How Certification Digital Badges can Change your Career
In today’s online learning age, digital credentials are popular amongst both employees and employers.
“With digital badging employers can verify your credentials and they can check what skills and knowledge you need to obtain and maintain them. It validates your accomplishments,” said Suzanne Bertschi, Director, Global Certifications and Programs for International Institute of Business Analysis.
IIBA® has partnered with Accredible to provide a digital version of your IIBA core and specialized certifications. Accredible is the certification provider behind companies like Google, Udacity, Telefonica, the International Association of Privacy Professionals and many more.
So really, what’s so special about digital badging? In a nutshell, digital credentials are an electronic form of recognition of your knowledge and skills. Digital badges are verifiable, which means that employers can search Accredible’s registry to verify your IIBA certification and better understand the competencies and skills required by you to obtain and maintain your certifications. And it provides assurances to potential employers that your skills have been validated by a highly credible third party.
According to Elisabeth Rees-Johnstone, Executive Director of Continuing Education and Professional Learning at OISE, University of Toronto “Employers want to know that their current talent and prospective talent have the skills and competence they need to develop and excel in their work role, and digital badging is a helpful tool to achieve this.”
IIBA’s badges are ‘Open’ and visually communicate your competencies like a physical certificate does but with the added benefit of being verifiable and trackable online in real-time. Open badges can be part of a digital credentials ‘Backpack’ that stores them online so you can share them between platforms. Accredible’s verification service allows employers to easily validate your badge to authenticate your skills and knowledge – an important tool when you are actively looking for a new role.
Showcase your skillsets
Use your social media platform on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter or included them in your email signature or on a website to easily showcase your achievements and share them with your network. You can select your privacy level and decide if you want to make your achievement discoverable on search engines or set it to private and only share with selected people. One of the benefits of digital badges is the advantage of searchability and the opportunity to build recognition with hiring managers to demonstrate that an individual has the required knowledge and skills for the role.
“Digital badges let you share your capabilities in a simple and trusted way that is easily verified online,” said Suzanne. Badges tell your network and employers what you had to do to earn your credential and your competency level. “IIBA digital badges share details of your accomplishment, knowledge and skills in any of our core and specialized certifications,” added Suzanne.
Gain valuable market insights
Accredible tracks the skills required for achieving each certification and links those skills to job market insights. They also show jobs available in the US requiring those skillsets now open to IIBA certificate-holders and share US market salary expectations associated with earning those certifications. These valuable labor market insights provide a snapshot of the compensation increase you can expect from achieving your certification. This are some of the many reasons IIBA chose Accredible as their partner for the digital badge program.
Getting certified can help you move your career forward which may mean a salary increase, additional responsibilities or both. But there are other non-monetary benefits of being certified. Respondents in IIBA’s 2018 Salary Survey show that 45% of respondents report earning certification gave them greater confidence at work and 21% experienced increased fulfillment at work.
Knowing which employers are looking for individuals with your skills and a sampling of openings seeking IIBA certification reinforces the value of certifications, especially competency-based certifications, that help employers understand the unique skill sets and capabilities of business analysis professionals.
“Digital badging and certificates are a great way for you to demonstrate your professional competencies. Afterall, you’ve worked hard to develop your skills; why not show them off?” adds Suzanne.
Learn more about IIBA’s Certification Digital Badging and Registry