8 Best Microsoft Certifications to Advance Your Skills

If you’re just looking around or want to test the waters with the Microsoft certifications, the Azure fundamentals is a good place to start.

Azure has to do with cloud computing so with this certification, you will have learned all about its basic concepts, architecture, services, management and governance. It may sound technical but even the non-tech-savvy can take on this course.

However, if you feel inadequate for self-learning, Microsoft has also taken that into account and with a training provider, you get someone to hold your hand throughout the course until you get your certification.

The good thing is that the course is offered in a variety of languages making it widely accessible. as far as duration is concerned, you can study and attain your certification in one day but if you don’t feel ready enough to take the exam, you can practice more and sit for the exam when you’re ready.

Microsoft adequately prepares you for the exam with some pre-assessment questions as well as an experience demo so that you can get a feel of the real thing.

Once you’re ready, you can sit for the 45-minute exam. Results are readily available and if you fail, you can retake it in the next 24 hours.

When taking the exam, we encourage you to use your personal account instead of a work/school account because if you ever leave the organization and your account is deactivated, your certification will be lost and cannot be recovered.

⇒ Get Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

You can get a Microsoft certification to become an educator. A lot of people usually get certification for their own personal gains but as a Microsoft educator, you’re giving back to the community.

The good thing about this certification, it can be used at all levels from primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. The goal is to introduce Microsoft products and services in the classroom.

Students can begin interacting with technology from presenting their school work using Microsoft’s tools like PowerPoint and Microsoft Teams.

As an educator, you get to modernize your classroom environment and make your work easier especially when tracking student’s progress. Students also get a head start in the technology world having interacted with the basics and can influence their career choices.

⇒ Get Microsoft Certified Educator

In the ever-evolving tech landscape, cybersecurity threats are also continuously evolving. If you’re at the helm or in a key position of threat monitoring and system security within an organization, this is a perfect certification.

It can also be a great certification for IT specialists who want to venture into cybersecurity. You’ll gain skills on how to mitigate risk exposure, use advanced threat intelligence to hunt and detect threats and how to respond to such incidents.

Common areas where you will apply this knowledge include Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365. This is because it will mostly be on active attacks in cloud and on-premises environments.

The learning process is the same. You can do a self-paced or request for a trainer. The course is available in multiple languages and takes approximately 43 hours. The exam will take 100 minutes with a retake available after 24 hours.

Since this is a specialty course, you will be required to renew your certificate after six months. You will take a renewal assessment and if you pass, it will be extended for a year.

The renewal process is to ensure you’re up to par with the latest Microsoft Security technologies. The renewal assessment is free and there are learning modules available to help you brush up on your skills.

This certification is just one of the stepping stones to acquiring other certifications in the same area. For instance, it is a pre-requisite to acquiring the Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate certification.

⇒ Get Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate

Most organizations if not fully remote are on a hybrid work arrangement so collaboration is key. This certification will be fundamental in facilitating productivity and collaboration in the Microsoft 365 suite.

In this course, you will learn how to optimize communication and address common challenges that stall the collaboration process. From virtualization, endpoint application management and automated system deployment, you’ll be able to enhance productivity.

You will also learn about Microsoft 365 security and compliance, pricing and licensing to ensure your organization is adhering to the said policies and maximizing its investment in the Microsoft 365 license.

The course is approximately 9 hours so you should be able to complete it and take the exam in a day. You’ll pay $99 for the exam depending on your region.

⇒ Get Microsoft 365 Certified: Fundamentals

If you’re familiar with Power Automate, then this will be a great certification to add. It’s for beginners so you don’t need supporting certifications and you’re looking to enhance your organization’s digital transformation capabilities.

Using Power Apps automates a lot of processes and learning skills on how to automate workflows and enhance productivity can be achieved by taking on this course.

At the end of the course, you should have learnt the basics of Power platform fundamentals. These include improving processes, analyzing data and building code apps. You should also have learnt how to integrate these Power apps with Microsoft 365 products.

And with Copilot already introduced in the Power apps, you should be able to automate custom workflows and extract valuable data for analysis and interpretation to improve app interactions. With this certification, you can move up the career ladder to an app developer.

⇒ Get Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Fundamentals

Windows server environments require some skill and to manage them effectively, you’ll need the Windows Server hybrid administrator associate certificate.

In this course, you will learn all about server migration, management and recovery. You will need some background knowledge of Azure, PowerShell, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other related services.

By the end of the course, you should be able to successfully deploy Active Directory Domain Services on-premises and on the cloud. You should also have grasped knowledge and skills on how to manage virtual machines.

Storage on the cloud, implementing new network infrastructure on the server, as well as migration of servers, should also be at your finger tips.

You should also keep a close look on the server as disasters are bound to happen. Your job should be to detect and analyze the threats and then take action. Is it a disaster that you can recover from or should you migrate the server?

If you’re migrating, you should also have sound storage policies that allow you to backup and restore in case of a catastrophic disaster.

The course is at an intermediate level so it will take a bit of time to complete. But once you do, you will not only unlock new career opportunities but also access to other certifications right up your alley.

⇒ Get Microsoft Certified: Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate

Microsoft Teams has remained an industry leader as a collaboration tool. At the enterprise level, getting the Teams Administrator Associate certification places you at a unique position of advancing your career.

You will be responsible for both internal and external communications ensuring the organization implements both security and compliance policies. Your tasks will be to configure Microsoft Teams to meet network policies for seamless communication with no interruptions.

When managing messaging, calls and chats, these will be organization-based so you will apply custom policies. These include custom templates, settings and apps. You will also manage any integrations with the application to ensure they comply with the organization’s policies.

Further, you’re required to monitor the performance such as the quality of the calls, extract the data and analyze how to improve it. This will help you deploy only the necessary apps that integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Teams for effective communication and collaboration.

Once you acquire this certification, you can advance your career and become a sought-after collaboration expert or specialist especially for large organizations.

⇒ Get Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate

This is the amped-up version of the Microsoft 365 Certified: Fundamentals certification. However, that is not the only pre-requisite. You will need five other certifications to acquire this one so it’s not a beginner-level one.

In this course, you will be learning how to manage, deploy and troubleshoot Microsoft 365 tenant-level implementation and administration of cloud and hybrid environments.

The course is designed for users who have probably want to upgrade to large-scale organizations that need management of complex Microsoft 365 organizational profiles.

You will be responsible for the security of the organization and you should be able to implement high-level security measures. This goes hand in hand with configuring the organization’s user accounts and assigning permissions to user accounts.

It’s a critical position to hold in an organization because you give role-based access for compliance and security and any mistake could put the organization at risk. Since this is an enterprise-level certification, you’ll be strategically placed for roles like an Enterprise administrator.

⇒ Get Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert