Well, being the early adopter of the internet lifestyle that I was, I looked online to see if there was some lame online class I could find somewhere or another to knock out real fast and get some sort of sheepskin-like document that I could show to prospective employers. Instead, I found a company called TekMetrics which offered online certification in a variety of internet-related topics - completely for free. You had to take an online quiz (that was surprisingly in-depth and complex, actually!) but there was nothing stopping you from searching in another browser for the answer. If you passed the quiz, you were awarded a certificate, which they would mail to you for free. I still don't know how they were making money - or if they even planned to make money as so many internet companies back then simply profited by IPOs - but regardless, I received the certificates for the tests I took in the mail barely a week later. My then-prospective employers were suitably impressed by them, but I didn't get the job regardless.
TekMetrics, alas, like so many other internet companies, is now long gone.
They really were sharp-looking, professional certificates...
Above written 27th December 2011
