The 1# Purpose of Higher Education is to “Get a Good Job!”
Accredicity is the credentialing platform that allows you to earn new skills to gain more career opportunities. Accredicity can help you realize your career goals by providing education to earn the credentials and certificates to launch a new or advance an existing career. At Accredicity, we create pathways into relatively higher-paying employment or careers for people with and without degrees.
What can I do with my career after graduating?
A 2018 Gallup Survey results confirm that “work outcomes are the main reason most people chose higher education, with 58% reporting job and career outcomes as their primary motivation.” Employers are demanding new hires bring something else to the table, such as soft skills. Stackable credentials give students greater choices around their courses and program and credential choice, in addition to ensuring a clear tie-in to career outcomes. This allows workers not to waste their time and effort to build their education and career in lockstep simultaneously, with one informing the other, rather than sequentially, which is faster and easier to complete if you are a working professional.
How will these stackable credentials benefit my new/existing/future career?
Since the Great Recession of 2008, more and more career-minded students have demanded higher education to facilitate credential pathways to successful careers. Equipping students with the universal skills they need to get a job will serve the student well when the time comes to find a job, and when they are on the job, these skills will provide the learner with a knowledge base to build upon throughout their career. In today’s economy, graduates demand industry credentials and the essential skills to succeed in the many careers they will hold in their lifetime. “Research from the National Soft Skills Association reports that 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills.” Listing the universal skills you’re earning at Accredicity on your resume, demonstrating them in a job interview, and developing them professionally in the workplace can support your career and open you to new job opportunities. Take, for example, a worker named John. He has been doing tech support at a call center for a year and is looking to advance in his career. He starts with a short-term stackable credential at Accredicity paid for by his company’s education benefits program. This allows him to be promoted and move into a role in the company, which increases his salary and employee benefits. In addition to this example, it is now common knowledge that graduates will go through dozens of career changes in their lives. Regardless of if you’re applying for a new position or performance review, it’s critical to introduce students to the process of stackable credentials programs since there is a high likelihood they will need to go in and out of this kind of education and lifelong learning for their entire career. This becomes even more important when someone is fired, laid off, or is out of a job since they immediately have in their resume a valuable credential that can help them land their next job.
Can I earn more money?
Yes, according to Catherine Weinberger of the Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara: “Employees who demonstrate an aptitude for soft skills, in addition to technical abilities, earn an average of 10% more than employees who excel in just one area.” However, it’s still the early days, and researchers at McKinsey & Co, state that there’s a lot of research and conversations on the value of soft skills. Employers need to continue changing how they operate for skill-based credentials to lead to higher incomes for graduates. Still, the focus will need to shift to actually reward this value with higher salaries. Otherwise, if leaders of organizations who benefit from workers with more soft skills can effectively reward such employees with more pay, employee benefits, and a better work environment, the soft skill gap will continue to grow in the future. Careers that rely on soft skills, like creativity, innovation, and critical thinking, are often better paid. Also, employees are often turned down for positions or promotions because they lack the skills expected by their employers. Plus, the higher the education level of workers, the more likely they are to use soft skills on the job and the higher their salaries. An outlier example of this is teachers at the Fredric W. Watson Elementary School in Nevada, who get a $5,400 raise in salary by earning stackable credentials in soft skills. Therefore, earning more money to learn soft skills is possible. However, employers must do more to value soft skills in their organization. Since employers value soft skills more than ever, employees are looking for higher earning potential need to invest in skill-based education. Students at Accredicity, already employed, may leverage their micro-credentials and professional certificate for a promotion or salary increase. Skill-Based Education Pays itself off when you land a new job or lead you to get higher pay or a promotion in your current career.
How long will reskilling take?
According to a Future of Jobs survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF), reskilling of six months or less will be required for around 40% of the workforce. In reality, today’s business leaders expect employees to learn new skills while employed. Skills training will be acquired individually or delivered internally via an online learning platform such as Accredicity. Instead of taking several years to complete like a traditional university degree, programs at Accredicity are designed to be completed in about 4 to 6 months. Do not waste your time and money on a long-term specialized program that takes years to achieve when you can have a generalized program completed in 6 months or less that is personalized to fit your career goals.
Do you have the skills to win your next job?
An increasing number of employers accept online skill-based micro-degrees as legitimate credentials. In essence, skills-based hiring focuses on a candidate’s actual competencies rather than formal qualifications. By targeting the skills from the start, employers tap into a wider talent pool, fill the positions faster, and save on training and onboarding. A survey on reinventing higher education found that 61% of hiring managers perceive online credentials as comparable to in-person options. Businesses understand that lifelong learning is key to successful talent acquisition and retention strategy. As a result, employers are investing more heavily in skill-based training. Skill-Based training and hiring provides transparency, unlocks human potential, strengthens our workforce, and signals competency to potential employers. This is why using Accredicity at our organization can make a big difference for job candidates.
