By Rachel Wells
By 2030, almost 40% of today’s workplace skills will be irrelevant, according to the World Economic Forum.
And yet, although these skills are expected to change, many job-seekers are still submitting resumes that don’t make any mention of the core skills of the future at all–skills like AI.
That makes you…irrelevant.
You could be applying to hundreds of jobs, yet still get ghosted, while the candidates who have AI certifications and skills have an advantage over you because employers want them more.
In fact, employers have made their sentiments very clear: about 92% have plans to hire this year for positions that have Gen AI skills as a requirement, according to a new AWS survey.
What Are The Best AI Certifications For Beginners?
In this short article, you’ll discover five beginner-friendly AI certifications that you can include in your resume and leverage them to land the job offers you deserve.
1. AI Essentials For Business, By HBS (Harvard Business School)
What you’ll learn:
- How to manage business risks and ethical implications of AI
- Skills and frameworks to shape your organization’s digital transformation strategy as they adopt AI
- Business use cases for AI across your organization/business
Cost: $1,850
2. AWS Certified AI Practitioner
What you’ll learn:
- Foundational concepts of AI, ML, and generative AI
- AI frameworks and AWS technology
Cost: $100 for the exam; training costs can include $29 for the subscription to course materials
3. AWS Generative AI Applications Professional Certificate, Coursera
What you’ll learn:
- AI fundamentals and AWS services, including how to implement responsible AI practices and select appropriate models for business needs
- Prompt engineering techniques and practical application development using Amazon Bedrock, PartyRock, and other AWS tools
- How to transform business ideas into AI applications
Cost: Seven-day free trial, then $59/month or $399/year
4. Microsoft 365 with Generative AI Professional Certificate, Coursera
What you’ll learn:
- How to build AI-powered workflows, even as a newbie
- Using Copilot with Microsoft applications to boost productivity
- How to use AI-driven insights and data analysis tools
Cost: Seven-day free trial, then $59/month or $399/year
5. Snowflake Generative AI Professional Certificate, Coursera
What you’ll learn:
- Go from beginner to knowing how to build AI applications
- How to fine-tune or train an AI model
- Prompt engineering techniques for Llama, Mistral, and Anthropic models
Cost: Seven-day free trial, then $59/month or $399/year
These courses teach a wide variety of high-income skills with the potential to pay six figures as a freelancer or even as an employee, from building and deploying your very own AI tools, to creating custom workflows that boost productivity and reduce costs.
Do You Need Coding Experience To Learn AI?
No you don’t. These certifications prove that you can build AI skills within a month (if studying for 10-15 hours a week), or even three to six months at most (if studying alongside a busy schedule), even if you’re a complete beginner.
How Do You Add AI Certifications To Your Resume?
Here are some creative ways to include AI certifications in your resume:
- Have a separate professional certifications section
- Include the AI skills you’ve learned in these courses, through your skills/competencies section
- Talk about how you’ve implemented the skills you’ve learned from AI certifications, in your work experience section
The future won’t wait for you to be ready. AI implementation and rollout is happening right now as you’re reading.
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So, if you want your career to thrive in this new future of work, you’ve got to develop the skills that matter the most. Binge-watching a Netflix series won’t do much for your career. But using that time to develop yourself professionally through an AI certification? That’s time well-spent, and it will boost your income potential forever.
Feature image credit: Getty
By Rachel Wells
Find Rachel Wells on LinkedIn and X. Visit Rachel’s website.
