Adobe Experience Cloud Jobs: What They Are and How to Get One

Transcript: Adobe Experience Cloud Jobs – What They Are and How to Get One

Meet the Adobe Panel

Abi Chen: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Abi Chen. I am one of the coaches with Management Consulted. Prior to that, I spent six years in management consulting with Bain and Company. Recently left to build my own Asian restaurant.

So if you've met me before, if you've worked with me or have seen me through the other podcasts, you've heard my stories.

I'm very, very excited today to be joined by the Adobe team. And we've got quite a few questions because of all the excitement from you guys.

Let's get started with our questions today. But first of all, a lot of people, when they hear Adobe, they think of Adobe Creative Cloud. So what is Adobe Experience Cloud, and what role does each of you, our panelists, play in that ecosystem?

So Nick, can you get us started?

Nick Hilton: Sure. Yeah. So just like you said, we get a lot of feedback that when people hear Adobe, their mind goes straight to the Creative Cloud, because the brand is huge and that's where content is created and essentially shipped out into the wild.

Well, with Experience Cloud, Experience Cloud really focuses on what happens after the content is created and how organizations measure success.

So it helps organizations really understand customer behavior, personalize experiences, measure performance, ultimately to make better decisions.

And my role specifically focuses on product marketing for Adobe certification portfolio and connecting skills development with the market demand in the Experience Cloud.

Abi Chen: Thanks, Nick. How about you, Tyler?

Tyler Tu: Good afternoon, everyone. Very excited for this podcast. And first of all, I know you can probably do something else, but for you to be here, that means you're very interested in your career, want to learn more about Adobe. And on behalf of Adobe and my team, we want to say thank you.

I've been in this business for 25 years. It's crazy. In education, certification and training. And why I do this, because I'm very passionate. It's all about helping people to achieve their goals.

My job here at Adobe is to ensure that we have a right set of skills to go out and really implement and build our solution. And at the end, it's all about the customer. It's about customer realization, the value that we bring to our customer.

And to do that, we need to make sure we have the right set of skills that has been developed, because our technology has evolved so fast. And because of that, we want to make sure that the customer who make that investment in Adobe has the solution as intended.

So our job is to work with our product marketing team, product engineering, to ensure that as they release these products, we have a set of learning that build these skill sets so that way we can go out and implement and deliver for our customers.

So certification is one way to use as a success measurement, but it's beyond just certification.

Abi Chen: What about you, Brian?

Brian Au: Sure, yes. So I'm a product manager in our customer experience orchestration group, specifically our analytics product set. So it's really all about using data insights to improve business outcomes and decision making.

I also focused on various reporting integrations across our platform and solution sets. It's really about helping our customers, organizations, understand customer behavior, identify those opportunities and deliver experiences to their customers.

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Where the Adobe Experience Cloud Talent Gap Is Biggest

Abi Chen: Thank you all so much. So we just got an overview of Adobe Experience Cloud, and of course throughout our conversation our audience will get to learn more.

Nick, we've got a question for you. So Adobe has heard consistently from partners and employers that there aren't enough people with Experience Cloud skills to meet that demand. Where is the talent gap biggest today, and what kinds of roles are employers trying to fill?

Nick Hilton: Yeah, so this is something huge that our team is constantly focused on. And just like Tyler said today, we're always focused on getting those skills to our users and our candidates to fill this talent gap.

And there are around 4,500 total Adobe partners that are invested in using and implementing Adobe Experience Cloud products. These partners are including Accenture, IBM, Deloitte, EY, PwC, and so many more. Those are just some of our top partners.

And this doesn't even include our Adobe customers that actively implement our products, either like Nike, Dick's, Delta, T-Mobile. We have a ton of customers that are implementing these products, but the gap is big. They're looking for people who have skills and experience in the Adobe Experience Cloud.

And so to answer your question, the biggest gaps are in analytics, customer journey, orchestration, personalization at scale, marketing technology.

And some of these roles could look like marketing technologists, also known as MarTech managers, MarTech analysts, implementation consultants, solution architects, personalization specialists. Those type of roles are in high demand, and we get a lot of feedback like you mentioned that they need them.

And this is where we're giving that opportunity, that this is a really great place to start to land a job or to break into this industry, because there's jobs out there, these partners and employers that are looking for talent.

