When a young person earns the title Eagle Scout or Girl Scout Gold Award, we know a couple of things about the person without needing to meet them. They work well on a team, value skills-based learning, and commit to achieving long-term goals. Earning a digital badge for a professional skill is similar. A digital badge can signal to hiring managers and employers that you possess the competencies to meet the demands of open roles, you place importance on keeping your skills fresh, and you value lifelong learning. Digital badges can tell the story of who you are far better than a resume or a school transcript.
Digital badges can confer more credibility than other forms of acknowledgement, such as paper certificates, because they can be verified with blockchain and contain metadata listing all the skills needed to obtain the badge. Regardless of where you learned a skill, in school or in the workplace, these badges create a common language around knowledge, skills, and abilities you can instantly communicate with others.
As companies shift to a skills-based hiring approach, where job candidates are judged based on their skills rather than on degrees or traditional credentials, digital badges can help employers make more informed hiring decisions. For example, in roles requiring high-levels of technical expertise, a skills-based hiring approach would consider if the candidate had the underlying skills to perform the job more than if he/she attained a certain level of education. A digital badge can attest to someone’s proficiency in technical fields more explicitly than a degree program can.
For organizations seeking to upskill employees in areas like data analytics or AI, they can sponsor training programs, often by partnering with a third party, in which employees earn digital badges. These programs provided pathways for learning and stackable skills, building one upon another toward a larger qualification. In this way, employees can continually gain new knowledge to keep pace with changing business needs while also progressing toward a bigger goal.
The popularity of earning digital badges for skill-based learning is evident by the numbers of badges issued; according to 1EdTech.com, in the U.S., more than 74 million digital badges were issued by 2022. 1EdTech has not released a more updated survey, but the number of badges issued has increased substantially. Today, the U.S. digital badge market is worth $177 million.
With the proliferation of digital badges, how does one know if the badge they earn is truly valuable? Here is what you should be considering:
- Looking closely at the reputation of the issuing organization is a critical first step in evaluating whether or not to pursue a digital badge.
- Asking yourself if the skills advertised are relevant to a specific role or industry in which you are working or want to work.
- Identifying relevant competency frameworks in your profession and ensuring the material taught by the digital badge provider maps back to the framework.
- Consider if the digital badge is valued by your current or prospective employer.
- Consult peers in your industry about the return-on-investment of a given digital badge or course.
- Badges should help you advance and align with your professional goals and aspirations.
In some cases, the digital badge you earn may even have been developed with input from leading employers. For example, courses teaching in-demand skills have all been developed by Netflix (Netflix Pathways Bootcamp), Amazon Web Services (AWS course certificate on Building Modern Python Applications), and IBM (MicroBachelors program). Employer input and feedback on digital badge programs is critical to their success and relevancy.
Do your homework. Not all digital badges are created equally. Make sure the course or program you choose for yourself aligns with your professional interests and your story.