With so many ads offering to make you an online millionaire in 60 days (no experience required, of course), it’s no wonder certifications get a bad rap. You can almost hear skeptics’ thoughts: what does a test prove anyways? But they’re wrong.

A professional’s path to receiving a certification can take a year or more, from deciding to pursue the credential to taking the exam. Is your organization providing the support these time-strapped learners need to stay focused and show up feeling confident on exam day?

Signing up for a certification exam is an important first step toward a professional milestone.  Certifications are increasingly required to reinforce credentials and to help advance careers, however competing priorities in a professional’s busy life can often impact completion.  Mitigating factors are usually to blame for candidates abandoning their goals and failing to sit for their exam, however for every candidate that drops out, your bottom line takes a hit, making it critical to support candidates through the entire preparation process.  

For today’s workforce, learning is a lifelong process. Whether these workers need a license to practice in a certain field or are pursuing a certificate to advance their career, credentialing exams are a part of the modern professional journey. While these learners have traditionally had to squeeze prep classes into their packed schedules, the shift toward digital learning is making credentialing prep more accessible, convenient, and effective.

Are Your Certification Candidates Ready for their Exam? How Prep Programs are Falling Short. Certifications are an important gateway for professionals to advance their skills and take their career to the next level.  Whether a learner is required to attain a certification for a specific role or is looking to proactively upskill their knowledge, lifelong learning is fueling more urgency for people to get training on new skills needed to get ahead.  In fact, according to the 2016 Pew Research Center Survey, “The State of American Jobs,” 87% of workers believe it will be essential for them to get training and develop new job skills throughout their work life in order to keep up with changes in the workplace.  

Thomas Reilly, VP of Learning at CompTIA, joined BenchPrep CEO Ashish Rangnekar to present this digitalNow webinar. Lifelong learning is becoming an economic imperative for professional associations and members alike. Recertification programs are perfectly suited to facilitate this shift toward lifelong learning, but they can often be a burden to administer and maintain with antiquated delivery methods.