And demand is just going to continue to grow as organizations invest more heavily in customer experience, personalization, and AI-powered marketing.

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What an Experience Cloud Practitioner Actually Does

Abi Chen: Thank you so much. And we'll definitely come back to that for students to learn more about how to take advantage of those opportunities.

Brian, we've got a question for you. For someone who has never worked in the space, what does an Experience Cloud practitioner actually do? Could you walk us through the kinds of business problems they might solve in a week?

Brian Au: Sure, yeah. So it's really going to be a wide band across our entire platform and solutions set. I think Nick touched on some of the activities.

But it's really about using enterprise grade and scale solutions to address business needs in terms of the customer experience, like journey, orchestration, activation, experimentation, content, authoring, and optimization efforts, all through to marketing optimization.

And then the whole analytics side, right, the measurement and iteration of that performance so that businesses can make better decisions, decide where to make those investments and really own that customer experience in a fully optimized manner.

So it's really going to depend, which I think is great, because you can kind of find your niche within the Experience Cloud, depending on which solution you have the most interest in, or most comfort, or where your skill is most aligned.

So that's a really powerful aspect, I think, of the certification program, as well as the wider solution set that you can kind of explore.

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Why Supply Hasn't Caught Up With Demand

Abi Chen: Thank you so much. Now I wanted to explore a little bit more deeply into the Adobe Experience Cloud application.

Adobe certification program has grown significantly, yet employers still report a shortage of qualified talent. So what is keeping supply from catching up with demand? Tyler, can you share your thoughts?

Tyler Tu: Yeah, great question. Love this question.

One thing is, as Brian alluded, we're growing. If you look at over the last four years, we're really innovating, creating new technology. Real-Time Customer Data Platform, Customer Journey Analytics. It's a lot of net new technology that's cutting edge.

As a result of that, we have to figure out how to go and really drive that cutting edge and get more people really to emerge and learn the technology.

One of the biggest challenge that I have seen is that a lot of people don't realize about digital marketing. It's just a lack of understanding. Most people think marketing is all about commercial, which we're used to seeing.

But what is unique about the market, and it's almost a trillion dollar over the next two or three years, is that marketing is only successful if it's personalized.

When is the last time you sit and watch a commercial and you say, you know what, I'm not interested in this, you kind of tune out? But imagine, and I know we all have digital access through our mobile phone, through email, that somehow they know exactly what we want and they know how to market to us.

This is what we do. From a digital perspective, customers are looking to drive revenue. And in order to do that, we have to drive the value and the brand and market at the right time. We can market anything, but you have to market to the right audience.

So I think what it is, is just a lack of understanding what digital marketing is all about.

So what we're trying to do right now is number one, to go and educate people more about what is digital marketing. But secondly, data is king. You cannot make the decision without that data.

And this is what Brian and us are going to talk about, about Customer Journey Analytics, is that there is so much data out there all over. But how do you bring this data together and really understand the unique profile of me as Tyler? What does Tyler really want? To do that, I have to understand Tyler. To understand Tyler, I need the data.

So this is what is unique about Adobe, is that we have this end-to-end solution that allow us to track the movement, pull all this data together in one central location, that allow us to understand who the individual is and know how to market and position to those individuals.

So our job is to really go and educate more individuals about digital marketing, the power of digital marketing, and what Adobe is bringing to the table. So that's why we're here today, and hopefully we can convey that message out to everyone.

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What a Certification Shows an Employer That a Resume Can't

Abi Chen: Thank you, Tyler, absolutely. And that's what this podcast is for, to educate students more about the importance of digital marketing.

So when someone earns an Adobe Experience Cloud certification, what does that signal to an employer about their knowledge that a resume does not? Nick, can we get your thoughts first?

Nick Hilton: Yeah, a resume, definitely put it on a resume. But what it doesn't show you, a resume doesn't show you everything that a certification can.

A resume shows maybe how long you've worked with a specific technology or product. But a certification provides evidence that they have a demonstrated knowledge against a recognized standard, like a set of criteria.

It also shows that a candidate has a well-rounded knowledge of that specific product rather than a typical experience in the product. Maybe a user might only be using a certain set of features, maybe two or three features within a product. Well, a certification, it tests your knowledge on the whole product. It shows that you're well-rounded.

