Top five certification courses that are worth It

Hi friends, in this blog is going to be about showing you a selection of courses that are worth it, and I did a lot of research figured out a list of five courses. we think these are courses you can't go wrong with them. Plus, in the end we're going to score them. So, we're going to give them a score from 1 to 10 based on

1. How the content structure is

2. How much does it help you become more employable. so, what is the chance you get a job and

 3. What’s the price.

My friends here it's critical to not waste your freaking time. of course, you can go on google you know you can do a little bit of research on the reviews that are probably faked, and you know get to some semi-professional conclusion in the end. but that's not what you should do. what you need to do is you need to talk to different people. you need to evaluate the results that they got from these courses, and you also need to talk to employers. and I found myself in a unique position where I could ask, I did a very big survey on Instagram so if you followed me, you probably noticed that I surveyed and I got a lot a lot a lot of very nice responses suggestions on which courses are good, which courses are not so good. I asked you how much they are, what were your experiences, what were the follow-ups and so on. you know if you are in your second or third semester right now bachelor’s, undergraduate, degree and you want to aim high. you want to get into investment banking consulting then we can help you get there through internship, optimizing your grades helping you with your network and so on. so, through that of course I was also able to tap into a big pool of people from different firms. so, I asked these people to which courses helped. we asked some of the employers which courses do you favour, which courses do you look at and you say okay that's proper. I accept that that’s a signal of competence if you put it on a cv .so please don't waste your time, researching google and looking at reviews that will really not get you very far, because all of that stuff. everything you can write on the internet can be fake, can be made look better than it actually is.

Now before I give you the top five online certificates that are worth it. you know the following thing. yes in principle learning is the single biggest factor that you take out of these online courses and that's a great thing. it’s great to be able to learn these things online sometimes for free. Corona makes things incredibly difficult and for some people in some countries it's very tough their education is really suffering so; these online courses are great. yes, some of these online courses are also incredibly valuable for entry-level positions and they will be able to get you the job or get you closer to the job. but someone with an “HWS MBA’’ will still beat your ‘’Stanford GSB Elite’’, ‘’ICCF Columbia Business School’’ and your ‘’Harvard DSR Certificates’’. that’s just the truth and I’m not saying it’s good or bad but that's how it is right now.

Moving on now having said that there is a couple of courses that are going to have great value and now what is important for you to know to never make the mistake again to take a course and then get less out of it than you would have liked to in the first place. and this is extremely important to know now that we look at the top five online certificates that are worth it.

 there are four types of courses and one of my followers summarized that neatly so let me do it for you one more time. there are the general mass/open courses, so they are accessible to anyone that makes them a bit less competitive mostly on websites like Coursera, Udemy and soon with a price point from zero to 100 bucks.

there are the specialized industry focused courses mostly course that are known in the specific industries like for example in the investment banking industry you know about wall street prep premium packages and so on. they usually cost from 100 to 1 000 us dollars.

you have thirdly the business school programs. these are mainly very prestigious in terms of learning content they don't really, they don't really give you more knowledge than number one right these general math courses, but you get the brand. you get Howard or Columbia or whatever on your cv and that's by the way also why you pay in these cases 1 000 to let’s say 15 000 us dollars.

 and then you have the globally recognized certification such as ‘’CFA’’, ‘’CPA”,’’CFP’’ and so on. price point 1000 to5 000 us dollars, sometimes paid by your employer. okay so if you have come this far in the blog, I think you already know a lot. like take these things with you be aware of the differences and be aware of how you do research on those courses right which I did for example with my Instagram. Now let's get to the five courses.

 let me start with the first one.

A} Wharton Finance: - Number one top online certificate that’s worth it ‘’Wharton finance’’. so, what they list what they are going to talk about in terms of content, and this is just simply content you know so this is just videos. you don't have like an online support team; nobody is checking your models or whatever is four topics.

·        Time value of money

·        Interest rates

·        DCF Analysis and

·        ROI

The cost as you know it's Coursera so it's going to be50 to 100 bucks, depending on when you read this blog to obtain this certificate otherwise to just sit in its free. this one is great if you're just starting out. you know if you are at the beginning of your studies you want to signal that you are willing to go more in the finance route. you want to have a first great name on your cv. you don't want to invest a lot of money. but this one is less suitable if you are already at the end of your studies, or you are now looking to make the concrete next step into consulting or investment banking. So, let’s listen on we will have solutions for that too.

 B} BIWS, Wall street prep - Second top online certificate that’s actually worth it. now here we had a couple of decisions to make you know should we for example take the breaking into wall street package or merge us and inquisitions and so on. you have different types of providers that are quite similar, but in the end, this was mentioned by most people and this one also has a great reputation in Europe as well as north America. so, in terms of course content what they talk about I have a list here

·        Financial statement modelling

·        DCF Modelling

·        Accretion Dilution Modelling

·        IBO Modelling

·        Trading Comps Modelling and

·        Transaction Comps Modelling

 A lot of modelling; but what they also do offer is on the job kind of training. so, it's very close to what you're going to do on the job. they have a very comprehensive support centre, an excel plug-in and the whole thing comes at a price point of 499 us dollars. let me tell you who this is not for in theory right it's not for investment bankers who are soon going to start their job, because all of these modelling courses all of these things you are going to be taught on the job in the first couple of weeks. investment banks usually have very good kick-offs where they teach their analysts these kinds of things but then again you have FoMo (Fear of Missing Out) so you're probably going to purchase the course anyway.

