This article was originally published on Forbes with corporate leaders & executives as the intended target audience. Written by Liberty Munson of Microsoft & Forbes Human Resource Council, with contributions from John Kleeman of Learnosity and Questionmark, Susan Farago of Salesforce, and Jim Lucari from HPE.
Aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright once said, “It is possible to fly without motors but not without knowledge and skill.” No matter the job, success depends on a person’s ability to execute tasks with proficiency. But how do hiring managers know whether someone truly has the capacity to fulfill a role?
During the hiring process, we often rely on résumés and CVs to learn about a candidate’s skill set. But according to a 2023 ResumeLab survey on job applicants’ behavior, 70% of workers admit to lying in these materials. Additional measures like references, interviews and recruitment tests help, but even more people have lied in job interviews. While the industrial-organizational psychologist in me wants to note that structured interviews, performed by properly trained interviewers, can yield trustworthy results, admittedly, the hiring process is like trying to win the lottery.
If hiring teams want to be more confident about candidates’ skills and knowledge, recruiting certified professionals may be an effective strategy.
Certifications Are Concrete Proof Of Professional Knowledge
Certification programs are a rigorous, psychometrically sound process for demonstrating whether someone has the knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform a particular job. By passing a certification exam, the learner proves they have professional-grade competence in the relevant skill set.
So what makes certifications such a trustworthy factor in determining candidate fit? Here are four key components that ensure these programs are objective measures of skill competency.
Defining The Skill Domain
Certification program developers use industry standards and best practices to shape their curriculum and examination, and their first step is conducting a job task analysis (JTA). This detailed process involves a group of subject matter experts (SMEs) who use their real-world experiences to identify all the tasks and skills required to succeed in a job.
If a certification exam is a house, the JTA is the foundation, and it needs to be solid. This means performing regular maintenance. With the rapid pace of change in so many jobs—especially those in the tech field—JTAs are updated frequently to ensure the validity of the certification process.
Blueprinting The Exam
It’s impossible for a single exam to evaluate everything identified in the JTA, so developers use a blueprinting process to prioritize the most important tasks and skills. SMEs rate the importance and frequency of each task and/or skill—usually via a survey. Those found to be the most important and performed most frequently are prioritized for inclusion on the exam.
Ensuring The Questions’ Efficacy
At this point, the SMEs write the exam questions based on their work experience. Then, a new group of SMEs steps in to conduct an alpha review of the exam’s questions. Once modifications are identified and incorporated, the exam goes through a beta process, where as many SMEs as possible take it in an exam-like situation. Using that data, psychometricians, like me, determine whether the items are psychometrically sound (e.g., has the right level of difficulty, differentiates high and low performers, etc.). If the psychometric data is unclear, another set of SMEs performs a third round of review. Once the question pool is finalized, developers follow one of several industry-approved methods to establish passing scores. The exam can then be published and localized if applicable.
Requiring Recertification
Most certifications have an expiration date, meaning certified professionals must get them renewed. They’re expected to demonstrate continued skill competency in some form, such as taking another exam or providing proof of continuing professional development.
As you can see, certification exams go through a rigorous development process to ensure they’re valid, reliable and fair. So when hiring teams come across certified candidates, they can be confident that the person in question has that knowledge and those skills. In fact, IDC research sponsored by the IT Certification Council, where I serve as vice chair, showed teams with mostly certified members complete projects about 25% faster. Certification also increases talent retention by about 15-20%.
Determining Which Certifications Fit Your Organization’s Needs
As you think about how to incorporate certification into your staffing processes, you need to consider what skills are actually needed in your organization. Then do some research to find programs that assess those skills. (As I wrote in my last article, be sure you can identify a high-quality certification exam.) Once you’ve determined the certifications that matter most, include them in job postings, and look for them on résumés. Be sure to verify that the candidate in question actually earned the certification, and confirm its expiration date.
Certifications provide validated evidence that a candidate has job-related skills and knowledge. As an HR leader, the takeaway is simple. By embracing this assessment method as a key component of your talent strategy, you can build stronger, more productive teams that ultimately drive organizational success.