And this shows an employer that their experience with the product goes beyond an average user, and instills a layer of trust to this hiring manager that they might think, if I hire this candidate, they'll be able to hit the ground running. So I'm more likely to hire this individual rather than somebody that just has experience on the resume.

Abi Chen: Brian?

Brian Au: Yeah, I agree. I think the certification instills confidence to the hiring manager. I'm somebody who's written some of the exams as well as taken the exams.

So it tells me someone that is invested in the craft of the role and in the time and sought out to make sure that they're up to date on the latest, and comprised of, like was mentioned, the full breadth of kind of what these certifications entail.

I'd also say to people that maybe they have a core set of solutions they work with and they're certified on, they want to kind of extend their skill set or go after another certification, maybe in the tool they're not as comfortable with. It's a great opportunity for that as well.

As well as what Adobe offers to the University Talent Program. Offering students that otherwise would not have the chance, because they're not out of a given company, out of a given startup, out of their career yet, but they're still able to get the experience of the tools as well as get certified. So I think that's a great opportunity that I absolutely recommend people take advantage of.

They absolutely do stand out by showing the initiative and being proactive in seeking out these certifications, as well as the hands-on experience alone is valuable.

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Where Certification Makes the Biggest Difference

Abi Chen: Thank you so much. And for these certifications, from the employer side, where have you seen Experience Cloud certifications or skills make the biggest difference? Is it getting hired, changing jobs, or becoming more effective when someone is in the job? Brian, can we hear from you first?

Brian Au: Yeah, I mean, I think all three. Certainly if you've been in the industry a while, a certification is another marker of your expertise, of your experience.

Certainly if you want to transition to something else and you want to get some certification, that's another marker that you've taken the initiative and you've acquired new skills and you're capable at a baseline level.

And then, yeah, I think it just helps with acceleration of your job performance. And it's an industry marker of a certain aptitude or certain level of knowledge against a given skill set and solution.

Abi Chen: Tyler, what about you? Anything to add?

Tyler Tu: Great question. I think about it every single day. And it's really all about building your credential.

Let's be honest, the market is tough. Competition is very steep. And the question you have to ask yourself is, what do I bring to the table that's so unique compared to my competitors, because that's really what you're stacking up with.

Everyone go to school, everyone will have a college degree, everyone have certain skills, certain experiences. So when you're in front of a customer or you're in front of that particular interview, how are you going to set yourself and how do you make yourself stand out differently?

You can work, you can have certification. So all these are different resources. It's available. We're not saying certification is the only end goal.

But imagine you at the job interview. If you guys have the same work experience, but you have a certification, someone doesn't. That will set you apart.

Secondly, it's very hard even to get an interview. So a lot of companies use that as a way to screen people out. Because when you apply for a job, we're talking about a thousand of resume, applications going in. So one of the things that we notice is that they use certification as a way to narrow down the search criteria. So now you have a great opportunity even to land an opportunity to do a job in the field.

So think about it. It's not about, hey, you need to go get a certification because this is the best thing. Think about it. How is that going to set you apart and how that build your portfolio so that way you stand out?

We go to college for a reason. We believe a degree show discipline. When you get a certification, you show discipline that you believe in this particular technology. You support this product.

So when you get certified in Adobe, it's not like just getting a basic degree. You are committed that you believe in the technology and you're there to help customers be successful. That is the purpose of a certification.

It's not just like, hey, let me just go grab the certification and I might land a job somewhere else. So when you make that commitment, you are really believed in the product, the technology, and the product that we're bringing to solve customers problem. And that's really what I want us to think about as the investment when you make that choice.

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How Brian Built a Career in Analytics

Abi Chen: So let's think about how to get started for a student who's interested. Brian, your own career led you into a role most graduate students have probably never heard of. How did you get into the space, and what would you tell someone considering a similar path today?

Brian Au: Sure, yeah. I mean, I would say I'm an example of someone whose career really has grown with the Adobe products in the Experience Cloud, really with the rise of web analytics and digital analytics and marketing technology at large.

And I've carried many roles. I've been a consultant, I've been an in-house practitioner, currently a product manager, building and developing the products directly.

