Certifications & What It Signals?

Certificates, Diplomas, Degrees

I recently had an interesting discussion on certification program, which looking at the current landscape, does feel a strong need for a deeper look into it and where it is needed.

Completion or Proficiency

I am sure most of us know that the proliferation of certification programs for data analytics, data science and even cybersecurity is a phenomenon in the last decade at least. These certification program if you check them out are mostly “Certification of Completion” rather than “Certification on Proficiency”. Wait, what does it mean and what is the difference?

If you see a “Certificate of Completion”, it only means that the person has completed the program, with or without an assessment. It only means that the person was taught the whole syllabus (hopefully published), whether or not the person understands the skills and knowledge taught, and know when to apply, the certificate really did not claim that. It is the employer’s wishful thinking that the participants have the skills and knowledge shared during the course or bootcamp.

“Certificate of Proficiency” will be greatly different. It means that the participants is very likely to have completed a professional assessment, and through the assessment has determined that the participants has certain proficiency level of skills (whether competent for the job role or tasks that is a different story worthy of another newsletter issue). Example of such Certification will be like Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) or Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA).

I am not saying either one is better than the other, but more of the auditors of talent pipelines, namely HR should be aware of that and for the rest who are taking all these boot camps and certification program, to be mindful of it.

What it Signals?

Having a Certificate is a “short-cut”, to signal that the holder of the certificate has certain exposure to a set of skills and knowledge if the outline is published or a domain area, like Data Science, the holder has exposure to all the necessary skills and knowledge of the domain area. A word of caution here, the biggest assumption is the issuer of the certificate has a very good idea about the domain area, i.e. if it is a “Certificate of Data Science”, you are equipped with the skills and knowledge DEEMED IMPORTANT by the certificate issuer, whether it matches job reality is another question to be answered.

Certification is very important in an information asymmetric environment. Using Artificial Intelligence as an example, because it is a considered a very “new” field, most employers have no idea what are the necessary skills and knowledge needed for the job role. “Certificate in Artificial Intelligence” will cut short the search, matching of skills to tasks, and validation time for the employer, “short-cutting” the time period between the opening of the job positioning to filling up the position.

From another perspective, one can also say that if the employers know the domain well, then there really is no need for certification as the employers will have its own preferred way to assess competencies and also employers are less likely to pay more for ‘certified’ personnel.

Conclusion

There are two points I hope to make here. As an individual breaking into a new field, it is important for one to assess what taking up particular certification means and the signal it can send to employers. Will it signal to your employers you are competent for a job role you are applying into? And after answering the “signal” question, it’s time to look at the other side of the equation and that is how much effort, time and costs needed to get that “signals”.

For the employers, it is time to revisit what certification signals and how can it improve your talent strategy in a Knowledge Economy. The fastest to fill up positions with competent talents may just become a strong competitive advantage going forward! Certification program will continue to grow in numbers, given it is a lucrative business but more certification programs will also mean more noises in the talent search process.

What are your thoughts on Certification Programs? I will love to hear them so do share them in the comments below! :)

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