Do certifications matter?

[too much information]

I am looking for a career change and want to turn my web design and marketing hobby into a full time job. My problem is that other than real world experience I don't have anything but my word to prove my qualifications because I am largely self taught and do most of my coding by hand.

I have been looking into getting Dreamweaver Certified and taking some Continuing Ed. classes at a local university to get certified for various web design topics through them.

But I found a hit in my logs last night from another local university and as it turns out the hit was from an online discussion group from an advanced web design class. So if the advanced web design class is discussing my site design would I be throwing my money away by taking some of these classes?

Are certifications really that important when it comes to getting a job in the web design/marketing field?

[Marketing Guy]

Nope.

If you are going for the technical side of the industry (design, implementation, etc) then have a solid portfolio ready and then approach agencies or companies who are recruiting SEO techs.

If you are going for the marketing side, then knowledge and to some extent experience is important, but it's all down to the specific job role. For example, as a campaign manager you would be expected to have client handling experience / potential. For PPC you would be expected to have a high level of literacy / numeracy / etc.

Good solid evidence of your abilities (ie good rankings on competitive terms) will go a long way further than any certification ever could.

Depends a great deal where you live (or want to work) too - finding a SEO job outside of major cities is difficult (in the UK anyway).

Certifications could still be a bonus to your CV / resume but not essential (well, perhaps an exception could be large corporations who want to cover the bases with each employee having a certain minimum qualification / experience / certification).

MG