So I would just say, follow the opportunities where there are challenging business problems or business spaces. Work on the craft from a domain perspective, from a technical perspective, from a just diversity of experiences perspective. There's really no substitute for that.

And I would say don't be too focused on a job title. Focus on problem solving, understanding the business, communication skills, having curiosity and drive. I think those are really important factors.

Find what gives you energy. And hopefully that could be paired to your day to day and your work ideally.

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Where to Start With No Technical Background

Abi Chen: A lot of people assume that they need a technical background before they can work with Adobe Experience Cloud. If someone listening today wanted to start building these skills, where should they begin?

Nick Hilton: Yeah, I can take that. So I'll say, first of all, you don't need a technical degree to get started. This kind of goes back to what Tyler mentioned before.

But you can begin kind of what Brian just said, follow your interests and don't be too hung up on a job role or a career hypothesis or I'm going to be X, Y or Z.

But if you have interest in anything we talked about, like breaking into tech or breaking into Adobe customer experience orchestration, we have what you need to get started.

I would say, first of all, begin by learning and being curious about customer journeys, analytics fundamentals, marketing concepts, personalization, what that means, and then using data to make valuable business decisions.

Chances are a lot of you are already doing that, but I would suggest you take advantage of our free courses on our site. So I'll put a little plug out for our site, certification.adobe.com. And Japheth has put that in the chat, and I'm sure he'll send that out in the show notes as well.

But go around and explore. We have a course catalog that you can just go ahead and look through and you can see which ones peak your interests.

If you have no idea where to start, there's also foundational courses that you can see, get a grasp on what is Adobe Experience Cloud just in general, and then take it to the next step to see like, maybe I'm more interested in marketing technology or marketing operations, and then follow that.

And I would just highly recommend you take these courses because also an additional plus to that is that after every course you take, it's not a huge time commitment. A lot of them are just about an hour.

Take the course and gain these learnings, but then at the end, we'll do a little assessment and you'll get a course completion certificate that you can share to your LinkedIn. So potential employers can see this or network can see this. And you get this a little bit of recognition just by doing this.

So really good place to start is on our certification portal.

And then also just look for opportunities to gain hands-on experience through case competitions and instructor led trainings, certifications, things like that to apply what you've learned. And I think the important thing is just to start building practical experience.

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What AI Changes About Analytics Work

Abi Chen: Thanks for the little teaser to the case competition. We'll discuss more about that in a moment.

Aside from case competition, another hot topic is AI. So as AI makes analytics tools easier to use, what becomes more valuable about someone who understands the customer journey, can interpret the data, and knows what actions to take? Tyler, would love to hear from you first.

Tyler Tu: It really transformed how we do business, and I challenge my team to think about this every single day, is how is AI going to teach us to think, how is AI going to help us to learn, and what exactly are we going to validate and measure if AI has those power.

But one thing you have to realize that we're still early in the AI phase. And if you do play with AI, you know AI is not going to answer for you. It's going to give you what you are asking for, but at some point someone has to make that decision. Eventually can AI make those decisions for you? Probably, but we're still way out.

So where I see AI is, don't be afraid, embrace it. You have to figure out how AI work into the model with where we are taking this over the next two or three years. If you don't support AI, you're going to be in serious hurt. So this is the first thing, embrace AI.

Now, think about it. I see the role is going to change quite a bit. You don't see a lot of development anymore because AI can do a lot of work. So think about AI as very task driven, that can do complex, fast information gathering, but we still need human to analyze and make business decision.

So think about if you understand how the data works and you prompt AI to pull this together, then you should be able to judge what is right and wrong and ask AI to give you additional data.

So use AI to do what I call the dirty task. Use your intelligence and knowledge to make the right decision and to improve those decisions. So take those two combinations.

Abi Chen: Great, Tyler. Brian, would also love to hear your take.

Brian Au: Yeah, I think AI absolutely can supercharge workflows and help us move faster, develop faster, write code faster. But at the end of the day, there still needs to be that layer of human decision-making, human judgment. Like what do we build, how do we build, what takes priority, and also just understanding the customer.

In some ways, it's almost a challenge. Because if you can go after so many things more easily, then you can go after the wrong thing, or maybe go after the wrong order of things. Or just move too quickly and quickly get out of sorts.

