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Badges, certificates, and micro-credentials can be useful when seeking a job or when showing an employer a tangible representation of a candidate or employee's skills. Here's how to earn and use them.

Digital badges are icons that indicate a person has successfully demonstrated a certain skill, like emergency preparedness or collaboration. Each badge carries metadata about how and when that skill was learned.��

A badge may have:

• The person's name
• Which skill��they attained
• Where the badge was earned
• A URL to the badge itself or a page with all badges someone has earned from that institution
• Other key details, such as the date the full credential was earned and keywords that recruiters might search for

Also known as micro-credentials, these badges can help prove, rather than merely��suggest,��that candidates or employees have specific, measurable knowledge. They recognize online learning and offer visual��evidence documenting�� how a skill was obtained.

Because they visually tell a person’s skills story, they can boost the credibility of someone’s��personal brand��in a quick and compelling way.

A��micro-credential��is a certification of mastery of a skill, multiple skills or a collection of successfully completed courses. This is very similar to a badge, and the two terms are often used interchangeably.

A certificate denotes that a student has completed an education program or course. A badge doesn’t necessarily refer to a course and appears in a more visually appealing form, geared to help candidates stand out when employers are skimming their credentials.

Simply put: because employers care.

According to��, many companies have moved toward skills-based hiring. Candidates can always share their skills traditionally via text on a resumé. These badges, in contrast, are an easy-to-skim, searchable way to convey those skills to current and prospective employers alike via social media. It enables students to��identify which skills they’ve learned��during their degree programs in real time. Students can then post relevant badges to their online platforms as they achieve them. They don’t have to wait for a diploma; they can showcase their skills immediately.

Having to sift through so many candidates, hiring managers skim resumés quickly. One way to stand out from the crowd is through these badges.

Employers may:

• Feel that badge holders have an enhanced professional identity
• Appreciate the transparency��into��how a candidate’s skills were earned
• Identify who has career-relevant skills within their organization
• Realize the person is invested in remaining up to date in their field
• Determine that a candidate’s skills are aligned with job openings

A digital badge is typically earned through a workshop, training program, course or class. Some universities and other education programs��store student badges in Credly accounts so students and job seekers can send them digitally to current employers or recruiters. They can even print them out as certificates.

There are several ways to display badges so prospective employers can see what skills a candidate has developed.

����in a few easy steps.

1. Create or log in to a Credly account.
2. Go to the dashboard and click on the badge to share.
3. Click "Share" at the top of the page.
4. There will be several options. that allow badge sharinge. Click "LinkedIn"
5. Select "Connect" if Credly is not already linked to a LinkedIn account.
6. Sign in to LinkedIn and provide access to Credly.
7. Select "Add to profile" and click on "Share to LinkedIn"
8. Add more information about the badge.
9. The badge will appear under the License and Certification section of the users LinkedIn profile.

To add badges to another page or type of resumé, the badge may need to be downloaded as an image file and then copied and pasted it to a Microsoft Word document or another app that’s hosting the resumé.

Digital badges may be the way of the future. With 4 in 10 American workers worried that technology will render their skills obsolete, and with the rise in skills-based hiring, these badges are poised to be in high demand. ������ý conducted student surveys and focus groups to get a sense of what students needed and found that:

• 76% understand the professional benefit��of these badges
• 64% believe badging will help with advancing their careers
• 75% believe these badges will make it easier to communicate their skills to potential employers
• 81% have a strong desire to complete their program because of badges

Students aren’t the only ones to recognize the potential of these badges. As noted, employers are increasingly aware of��the need for a skilled workforce, especially when complemented by a degree.

UOPX offers digital badges for its associate, bachelor’s, and master’s programs because it identified a gap between the skills employers were looking for and the skills candidates actually had. By researching each industry’s career-relevant skills, aligning UOPX curricula with those skills and then working with the digital credentialing platform��Credly��to provide badging, UOPX has upped the skills game within, and for, the workforce.��At UOPX, a badge can be earned in a matter of weeks or months and after completing an assessment.

For more information on earning badges at ������ý, contact an admissions rep.

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