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WSJ Your Money Briefing
How to Navigate the Credentials Marketplace
00:15:50
With more than 700,000 postsecondary degrees, certifications and other credentials in the U.S. available to students seeking to gain more experience, finding the right one can be difficult. At the recent virtual WSJ Jobs Summit, workplace reporter Lauren Weber spoke with two experts about what students should consider before investing their time and money. J.R. Whalen hosts.
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Deal Advertiser
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J.R. Whalen
Here's your money briefing for Friday, October 15th. I'm J.R. whalen for the Wall Street Journal. Today we close out our series on the current job market with a look at the maze of secondary and post secondary degr certificates, badges and other certifications out there. Workers who want to change careers or reenter the workforce often pursue these kinds of credentials to brush up on their skills. But with more than 700,000 options, it can be hard figuring out where to best invest your time and money and even where to begin.
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Lauren Weber
It has gotten only more complicated. It used to be that if you got a bachelor's degree, you were probably set for life. If you got another type of credential, you might be more in the mix. I think everybody now is a little bit more at risk of needing to make this change.
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J.R. Whalen
Coming up, what you need to know before enrolling in a secondary degree or certificate program. That's after the break.
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J.R. Whalen
A certificate or post secondary degree can be the catalyst for beefing up your skills to land a job or change your career track. But not doing the proper research can be costly in both time and money. At the recent virtual WSJ Jobs Summit, our workplace reporter Lauren Weber sorted through the complexities with two experts in the field, Scott Cheney, CEO of Credential Engine, and Angela Ceresni, CEO of Climb Credit. We have highlights from their conversation. Let's listen in, starting with Lauren.
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
So Scott, thank you for being with us. I want to start with you. Today there are 738,000 credentials in the United States. Education and training credentials. Why has the number increased so much? I mean, I assume it has a lot to do with the fact that there are so many more online options. It used to be you had to go to a classroom to get any kind of training. Now we have more opportunities and different methods.
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Lauren Weber
Yeah, there's a number of factors that are going into play. There certainly are more providers that are coming online. So you know, a number of years ago, Google hadn't been offering their opportunities yet, nor had Amazon or LinkedIn. So you see a lot of new organizations that are, that are beginning to offer credentials, but you're also seeing just the traditional providers. Those who've been in the space for a long time recognize that employers are ramping up their skill demands, and then they need new abilities for people to be able to get a job, keep up with the technology that's in place. And so you're seeing providers trying to meet that demand by offering new, not always the right credentials, but hoping that they hit the bullseye when they throw that dart to understand how can they get more people to come to them.
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
Thank you. And you might have all heard my doorbell ring there with a package at my door. That's Zoom Life, right? Angela, you, your organization helps people figure out how to pay for credentials. We, you know, some people are familiar with the process of applying for financial aid for, let's say a bachelor's degree. But, but now with so many credentials out there, there are probably more options for paying and also limits on what kinds of financing you can use for different types of credentials. So can you give us a little bit of a sense of how people pay for credentials?
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Angela Ceresni
Yeah, so the way that people pay for these types of programs varies pretty, pretty widely. And I think it starts from, you know, some of these programs can be employer paid. So there are, if you, if you work somewhere and you're interested in this skill, certainly good to look and see, see if the employer that you work for offers some sort of stipend or some sort of training program in house. But we also see a lot of people paying for these, either with money that they've saved up, putting them on a credit card, or paying with some sort of financing instrument like a loan. So I would say it's pretty broad. Some of these programs will be covered by three federal programs. So whether it's workforce grants or the kind of student lending apparatus that exists, but a lot aren't. And in those cases, if an employer doesn't cover it, it's often up to the student who wants to get the skill through that credential to figure out how to pay. And often the schools will help you figure that out.
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
So one, one piece of this that I've always been a little bit confused about is Pell Grants. Can you just briefly talk a little bit about what Pell Grants apply to? I think aren't they like the largest sort of federal financing option for post secondary education? Yeah.
