I am getting close to the end of my PhD and have several peer-reviewed conference proceedings from well-regarded international conferences. I am trying to figure out how much they actually count compared with journal articles. Should I keep submitting to conferences, or should I put more of my time into getting journal papers out?
Are conference proceedings worth as much as journal publications?
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This really depends on the field. Before deciding, I would ask your advisor what hiring committees in your area actually look for. The publication culture can be very different from one discipline to another.
In my field, conference presentations are useful for feedback and networking, but they do not carry the same weight as journal publications when people are evaluating a research record. A conference paper can still be useful, but I would not assume that doing more of them automatically replaces journal articles.
Be careful about using the phrase 'conference proceedings' as if every field means the same thing by it. Some conferences only publish an abstract or short summary after accepting a presentation. Others require a complete paper, send it through peer review, and publish the full paper in formal proceedings.
Computer science is a good example of why field matters. In some areas, highly selective conferences publish full peer-reviewed papers and are a major part of the publication system. That is very different from a conference where acceptance is based only on an abstract.
I would also look at the expectations for the kinds of jobs you want. A conference proceeding might be valued quite differently by a research university, a teaching-focused institution, or an employer outside academia. Check recent CVs and publication records of people who were hired into positions similar to the ones you want.
There is also a time issue. Conferences can give you a faster way to get work out and get feedback while a journal paper is going through a long review process. I would not necessarily stop doing conferences. I would think about whether the conference work can develop into stronger journal papers.
If you are in an interdisciplinary area, ask people on both sides of the field. For example, someone working at the intersection of a journal-heavy discipline and a conference-heavy discipline may get very different advice from each community. Look at where successful researchers in your specific subfield publish, rather than relying on a general rule.