Technology companies like Google offer some of the highest-paying jobs in the world. And yet, for many years, leaders in the tech industry have complained that they can’t find enough workers with the skills they need.
For Google, one solution has been its certificates program, which is offered through Coursera for $49 per month and takes learners between three and six months to complete, on average. According to Lisa Gevelber, founder of Google’s certificates program and Google’s CMO for the Americas, about 600,000 people around the world have completed a Google certificate since 2018.
The first time I connected with Gevelber was in July 2020, when Google announced it would be providing 100,000 scholarships for its online certificates in data analytics, project management, and UX.
At the time, the national unemployment rate had spiked 10.2%, due to the coronavirus pandemic, and it was even higher in states with large numbers of tech workers such as Massachusetts (16.1%), New York (15.9%), and California (13.3%). Amid this tumultuous labor landscape, many felt cautiously optimistic that low-cost certificate programs could help combat historic inequality in tech, improve job prospects for those who do not have a college degree, and provide unemployed workers an opportunity to upskill.
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