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Angela Ceresni
So Pell Grants are typically offered at Institutions that are what's called covered by Title 4. So Title 4 is the Federal government loan program. So if anyone who's listening has gone to college and paid for it with the federal government loan program, they went to a school that was covered by Title 4. That Pell grants are an option that are offered typically to people who are lower income and have a higher need and do not need to be paid back. So certainly if you're going to a school getting a credential or a degree from a program that has the federal financial aid financing option there, and you think you might qualify for a Pell Grant, that's a great way to pay because you don't have to pay it back.
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
You know, if you're, if you're searching, you want to make a career change or you know, you need some additional training, let's say your employer is not providing it for you. It just seemed to me to be in that position is very overwhelming right now. So I would love to get both of your thoughts on sort of how you start this process. Let's say, you know, you want to make more money, transition careers, get onto a better path. Let's say you don't quite know exactly what it is you want to do or what you want to study or where do you start with that process.
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Lauren Weber
So the first thing I would say is get advice. Right? This is a complicated space, and it has gotten only more complicated. It used to be that if you got a bachelor's degree, you were probably set for life. If you got another type of credential, you might be more in the mix. I think everybody now is a little bit more at risk of needing to make this change. So get advice. There are counseling centers at community colleges. There are counseling centers and career counselors in the public workforce system. They're called One Stop Career Centers or American Job Centers. And it's a good idea to just walk in and ask somebody, where can I turn? What am I eligible for? Could I qualify for a Pell Grant? They can provide you any one of these resources, can provide you with career interest surveys. What skills do you already have? So you recognize the value of what you already have in place and what you can build on. But if you at all can, don't try and do this alone.
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Angela Ceresni
Yeah, I would agree with that. I would also say that I think going in to those conversations and into the sort of thought process around what is the right next step for you to do some thinking about what brings you energy, what brings you joy, what you enjoy doing, and Whatever work you might have right now, or if you're in school, what part of your current school work you like? Because we talk to students all the time who are actively making the decision or after a while have made the decision to switch careers. And one of the things that we learn is often the way that people stumble on the thing that ends up making them happy and getting them the kind of career they want is thinking about what they ultimately sort of what makes them happy. So as an example, if you hate sitting at a desk and you want to work outside, there are plenty of great career tracks that will bring you outside, right? So if you can think about some of those things and also think about the financial needs of your family and how much time can you take out of the workforce if you're already working, you know, how much are you willing to pay for a new program and how much do you want to make on the other side? Those are the kinds of things that if you have the ball rolling on them and you go in to speak to a professional or to someone in your own community that you, you know, whose advice you trust. If you've already thought about some of those things, you can narrow that list down to maybe a narrower set and then can get you really on the track of thinking about, okay, which of that smaller set makes sense for you? What are the providers that can get you into those careers, and what does that look like for you?
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
So you just touched on what I think kind of is the heart of this, which is how you figure out what's available and which is the right program for you. I'm kind of haunted by this story of a man that I wrote about a few years ago who was a FedEx driver, kind of observed with the explosion of, you know, e commerce, and he was like, I want to get into digital marketing. Seemed like a very smart decision. So what did he do next? He Googled digital marketing certificate and he ended up spending $1,000 on the first or second program that showed up from Google. Now I feel like there must be some better resources out there to just to figure out what's available once you know what it is you want to pursue and then how you kind of assess the quality of them.
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Lauren Weber
You know, the, the reality is that all of our search engines and all of our search tools know so much about us that they're going to pre select what they think they want to show you and what you, what they think you want to see. So I go back to the idea of step into, you know, find a Counselor, find an advisor who can actually work all of that through with you and not rely on in that sense. And for anyone from Google who's on today, it's not a lot different than just happening to be on the bus route and seeing three ads for offerings. As you take your trip into wherever you're going, ask a lot of questions and don't just reach for the first thing. If you think it Sounds Great, ask 10 more questions. What are the quality indicators about what they're offering? How do they track their earnings and employment outcomes? So you can see, did people really earn $85,000 from that, or was it one person who happened to get a great job and they're reporting on that one person? So go into this and really look into the quality, the outcomes. Is it a credential that will lead you to the next credential, what they call pathways or stackability? Or is it a credential that's just going to sit by itself and you really can't do anything else with it if that's. If that first idea you had doesn't work out. So I'm going to go back to the first advice of don't try and do this on your own. Don't rely on what's being pushed to you. Go out and talk to people and dig up as much information as you can.