So absolutely, there's still a need for human steering, human understanding, human problem solving, human decision making, and using AI to free up time to give more time and space to those energies and approaches. That's how I'd put it.

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Inside the Customer Journey Analytics Environment Students Will Use

Abi Chen: Thank you, Brian. I wanted to talk about what a lot of our audience tuned in today is interested in, which is the Case Competition World Cup.

So the Case Competition World Cup will put graduate students into a provisioned Adobe Customer Journey Analytics environment to solve a real world business problem. What do you guys hope they learn by actually using Customer Journey Analytics, and what might that experience unlock for the students afterward? Nick?

Nick Hilton: Yeah, I'm super excited about this. This is something that I've been looking forward to, partnering with Management Consulted on this case competition for a lot of reasons.

But I really hope that, I mean, I hope they learn a lot, but we'll be providing Adobe, like you said, Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, or also known as CJA. So we'll be providing sandbox environments for all candidates to use during this competition.

So this is an excellent opportunity for students. I hope that they take advantage of the opportunity to experience what it feels like to solve a real business problem using an Adobe product, rather than just simply reading documentation about CJA or taking one of our courses, which is a really good place to start.

But taking courses, reading about it, studying up on the product, and then coupling that with hands-on experience using the product. That's where you can really get that experience.

And so I'm hoping that they take advantage of it and to use an Adobe tool to solve a business problem.

And this is officially your call to action to apply, if you're a grad student, to apply to the case competition, because it's going to be an awesome, exciting time.

Abi Chen: So now, students, if you're interested in applying, in a moment, we're going to pop up the QR code that you can register. On this topic, Brian, anything to add from you?

Brian Au: Yeah, so CJA is the product I support as a product manager, so I hope the students find that it's not simply about generating reports or dashboards.

Really, analytics is more than that, and it's about understanding the customer challenge or problem, or the problem space, really deeply. And making better decisions. Ultimately, we want to use this data to make better decisions, take some type of action, change some type of orchestration or activation.

So I hope they kind of take that into account, or take that to heart. And I feel like those skills are valuable across multiple industries, multiple career paths. So I think they're developing a skill set and a mindset that'll be applicable across a wide variety of career situations.

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A Preview of the Business Case and the Free Certification Vouchers

Abi Chen: What an incredible opportunity for the students to get to learn to use the tool and see the power of the tool.

All right, Nick, without giving too much away, can you give us a preview of the business problem that the students will be solving? I know you're super excited for this.

Nick Hilton: Yeah. Without giving too much away, participants will be given a business case with an emerging retail brand, really cool brand. And they'll be challenged to understand customer behavior, digital marketing, and really identify business opportunities.

And they'll be given this case, and a prompt and a few challenges that this business is facing. Obviously, the case is made up. But the students will be given this case to then analyze, utilize the CJA environment to make real business decisions and recommendations.

And it's difficult because the case will be given constraints that are relevant to most organizations and roles today. So it's really applicable to a lot of roles. But they'll really need to think like analysts, strategists, and business leaders to stand out and make it far in the competition.

And I will just say one additional incentive to apply and to compete is, we've talked about certification and training and learning and how it can set you apart and how valuable these skills are in the industry today.

And so an additional incentive is that we'll be offering free certification vouchers for all case competition candidates to encourage them to utilize these hands-on CJA environment and play around with it, gain experience, and then take a free certification exam to help these students and these candidates set them apart from their peers when applying to jobs.

Abi Chen: That is an amazing opportunity. I wish I had this opportunity back in my student days. So absolutely, I would encourage the audience to apply.

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One Thing to Do Next

Abi Chen: Before we shift gears and turn back over to Japheth to share more about the logistics with the case competition, wanted to hear from all of you today.

For someone who's listening, who might be curious about this career path, but has never used Experience Cloud before, what is the one thing you'd encourage them to do next? Tyler, why don't we start with you?

Tyler Tu: To understand and why you would do this, and understanding if this is the path for you.

We are all passionate about what we want to do, and typically we are more successful if we are passionate. So my ask is that research about the challenges that our customers are facing, understand how Adobe can help overcome those challenges, and then map those against your career path and say, are they a match?

