Advantages of A Professional Certification
One of the key elements in building a successful business is the continuous acquisition of knowledge. Industries, business practices, and consumers will change over time. It is therefore of utmost importance that you develop and grow with them. An excellent way to do that is through certifications and training courses. Although these certifications and training courses can be time and resource-consuming, they provide recognition for your specialized knowledge and dexterity. This can be of significant privilege when securing a job or seeking clients or projects. The act of acquiring a certification has become a widespread exercise for people in all industries. The reason is that certification portends an individual’s mastery and training to employers, counterparts, and patrons. It also aids organizations in defining standards. The certification encompasses a lot more than just scaling an exam and strengthening your curriculum vitae. This is because it acts as a credibility earmark. Therefore, it should entail adequate preparation and continuous update to stay abreast of current improvements in the industry. The first crucial step is identifying the necessary certifications needed in your industry. Once this is done, the next step is to identify the potential benefits this certification can add to your career.
Benefits Of Professional Certification To Certificate Holder
Boost Efficiency: The rigorous and factual assessments involved in getting a professional certification not only identifies the strengths and weaknesses of candidates but provide the candidates with advanced training, information, and knowledge of specialization. This will act as a guide in executing projects more effectively. This can be of great importance to several industries in search of specialists and also give your independent business a solid foundation.
An advantage over competitors: The recent economic crisis and state of joblessness of youths has taken a big toll on recruitment processes. Employers receive thousands of applications from prospective candidates for just one role or job opening. The competition is always stiff. When employers are interviewing, the competition is often stiff. Having a certificate or training that your competitors do not have, sets you apart from the rest. Certifications show that you have devoted time and resources to understanding and excelling in your field. This training helps you to learn about new practices, software, and platforms before they become a household name.
Salary Increase: Certification is visible proof to employers that you are growing in your expertise. This shows that you are much more qualified to take on new roles which you weren’t capable of handling before. As the roles and responsibilities, you take increase, there is often a significant rise in pay as this indicates career growth. As companies are always on the lookout for professionals with specialized skills, this gives you an upper hand in the negotiation processes.
Grow Your Knowledge and Skills: Constant training and certifications can help you acquire new and updated information or techniques in your industry. It can help you hone skills that may have been affecting your work quality and reducing your output. This will give you the confidence to take on new projects which you lacked the skills to handle before.
Establish Professional Credibility: Certification indicates your commitment to improved professionalism, maintaining industry standards, and continued learning. These qualities can help facilitate your professional credibility and prominence within your own network, with your current clients, and when seeking new business opportunities or projects. This is because employers believe that you have been tested against the global standard and passed so therefore you will act ethically, and have a code of conduct/ practice.
Increase in Network: Professional certification does not only give you the opportunity to boost your knowledge and skills but can also provide networking opportunities through classes, the web, and meetings. It will plunge you into a new community of socialites in a similar field. There will be room to share knowledge and opportunities between professional or club members.
Career Change: Everyone has that dream job that he or she has always dreamt of occupying. We work towards achieving this dream by choosing a career path at a tender age. Most times we find satisfaction and fulfillment in this dream job, the other time we tend to have a change of mind over the years. Professional certification is one way to steer your career to a different part.
Certification Benefits For Recruiters
Narrow prospect searches: There has been an increase in the number of applications recruiters receive for any available opening. This influx has pushed several human resource personnel to look for ways to eliminate candidates. Recruiters have a list of requirements a candidate must attain in order to be eligible to apply for a role. Certification and training are some of the major key factors that recruiters use to eliminate candidates. This reduces the amount of work for human resource departments and equally saves time for them.
A deeper examination of selected/qualified applicants: This allows the recruitment team to assess, the strength of knowledge and fitness of individual applicants. Enables them to better evaluate their talents, skills, strengths, and weaknesses in the field.
Control costs: Recruitment procedures are not only time-consuming but also resource-consuming. This is because every organization wants to recruit the best hands it feels can handle the job and bring maximum output. These organizations have several stages that candidates pass through before they are selected. Each stage in this process costs the company money and time. Some companies go to the lengths of outsourcing the recruitment to external organizations. These organizations bill them with respect to the number of candidates being assessed. In order to cut costs, most organizations put in stringent requirements to eliminate candidates.
Enhance company marketability: Credential holders enhance an organization’s image. Clients are always eager to patronize brands or companies that they trust. This can be a result of several reasons, one of which is specialization. This effect is often seen in companies that are health-related like hospitals, pharmacies, beauty care products, and consumables. A client would rather go to a specialist hospital with lots of specialized doctors than go to a general hospital when caught up with specific illnesses. This can also be seen in the pharmaceutical field. A consumer would prefer to patronize a pharmacy to a chemist shop just by the roadside. This is also effective in consultancy firms, where clients will prefer to engage the service of an audit firm that has professional staff who are members of the Institute of chartered accountant Association of Nigeria (ICAN) to another firm whose staff do not have the professional certification.