C} Data Analyst (Nano Degree): - Number three top online certificate that’s actually worth it the data analyst nano degree on Udacity. now this makes sense for a couple of people reading this blog, first let me tell you what you're going to learn there I have it written down here

·        Intro to data analysis

·        Practical Statistics

·        Data Wrangling

·        Data Visualization with Python

It is written on the website. using a lot of very real-world cases but also from my followers some told me it is quite realistic and it's not just some theoretical bs. you have a lot of mentor and expert support, much more than in some of the other programs .so people actually helping you reviewing your work and you have even things like a LinkedIn profile review. all of that comes at a price point of 1356 us dollars for four months. now this is a general trend that data scientists’ data analysis skills are incredibly helpful so if you are looking to get into consulting, private equity, investment banking, venture capital and so on, good data analysis skills are obviously highly needed. so, if you have an additional degree in data science data analysis and so on. this is a big bonus on your cv.

D} FMVA (Financial Modelling Valuation Analyst): - Number four top online certificates that are actually worth it corporate finance institute's ‘’FMVA’’-financial modelling valuation analyst. now this one you could say is quite similar to wall street prep breaking into wall street and so on. but no, it actually isn’t in fact it's much broader. you know you have of course all the courses, but they talk about also things like

·        Excel Fundamentals

·        PowerPoint Fundamentals, how to structure presentations

·        Accounting Fundamentals and

·        Professional Ethics

Let’s all feel good about the great value we are creating for humanity if we work in finance. then they also have a support community they have a support centre; they are doing model reviews and give you feedback on your models. but the main thing here is that cfi has a very good brand, a very great positioning. so, the certification that you obtain and that's also how they market themselves how they brand themselves it almost looks like you know you obtain something of similar value to something like the CFA. all of that coming at a price point of897us dollars

E} CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst): -Now let's go on to the last one before then we score all of those and that's going to be important to determine which one's right for your number five of the top online certificates that are actually worth it the ‘’CFA’’ and now let me explain and also give you a little bit of a hack in the end. the CFA, I think doesn't need a lot of explanation you know you can look it up on google you can also watch some videos here on YouTube. the CFA is quite well known .it is internationally recognized. the great way to pivot into finance if you are a consultant .you’re now looking to get into finance obtaining and CFA will signal that you are doing an effort and that you know your stuff when it comes to balance sheets profit and loss and so on .and to be honest you need to really put a lot of work into it ,so the people passing CFA one two three immediately extremely low. all of that comes at a hefty price point and it's not easy to say exactly what's the price point you know because if you register late, you will have fees and soon blah blah blah but usually you know you would say it's around three thousand dollars to five thousand us dollars. so not that cheap. Now here comes the hack on Udemy there is a course called CFA level one complete corporate finance or they also have courses on different little parts of the CF level one .if you don't really fancy spending those three thousand to five thousand bucks ,you can also take a course like that on Udemy and you will get most of the same knowledge plus this is a little bit kind of in the Gray zone. but the course's name is almost identical with the actual CFA .so if you put this course's name on your cv or on your LinkedIn totally I kid you not I bet many people will look at it they will assume you did the CFA .okay so this is kind of illegal advice that I’m giving out but I just i just put it out there you know it’s your choice to use it or not god.

Now the rating we are going to score these courses on a scale from1 to 10 on three parameters

1. Knowledge Increase

2. Employability Increase

3. Price

 Knowledge increase is how much knowledge do you actually gain. right, that's what we all care about we want to gain knowledge we want to learn. second one is how much does this course actually help you get a job. you know either because you get great connections or it's highly valued at the employers that you’re applying to and so on. third one is price. So, let’s start with first course.

Wharton Finance
Knowledge Increase	4
Employability Increase	3
Price	9
Total Rating	5.3

Wharton finance -so the knowledge increase is okay but it's a bit shallow as I said it's for beginners. employability this is not going to help you a lot. price super cheap so very high rating.

Wall Street Prep
Knowledge Increase	6
Employability Increase	5
Price	6
Total Rating	5.6

 Wall street prep-so this one you really learn a decent amount. it’s also going to help your employability. it's quite well regarded most people on the other side will know it especially in investment banking and the price is okays.

Data Analyst
Knowledge Increase	6
Employability Increase	7
Price	6
Total Rating	6.3

Data analyst-in terms of knowledge amount you learn more or less the same as with the equivalent in finance wall street prep., but they offer a bit better connection, a bit better placement opportunity afterwards into nice employers and also in the tech sector. these kinds of programs generally have a higher reputation and so for the price it’s all right it's a six

FMVA
Knowledge Increase	8
Employability Increase	6
Price	5
Total Rating	6.3

FMVA- so the knowledge increase is immense it's an eight. really a lot of knowledge packed in their employability increase it’s a six. it's a bit better than wall street prep which is one of the you know some would consider this a competitor .it just looks a little bit more official this certification and in terms of price it’s a bit more expensive so it's a five.

CFA
Knowledge Increase	10
Employability Increase	8
Price	3
Total Rating	7

 Here lastly the CFA-great knowledge you get a lot of very deep finance knowledge so that's a 10. employability definitely increases a lot because this is internationally recognized so it's an eight. but the price is really high so this isa three.

so, if we equally weight these three factors, we are left with a total score of 5.3 for Wharton, 5.6 for wall street prep, 6.3 for data analyst, 5.6 for the FMVA and 7 for the CFA.

Now you make your own choice plus if you have read this far, please mention a couple of other courses in the comments and let's discuss a bit what else is out there and then if you want, I’m happy to do another thorough research on these things that you mentioned in the comments. So that’s for today. Happy Blogging😎