Really at the end is I want you to be successful, and to be successful, you have to be ready and understand what you're getting ready to embark on. Because this is a potentially life career for you.

So we want you to start out really understanding that you're passionate, just like going to college. Your parents sit down and say, okay, these are the degree that we want you to pick and potentially these are the jobs that's available out there.

So now, let's think about this. Adobe can solve these customer problems. Are there a particular customer or company that you really admire, that you want to work for, and knowing that Adobe has technology that this customer is using? That could be a potential way of driving that excitement for you to learn about the technology.

Because once you do it, you all commit to it. So this is why I want to encourage you that by doing this, you really are making this investment, and this investment is going to set you up for the future. So take advantage of this opportunity.

Like you said earlier, I wish I had this opportunity when I was in college. In fact, my son just graduated two years ago. Guess what? I'm going to push him through this opportunity, because I think it's a great opportunity for him to learn. Thank you, Nick, for the opportunity. And I will make sure that he's part of this cohort.

So at the end, my summary is really do your research, understanding if this is really what you want to do. Is data is what you really love, and how can data help solve customer problem, and is Adobe the right technology that you really believe in? Those three combinations will help you be successful.

Abi Chen: Thanks so much, Tyler. We definitely look forward to seeing your son in this cohort. Brian, how about you?

Brian Au: Yeah, I think just be curious, ask questions, seek out kind of intellectually challenging exercises or work as part of this exercise.

I would also say just understand how businesses operate or function. What's their market, how do they earn revenue, how do they make decisions. Having that just wide mindset as applied to the analytical challenges that are raised through this competition, or just even working with the Experience Cloud, is just invaluable.

And then, yeah, just really try and have a proactive mindset, like a growth mindset, and applying yourself to this opportunity. Try out different techniques, try out different tools, maybe different visualizations.

Just really try and take in and apply yourself against the platform that's being offered, because that will give you the best sense of its capabilities, its functions, and how you can apply these to something that's a challenge.

Abi Chen: Thank you. And Nick?

Nick Hilton: Yeah, I would say, don't just take our word for it with all these job opportunities out there. I would say do some research on your own, see what type of jobs are out there that are related to Adobe Experience Cloud.

Take a look at all of our products that we have in the Experience Cloud, visit our site like I just mentioned. And that's in the show notes, and go there, play around with the products, kind of get a feel for what each product does.

And then look up jobs, use ChatGPT, Copilot, to see how many jobs really are out there that they're looking for this type of talent.

And then also just gauge your interests. I mean, you're in school, I'm sure students, they've done a lot already, a lot of exploring on what they're interested in, what type of jobs they're wanting to land outside of their degree.

But then pair it up with something within the Experience Cloud and see how they could imagine a future within the Experience Cloud and all the different doors that it can open by gaining these skills.

So gauge your interests, go to our site, explore a learning path via our courses, and then pair that up with a certification or a case competition, get these skills. And really sometimes a single experience can introduce you to an entirely new career opportunity.

Like Brian mentioned, this wasn't what he had in mind, he didn't just choose it, but it's opened a lot of doors for him. So I think this is just awesome opportunities for students to gain real valuable skills that can open doors to the future of their career.

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How to Enter the Case Competition World Cup

Japheth Mast: What a great opportunity. I mean, this could really be a big impact on somebody's career, right? As you just said, Nick.

And so this might be that spark, that light bulb moment when you realize, hey, this is what I want to do, and that could change everything.

So definitely take the next step and apply for the World Cup. The Case Competition World Cup. So graduate students, talking to you, apply now.

Link in the show notes, you can scan this QR as well. But you have a little over one week to put your team of four to five, classmates, peers, etc. together and get your application in.

It's completely free. And just for applying, you get a ton of amazing goodies. For example, in a few weeks, you will join an Adobe enablement session. So the team's going to do a demo of the analytics environment. So you'll really get to go deeper in this.

And then if you're selected for the case competition, if you're one of the 50 teams selected, you're actually going to work inside the CJA environment, like we've been talking about throughout the course of the episode.

And so you'll really get your hands dirty working through this case inside an Adobe environment. So it's really, really cool, unique, even rare opportunity to just get that hands-on experience that looks really great on your resume. It sounds really good in your interviews, right? And it will help you stand out in the job search.

