How to Use Micro-Credentials to Fill Resume Gaps (and Get a Job)
University degrees are great for your career, but they take time and money that you may not want to spend more than once on. If you want to fill in the gaps in your resume, consider micro-credentials—fast, cheap, and effective training.
Here’s everything you need to know about micro-credentials, from what they are and how they work to where they go on your resume. Keep an eye out for opportunities to get new skills and improve your career prospects.
What Is a Micro-Credential?
A micro-credential is a short course on a specialized skill that matters to certain careers, usually lasting no more than a few months. It can provide new knowledge, add to your existing expertise, or keep you updated in your field of interest.
Either way, it boosts your skillset and ability to excel at your job. And it’s not just about technical skills. EvenLinkedIn Learning courses for wellnesscan benefit you professionally. Upon completing a micro-credential, you get a digital certificate and a badge containing encrypted metadata verifying your qualification. Both rewards look good on a resume.
What Is an Example of a Micro-Credential?
Technically, any short but in-depth online course that ends with some form of digital accreditation is a micro-credential. But there are providers that design their mini-courses so that they’re highly educational and stackable.
For example, Johns Hopkins University offersExecutive Data Science Specialization training on Coursera, involving plenty of theory and practical applications, including a hands-on project. Interested in creating apps?Udacity’s Become an Android Developer nanodegree, courtesy of Google, could be just what your career needs.
Spend four months advancing your programming skills and end up with a compelling qualification and your very own app on Google Play. Every new skill added to your resume gives you confidence and prestige in the eyes of employers. Just make sure the provider and training materials are reliable and that you put the work in.A cybersecurity awareness course can keep you safe online, but only if the lessons sink in.
How Valuable Are Micro-Credentials?
While not as powerful as a Master’s degree, a micro-credential can benefit a worker and an employer in different ways. That said, its exact worth depends on the tools it provides and how relevant they are to your current or future career path.
As a professional, micro-credentials really can help you build on your expertise or branch into a new area that’s important to the promotion you want. It’s always a good idea to work on your IT and soft skills, for instance.
What makes micro-credentials particularly valuable is that they can earn you academic credit towards higher education, while enabling you to constantly learn new things, keeping your brain stimulated and your resume full of interesting skills.
As for employers, more and more of them see the benefits of mini qualifications and encourage their workforce to pursue them. Some will even pay tuition fees. This motivates staff members to progress within the company and perform all the better. A short course in customer behavior analysis that leads to greater sales and testimonials is a good reason to embrace micro-credentials.
How Do You Create a Micro-Credential?
Planning and designing a micro-credential program isn’t that different from creating a lesson plan. You define what the student should learn, what materials you’re going to use, and how best to structure the class for maximum engagement.
The difference is that you organize a micro-credential for online use. Everything happens onscreen, whether you have students watch videos, study reading materials, or submit quizzes.
The certificates and badges they get at the end must also be accredited, secure, and easy to use on their resumes or social profiles. There are services around, likeBCdiplomaandEducation Design Lab, that help educators and employers create and deliver micro-credentials.
How and Where Do You Put Micro-Credentials on a Resume?
A micro-credential is part of your education history, so you should place it in that section of your resume, including a link to your digital certificate. If it fits tastefully, you can add your badge, too.
Since it’s best to list your history by date, find the appropriate gap and type in your course’s name, provider, and date of completion. Other details to include depending on available space are the accrediting body and the subjects covered.
If you list by the importance of qualification, micro-credentials are considered inferior to full college or university degrees, so put any of these above your short course. Besides your resume, you can display your micro-credentials on social media. They’re an asset tobuilding your personal brand on LinkedIn, for example.
This professional profile features a lot more information than a two-page CV. You can put your micro-credential underEducation, as well asLicenses & certificates. Add the individual modules you did underCoursesand as many details and links as you wish.
Do Employers Want Micro-Credentials?
Gaps in resumes and people’s skill sets are common enough now to change how personnel and employers value their work environments. To put things in perspective,ClearCo’s employee development statisticsfound that 96 percent of workers in 2021 would stay with an employer that invested in their career, while access to further training opportunities boosted workers’ engagement by 15 percent.
Even managers need more leadership training. Once applied, it improved participants’ capacity for learning and development by 20 percent. However, 85 percent of employees prefer to choose their own training timetables. Mini-courses can address all of these issues, which is why even theEuropean Commission’s Education Area endorses micro-credentialsas flexible and potentially powerful learning opportunities.
There are employers that still rely on traditional degrees, but most appreciate a resume with a rich education history, even if some entries are short courses. It shows that you’re keen to keep learning and improving yourself on a personal and professional level.
So, as long as you have one or two superior qualifications that are relevant to the post and the bodies accrediting your micro-credentials are reputable, employers should accept your resume.
Do Micro-Credentials in Your Resume Actually Help?
All-in-all, micro-credentials are a great way to fill in the gaps in your resume without paying a fortune or spending years learning skills that could just take months with sharp focus and training. Make sure your courses come from good providers and include practical and meaningful modules. Pay attention to what reviewers and former students have to say, too.
Employers are growing to love these stackable development opportunities as much as workers are. After all, micro-credentials don’t just embellish your CV. They encourage lifelong learning by offering an array of exciting and affordable insights.
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