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
What are the top things to look for when judging the quality of a credential?
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Angela Ceresni
Assuming the goal is to get into a certain career on the other side and get into a certain field, I would say asking very direct questions about is this credential sufficient for me to get into X, Y and Z career? And if they say no, then maybe you have your answer or you can dig into maybe what would be. And if they say yes, all right, who are the employers at hire? Who are some people that have gone here who have been successful in that way? But I think it's asking those direct questions and then following on 10 more questions once you have the answer. But I think assuming your ultimate goal is to get hired into a certain field, you want to be specific around that, right?
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Lauren Weber
Yeah, 100% agree. Really make sure that what you're getting is 100% relevant to what you want to do. So are the skills actually aligned to what the employers are looking for? Look at the pathways and stackable options. Again, I think it's really important. The vast majority of us are not going to be in any one job or two jobs or even three or four jobs for our entire career. We're going to change and we're going to have to reskill consistently. So try and find things that consciously do build on each other. See if people who have done this before you are actually getting the jobs, what percentage are getting them and how do they report their numbers? Is it just the three people they like or is it everybody who's gone through it and where are they getting those numbers? So there is no. And this is part of the challenge in this country, there is no single quality standard that we ask all credentials to report against. So you're a little bit of a disadvantage here, to be quite honest. And you can't ask too many questions and if they don't answer it, take that as a sign that they don't have an answer that you want to hear.
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
Is there such a thing as getting too many credentials?
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Angela Ceresni
The answer is so nuanced. Right. Because some of these certification credentials are really cheap, some are more expensive. They exist in almost every vocation that's out there. You know, does it make sense to learn to get a truck driving certification, a plumbing certification and a UX UI design certification? Probably not. Not all at the same time, I would say, because you're probably not doing all three of those jobs this same time. But I think for certain roles and in certain industries, there's certainly stackable credentials and credentials that work together. And so I think in terms of are there too many? It definitely depends on the career track and how much money you're spending on them and what kind of outcome you want.
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
What's the best way to showcase your credentials? You can put them on a, you know, LinkedIn has a spot for them on your profile. They. There's also a website called Credly, which I think compiles the credentials that you've completed. And I'm not asking you necessarily to endorse a specific product or website, but do you have any thoughts on how best to showcase what you've accomplished?
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Angela Ceresni
Well, certainly put them on LinkedIn. I think there's no. Especially if you're going into a field where a lot of the Employers are on LinkedIn and might be looking for talent on LinkedIn or might look at your LinkedIn when you submit your resume, assuming you're looking for a job, and that's kind of the goal, I would say having some more narrative, like just throwing that you have a credential on the bottom of your LinkedIn, no harm in doing that, but having some narrative closer to the top around what you learned and the skills that you have and also putting that on a resume or a cover letter or something like that is beneficial because it helps to add some color to what you've done. And, and again, back to the kind of the original point here is there's so many credentials out there that employers may not know, you know, the specific credential that you got. And so if you add a narrative that can help them understand how to, you know, ask you more questions about that and value that in interviewing you
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Lauren Weber
skills today and being able to demonstrate and list exactly what you earn, not just that I got this credential, but here were the top 10 skills. Here are the top 10 abilities that I developed as a result of that. We never used to really talk about those. We would just list I got an AA or I got a BA or I got this certificate. But tell people what that is because we don't know. There's a million of them out there. Most employers are not going to know exactly what you learned just because they see the institution and the credential name. So take some time and really write those out.
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Lauren Weber (Interviewer)
Well, this has been enormously helpful. Thank you.
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J.R. Whalen
And that's it for your money briefing this week. You can find more stories and resources for for your job search or career on WSJ.com I'm JR Whalen for the
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