It's a little bit of a crazy market right now, but it's going to help give you a leg up on your competition.

So apply now, get your team together, and we'd love to see you there.

Lastly, here's the link you've all been waiting for. So the QR code here on the right, that will take you to Adobe's certifications page. You can dive into the free courses, you can explore, you can see what's available.

In addition, for you students, Adobe has been very gracious and said, hey, we want to give a student discount to everybody who registered for the call. And so we're going to give that to you as well. Keep an eye out on your email where we will send you that code. That's a very generous discount on the Adobe certification.

So take advantage of that, reach out if you've got any questions. But again, just really excited about this opportunity and I hope every person here will take advantage of it, because it's a pretty cool thing.

With that, we're going to continue the Q&A. So for the remainder of the call, we're going to answer your questions. And so I'm going to turn it back over to Abi to dive into those.

But man, you all sent in some really good questions and I'm excited to go deeper into this topic. So Abi, let me turn it over to you to jump right in.

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What the Adobe Certification Costs and How Long It Takes

Abi Chen: Thank you so much, Japheth, again. And yes, we highly, highly encourage everyone to apply and really learn to use the CJA tool and put things to use in a real world business problem.

Once again, thank you all for your excitement in pre-submitting your questions for our panel here.

So the first question we have, it was submitted from a Stanford student, and Nick, we would love your help with answering this one. So what is the certification cost, and how long does it typically take, and how much time should someone plan to put in?

Nick Hilton: Yeah, that's a great question. It depends on the level of the certification, but our standard certification for professionals is $125. However, for students, we give a student discount at $80 currently.

And so we really want to encourage students to take advantage of this because it can really set them up in their career, like we've mentioned.

And it really does depend on the amount of effort and time that one puts into prepare for certification in order to pass the certification.

But luckily on the site that we've linked, Adobe Certifications, the value of that site is it's kind of a one-stop shop. If you go to the certification in the nav bar, there's certification, there's a certification catalog. And then you can choose whatever certification you have interest in.

And then when you click on that certification, obviously it will also make you log in. So if you don't have an account with us, it will make you create an account. If you already have an Adobe ID, it will just log you in.

And then when you click on the desired certification, it will bring you to what we call an exam card. And then you can click study for exam and it gives you a list of resources. We have a practice test, we have exam prep guides that really walk you through how to prepare for a certification exam. And then it will lead you to scheduling your exam.

So we highly recommend everybody follow those tips for preparing for a certification exam before they schedule an exam, and that will hopefully set you up for success and gauge your certification readiness.

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Getting Recruiters to See Your Certification

Abi Chen: Thanks, Nick. We've also got another question for you. So when someone earns the certification, what's the best way to ensure that recruiters actually see it?

Nick Hilton: Yeah, another good question. Like I mentioned earlier in the call, when you complete a course, you get a course completion certificate.

Similar to that, when you pass a certification exam, you are awarded a certification certificate as well. But on top of that, you are awarded a digital badge.

And we highly recommend sharing both of those to LinkedIn. Sharing your digital badge on LinkedIn really shows people. There's a perfect spot on LinkedIn for it. And on our site, it makes it super easy that you just click a button that says share your certification badge and it will upload. It links you to your LinkedIn and it uploads directly there. And it's for all your network to see. And that's the best way to share with your network that you're certified.

And then obviously I would also absolutely put that on your resume and speak to it in job interviews and share with hiring managers what it took to get you certified and how that sets you apart from your competition, because you are certified in an Adobe product.

Abi Chen: Thank you, Nick. Tyler, would you have anything else to add on this topic, since earlier you were talking about the importance of building credibility?

Tyler Tu: My only advice is networking. Connect with me. Connect with Nick. Connect with Brian.

I have thousands of people out there. Bunch of recruiters are constantly reaching out to me. Do I know anyone with these skill sets, because they see my title. I run Adobe, so they're looking for consultants.

So my advice is not just get a certification. I think that's a good point. It's all about building that relationship. Know the people who are in this industry that has a really strong voice in the connection, because once you make that connection, you will reach thousands of people.

