How we’re keeping up with the increasing demand for the Google Workspace Administrator role

We’ve rebranded the Professional Collaboration Engineer Certification to the Professional Google Workspace Administrator Certification and updated the learning path. To mark the moment, we sat down with Erik Geerdink from SADA to talk about how the Google Workspace Administrator role and demand for this skill set has changed over the years. Erik is a Deployment Engineer and Pod Lead. He holds a Professional Google Workspace Administrator Certification and has worked with Google Workspace for more than six years.

What was it like starting out as a Google Workspace Administrator?

When I first started, I was doing Google Workspace Support as a Level 2 Administrator. At that time, there were fewer admin controls for Google Workspace. There were calendar issues, some mail routing issues, maybe a little bit of data loss prevention (DLP), but that was about it.

About 5 years ago, I transferred into Google Deployment and really got to see all that went on with deploying Google Workspace and troubleshooting advanced issues. 

Since then, what you can accomplish in the admin console has really taken off. There’s still Gmail and Calendar configurations, but the security posture that Google offers now—they’ve really upped their game. The extent of DLP isn’t just Gmail and Drive anymore; it extends into Chat. And we’re doing a lot of Context-Aware Access to make sure users only have as much access as IT compliance allows in our deployments. Calendar interop, which allows users in different systems to see availability, has been a big area of focus as well.

How has the Google Workspace Administrator role changed over the last few years? 

It used to be that you were a systems admin who also took care of the Google portion as well. But with Google Workspace often being the entry point to Google Cloud, we’ve had to become more knowledgeable about the platform as a whole. Now, we not only do training with Google Workspace admins for our projects, we also talk to their Google Cloud counterparts as well.

Google Workspace is changing all the time, and the weekly updates that Google sends out are great. As an engineering team, every week on Wednesday, we review each Google Workspace update that’s come out to understand how they affect us, our clients, and our upcoming projects. There’s a lot to it. It’s not just a little admin role anymore. It’s a strategic technology role.

What motivated you to get Google Cloud Certified?

I spent the first 15 years of my career doing cold server room roles, and I knew I had to get cloudy. I wanted to work with Google, and it was a no-brainer given the organization’s reputation for innovation. I knew this certification exam was the one to get me in the door. The Professional Google Workspace Administrator certification was required to level up as an administrator and to make sure our business kept getting the most out of Google Workspace. 

How has the demand for certified Google Workspace Admins changed recently? 

Demand has absolutely gone up. We are growing so much, and we need more professionals with this certification. It’s required for all of our new hires. When I see a candidate that already has the certification, they go to the top of the list. I’ll skip all the other resumes to find someone who has this experience. We’re searching globally—not just in North America—to find the right people to fill this strategic role.

Explore the new learning path

In order to keep up with the changing demands of this role, we’ve rebranded the Professional Collaboration Engineer Certification to the Professional Google Workspace Administrator Certification and updated the learning path. 

The learning path now aligns with the improved admin console. We’ve replaced the readings with videos for a better learning experience: in total, we added 17 new videos across 5 courses to match new features and functionality. 

Earn the Professional Google Workspace Administrator Certification to distinguish yourself among your peers and showcase your skills.