one's career.

Let us discuss how you can able to remove the obstacles in your career to move to the next role quickly by obtaining the highly demanding certifications.

Those certifications do not only help you to step up the ladder by achieving the higher position with higher compensation but also improves the skills and competency level. Thus, the certification helps the professionals to play the higher role more efficiently.

Also in today's job market, the professional certifications hold a significant value in the resume of job seekers. Many hiring managers across the world highly consider certification as an important criterion while evaluating the profile of probable candidates.

Let us discuss the top 10 professional certifications without any particular order which can help to boost your career in an upward direction.

TOGAF- stands for The Open Group Architecture Framework.

It is an enterprise architecture framework that provides a better approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing an enterprise information technology architecture. There is always a high demand for enterprise architects in the Information Technology industries. By getting this certification you can surely increase your chances to get a high pay job there.

Let us see some of the key areas of TOGAF.

• TOGAF stands on four pillars that are interrelated areas of architectural domains
• Those are Business Architecture, Application Architecture, Data Architecture, and Technical Architecture
• It relies profoundly on modularization, uniformity, and already existing established technologies and products.
• TOGAF certification helps you to obtain specific knowledge about the standard framework and methods of the enterprise architecture

It is a two steps certification program, the first one is the Foundation (Level-1) and then the Advanced (Level-2). There is no prerequisite for the foundation certification. And once you obtain the Level-1 then only you can go for the Level-2 to earn your TOGAF 9 certification.

To achieve the certification you can either go for self-study or by attending a TOGAF Accredited Training Course from a recognized institution. The cost of each level comes around $320, you can also find many institutions offering a decent combined fee structure for both the levels including training.

There are many technology giants like IBM, HP, Oracle, Deloitte, Capgemini, Cisco etc are implementing TOGAF® methodologies to transform their business which definitely increases the job opportunities for TOGAF certified professional.

The Project Management Professional (PMP) from the reputed PMI is one of the most sought certification for the project managers. This certification is in high demand for not only the IT industries but also other industries such as Construction, Government, Public Sectors, and Manufacturing. Thus, it creates greater opportunities for the PMP certified professional to excel their career in those industries.

The PMP certification exam focuses five major areas of a project lifecycle, that is initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.

There are certain specific criteria that must be fulfilled before appearing this exam. If you have a secondary degree then you need at least five years of project management experience with 7500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education. And if you have a four-year degree then you need at least three years of project management experience, with 4500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.

You can get the education hours from any PMI recognized training providers before applying for the exam. Currently, the examination fee is $405 for PMI member and USD $555 for the non-PMI member.

The ITIL framework has been widely used in the IT service industries. It has set of best practices that cover everything from availability and capacity management to change and incident management, in addition to application and IT operations management.

Due to its high acceptability in industries, it creates huge job openings in the market. The ITIL V3 Foundation is the entry level certification in this area which can be availed from the authorized and accredited partners. To become certified, you just need to pass the exam; there are no other prerequisites for the Foundation exam. There are advanced level certifications also available which you can earn after the foundation level.

Considering the current vulnerability in information security the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) has a huge demand in the market. the certification is offered by International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC)2.

There are various training institutes where you can enroll for the certification training to know the latest best practices according to the CISSP Common Book of Knowledge. The CISSP certification helps you to enhance your knowledge on how to build a secure business environment for your organization using globally recognized Information Security standards.

You need to register and book the exam slot at Pearson VUE Testing centers around the world. Many training centers also provide the required 30 CPEs for taking the CISSP examination.

Due to the increasing incidents of cybercrime incidents, the certification related to information security are in high demand. The CISM certification from ISACA is one such popular certificate which constantly getting attention from hiring managers.

CISM is a mid level professional information security certification which can be earned through the computer based exam and need to maintain over time after that. For this year - 2017, the exam offered during the three eight week periods, those are May 1 – June 30, August 1 to September 30, and November 1 to December 31. The prerequisite for the exam is you need to have at least five years of experience in IS, with at least three years as a security manager. You must have 10 years of experience before taking the exam or five years after passing it, also it required education credits each year to maintain your certification.

The Salesforce Developer Certification is another demanding certification to boost up your career. It will enhance your skills and knowledge in designing custom-made applications and analytics with the declarative features of the Salesforce platform. It will also provide you the ability to build specific data models, classify business logic, contour user interface and ensure security for customized applications

This certification is suitable for Developers and System Administrators, Sales Architects, Operations Professionals and IT managers. The Prerequisite for the certification is that you should have a degree in Business Administration or Computer Applications. It is better to enroll yourself in a training institute to acquire the desired knowledge and skills before appearing for the exam.

You may be aware that how much the corporate world is obsessed with the tons of data stored day by day. So a career as a data scientist can be much rewarding these days. As a data scientist, you can help the organizations in analyzing the big data to make better decisions, optimizing operations, preventing threats and fraud and also improving customer engagement.

To become a data scientist you should have knowledge of Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Statistics (basics).

Statistical modeling is an important part of the job profile of a data scientist. so, the candidates need to possess a basic knowledge of statistics, which require in R or other languages. Also, computer science fundamentals knowledge is required for coding.

There are few certifications which can help you to shape your career in the field of Big Data.

• Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert: Data Management and Analytics (Microsoft) from Microsoft has definitely big value in the market
• SAS Certified Data Scientist (SAS) is another high-value certification in the field of data science to boost the career of IT professionals.

Nowadays the terms like ‘online marketing’, ‘internet marketing’ or ‘web marketing’, in short, the digital marketing is gaining popularity in the corporate world. The increasing demands of E-Commerce websites widening the scope of digital marketing. Thus, certifications related to this field have high value in the job markets.

There are providers like Google, OMCP, Online Marketing Institute, Marketing Profs etc are popular in this area where you can enroll for training and certification.

The OMCP certification is highly recognized in the corporate world. You can earn both the level of this certification, OMCA is for entry-level and OMCP is for experienced professional. To earn this certification you must have knowledge in Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Conversion, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, PPC, Social Media, and Web Analytics

The virtual world is truly becoming virtual as many organizations are now depending upon Virtual servers, virtual desktops, virtual networking instead of owning physical hardware at their premises. That not only helps them to curb the big maintenance cost but also reduce the risk level in case of natural calamities.

So, one of the highly demanding virtualization certification is VMware Certified Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization (VMware). However, the entry level certification is VMware Certified Associate (VCA) and the VCP6-DCV certification is the next level certification which will make you an expert in the world of virtualization. It is better to enroll yourself in a training institute to acquire the desired knowledge and skills before appearing for the exam.

You may be aware that the corporate world is shifting to the cloud rapidly. So, it is no one guess that how much the professionals having AWS Certification are in demand.

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate-level exam enhances your skill on designing and deploying scalable systems on AWS. The next level of this certification is AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certification.

To earn these certifications you should have more than six months experience with AWS. It s a computer based exam and administered at Kryterion testing centers. You can also enroll yourself with various training providers to obtain specific knowledge and skills which can help you to through the exams.

Apart from these certifications, the other highly demanding areas are Machine Learning, Artifical Intelligence etc. Having knowledge and skills in these areas can help you to boost your career in a right direction.