So my advice is to figure out how to build those relationships. See who's certified out there, talk to the peers and then build those relationships. Because it's so easy to go out and search on LinkedIn of all the people who are certified and then make those connections, because a lot of times they'll look for those skill sets.

Recruiters, I tell you, every week, I had five or ten recruiters reaching out to me, hey, are you interested in this job? I said, well, I could, but I might not be the right person.

So my advice is to do that. A lot of networking, LinkedIn is a really good source, but definitely connect with me. And if there's opportunities, I would love to connect with you to other recruiters, partners, because I work with partners every day. And they are constantly looking for help. And the more you interact with different people, those opportunities will come up.

Let's be honest, most of the job found in today is who you know. Because when you apply for a job, it's usually go to a dead end, because a lot of time they already know who's going to get that job. And if that job is available, it's a very small percentage.

So my advice is build a relationship, network, know the people who's in this business and build those relationships, and start with us because we know those people.

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What Clients Are Actually Trying to Learn About Customer Behavior

Abi Chen: Brian, we'll have a question for you. So what are some questions about customer behavior that clients are actually trying to answer in the real world? This is from a student from Berkeley.

Brian Au: Yeah, so it'll really vary on the business question, and what data is being collected and the data sources that can be analyzed.

But a lot of it would be what you imagine. Just understanding the overall health of business, performance trends, seasonal trends.

I would say like campaign efforts or any efforts by the business to improve the business or market the business, all of that could be analyzed and taken in as signals.

I mean, that's honestly the fun part of analytics. Is you get to be the investigator and do the detective work and hash out which signals matter, which ones are noise, what action the business should take and make recommendations.

That's really, I would say, the fun part of the job, is the aspect where you can kind of impact decision making and business decisions using data, using analysis, using your knowledge of what transpired and also your recommendations on way forward for the business.

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What a Graduating Student Should Do to Get Hired at Adobe

Abi Chen: Tyler, back to you. We have a question. So what should a graduating student do right now if they want to get hired at Adobe?

Tyler Tu: Be curious, because technology changes very fast. So have an open mind, think outside the box and really learn and be a sponge.

Because at the end, the technology changes so fast. So one of the advice I give is start figuring out how you learn about using AI, learn about how AI affected the industry, but how AI is affecting what Adobe is doing.

Because that to me is very important, because if you talk about it, everyone mentioned about AI every single day. Even a job in a field, you have to put something with AI around it.

And some of the things we're doing around AI is we are in the process of building some AI certification. And that is going to be launching. Adobe Firefly is one. So AI is massive. We have AI in some of our products today. So that will be evolved.

So my advice is a couple of things. Is to learn about the AI, pick something that you're really passionate about, because at the end, like I say, it's easy to teach someone the technology. It's harder to teach someone business process and decision-making.

And I think Brian know that, he's been in this business for a very long time. Technology, we all know you intelligent enough to go learn those skill sets. But decision making is the toughest thing.

So learn how to understand the customer problem. And this is why I talked about the customer. It's not about us. It's about solving customer problems. And that's why we exist. What are the problems that we're trying to solve?

And when you go and talk to a customer, you interview for the job, it's all about how can you help someone solve a problem. The employer is looking for you to help them solve a problem. Customer is looking for Adobe to help them solve problems.

So think about is that what can I do to help solve problems? So think about problem solving, think about opportunities. And if you can think that way, and when you have those opportunities, I think you will set yourself apart. And I think by doing that, I think that's very important.

Because a lot of people don't teach that. It's think about solving problems. It's more about go do this, go implement this.

But reality is that a lot of time what you learned today will change tomorrow. What you work on today will be different in front of the customer tomorrow. So the question is when you're in front of the customer or in front of a situation, how can you use your problem solving to go and figure it out?

Because there's never always the same two project. Two project may look the same, but the outcome might be slightly different, right, how you approach it.

So those are the kind of things that I want all of us to think about, is innovate, think outside the box, and really more about problem solving.

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Next Steps

Grad students, apply to the Case Competition World Cup presented by Adobe. Form your team and get your application in by Sunday, September 13th.

In addition, start your journey to Adobe certification at the link in the show notes.

Lastly, if you're a student, check out the show notes as well for your student discount code.

Thanks for listening and hope to see you in the World Cup.