Dive Brief:
- Credentialing processor Parchment.com offers 3 tips on how to successfully package and promote skills earned to parlay them into quality chances at career entry or advanced degrees.
- Parchment recommends making credentials digitally deliverable, aesthetically appealing and accessible to graduates throughout their lives are essential to making the most out of earned skills.
- The ability to list and see pathways of how credentials can be "stacked" together makes students and potential employees more marketable in fields which demand workers with increasing diversity in skills sets and knowledge.
Dive Insight:
Schools like Clark Atlanta University and others are working to make stackable credentials a centerpiece of the academic experience, but there has been little research or analysis on the kind of credentials which can be earned outside of the technical and service fields like nursing, electrical work and other labor fields.
Two-year institutions have a far easier time identifying and meshing these programs with associate degree offerings, but colleges and universities, outside of engineering and computer science certifications, must work with faculty and industries to determine how to make and align certifications in counseling, teaching, communications and other liberal arts to make graduates more appealing to workers — especially graduates from underrepresented groups.