Certs, Certs and more Certs!!

Certs, Certs and more Certs!!

Way back in the day there was no certification for staffing, recruiting and sourcing. Then came AIRS, and now we have…a lot. The question is why? Why so many? The answer really is money. The companies giving these certifications see a chance to make money.

How different are they from one to the other? Does one provide some mystic in site, or skills or tools that the others do not? The answer is not really for the most part they all teach the same things, or at least have additional courses that together teach the same stuff. The thing is though, each teaches it in a different way, and therein lays the real benefit. We all learn differently. We all take different things from the way they are said, shown and explained.

The real benefit is not so much what they teach as they all teach a lot of the same things, but the benefit is in the way the teach and your real goal should be finding one the teaches in a way that allows you to get the most out of it. Now of course there is usually a cost difference as well, what you need to do is find one that teaches in a way that works for you at eh most cost effective price for YOU.

Below is a list of some of the organization that supply certifications

Comment by Keith D. Halperin on December 9, 2013 at 9:08pm: Thanks, Dean.. I think certs are a good idea for the certifying orgs trying to make money off the folks that think adding a few letters after their name will get them a job or a better job because of it. There are lots of folks like that, and I was one of them.

Cheers,

Keith Halperin, SPHR Emeritus

Comment by Amber on December 10, 2013 at 10:41am: One of the tellers at my local bank branch has MBA after his name on his biz cards.

Comment by Irina Shamaeva on December 11, 2013 at 1:29pm: Thanks, Dean. Keith, actually we have had quite a few reports about getting the job (and also negotiating better pay) exactly because of the certification (PSCP) :)

I think that certifications in different industries vary in what they can bring to the table. For some professions like, say, network security, they make sure that the person's work will match certain industry standards, which is quite important. In other areas, say, in Java programming, I'd say it doesn't mean that much; Java is one of the easiest languages to use and, really, what is there to get certified? - it matters what software programming skills the person has, not Java skills.

LinkedIn's certification is somewhat controversial, and there's lots of blog posts reflecting that; we'll see if it lasts.

Certifications in sourcing can add value since it's so difficult to measure sourcing work. There's little in terms of metrics available. The number of submissions never reflects the quality; if we measure the number of placements, that depends on recruiter's selling skills, on the supply of available candidates, on the company brand, etc. - all of that being outside of the Sourcer's control. A sourcer that has passed a (well designed) exam is guaranteed to have a good level of skills.

I am not closely familiar with recruiting certifications and would be interested to hear some comments.