Upskill Yourself with a Skills Bootcamp Accelerator
At Accredicity, we focus on upskilling and reskilling our students in Universal Skills from our Universal Competency Framework. Individuals report using soft skills more frequently than hard skills in their current or most recent jobs, and employers prefer to select candidates who have a more robust set of soft skills over hard skills. In addition, soft skills will help anyone succeed in life no matter what they do. Whether you’re a server in a small restaurant or the CEO of a big corporation, soft skills will be the decisive factor in your success. A 2019 LinkedIn report says that 92% of hiring managers say that soft skills are more valuable than technical skills and that 89% of bad hires usually don’t have soft skills. These core skills are sought in all professions, from your education and job training to personal lifestyle, community, civic participation, and, ultimately, the workplace. Plus, with the advancement of technology and automation, the trend is that hard skills are changing fast. Most hard skills will expire or won’t be needed in the future. On the other hand, soft skills will never be out of fashion and will only be more essential moving forward. Therefore, since soft skills are critical for career growth regardless of industry, many employers prioritize hiring correct soft skills over hard skills. As occupation-based qualifications are becoming outdated and skill-based hiring practices are gaining acceptance among forward-looking employers, hiring managers, policymakers, workforce regulators, and working professionals, we believe skills-based credentials may be a better suit for individuals and employers alike.
Can Universal Skills increase my chances of getting hired?
If you’re applying for a job, universal skills are key in setting yourself apart as an ideal candidate from others. Especially if other applicants have similar work and education experiences. Accredicity connects learners to career growth learning opportunities through its credential platform to have the skills to land a new job. When hiring, an employer is looking to invest in you, and soft skills are the name of the game. Your credentials might get you the interview, but it’s showing your soft skills that will get you the job offer. Therefore, listing your soft skills as credentials on your resume signals is very important and demonstrates to employers that you will be a good investment in their company, making it more likely for you to get hired for the job you are seeking. Employers are increasingly seeking candidates with discrete sets of soft skills ready to be productive on day one. For example, it’s common for employers to use leadership skills, like creativity and innovation, to decide between similar applicants. A hiring manager will judge your application partly based on your social skills, such as empathy. Employers use communication skills to measure your ability to influence and persuade others. Employers want employees to represent the company professionally, and individuals with management skills like customer service are good for a business in any industry. Plus, they want to hire and promote people who regularly demonstrate productivity skills like motivation, initiative, and work ethic that lead to performance optimization. Therefore, by emphasizing your life skills to inspire employers to have plans for personal growth. Unfortunately, a UK’s Office of National Statistics survey said that “54% of the employees say they have not included soft skills in their CV.” This research reveals that candidates struggle to sell their soft skills and companies find it challenging to hire talent with excellent soft skills, which, therefore, can give you a clear and powerful competitive edge if you show employers and hiring managers that you have desired knowledge and abilities by demonstrating your competency in such soft skills on your resume by listing and emphasizing the credentials you earned at Accredicity. Since employers look for candidates possessing soft skills, you have a decisive edge on the competition simply by listing the soft skills you have credentials for. These micro-credentials could convince an employer to choose you over another applicant. Prioritizing soft skills during hiring might get you hired. Your commitment to lifelong skill-based learning will also give you better career durability as you continue growing and developing yourself at the organization. A unique combination of knowledge and skills can help make your talents unmatched in the job force.
How will I find more opportunities for work or employment?
“Gainful Employment” is how the U.S. Department of Education measures if a graduate successfully completed an education program at a specific institution. This refers to a student’s employment status after completing a program, and this work allows for self-sufficiency. Employability is the critical problem adult education needs to solve. Therefore, successful job placement of graduates and students should be the driving factor to enroll, continue, and complete a program. Employability Skills, also known as Universal Skills, are in some cases the key and solutions to gaining and retaining satisfying employment. Accredicity provides a new innovative, efficient, engaging platform and curriculum that will expose students to soft professional skills and instill the knowledge to get hired and succeed on the job. Employers recognize the importance of universal skills in the workplace, so job seekers must highlight these softer skills in their job applications by listing the Skill-Based Credentials acquired at Accredicity.
How are employers valuing stackable credentials in their hiring process?
Like all professionally-focused educational credentials, micro-credentials document the learning of competencies to build an individual’s skills to qualify for jobs and promotions. Therefore the value of these credentials is in the eye of the credential seeker and employment provider. When job seekers and job providers see eye-to-eye on the value of one’s education, there is no better investment of time and money. The trends indicate an evolving acceptance and appreciation of educational credentials in employers during the hiring process has steadily increased. Twenty years ago, online credentials were novel and stigmatized. Since 2013 and the mainstream adoption of massively open online courses (MOOCs), employer perception about online credentials has continued to improve and become common in the marketplace. In this new world of work, big tech giants like Google and Microsoft are getting rid of degree requirements and now evaluate skills when hiring new employees. Assessing stackable credentials should be an essential part of your hiring process for potential employees and contractors. Students want the best education from the best experts to get the best job offers from the best employers. Forward-looking Employers want the best education to recruit the best students with the most up-to-date knowledge delivered by the best experts.
Unlocking Skill-Based Hiring, Promoting, and Training
This credentialed demonstration and attainment of mastery of our Universal Competency Model unlock opportunities to learn from multiple experts and sources, creating faster, cheaper, more flexible, and personalized learning pathways, making these portable and highly transferable micro-credentials better signals of capabilities and potential and making opportunities more efficient and equitable eliminating the rise of credentialism and degree inflation problems plaguing the institution of higher education and the workforce development and employment industry.
