Completion Certificates
It’s the New Year and folks are setting goals.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think of Completion Certificates as participation trophies for adults. I see people posting on LinkedIn about completing a course, but what does that mean and what did you learn? Was the course a 5 – 15 minuter or a dozen or so hours? How is it helping you in your life/work today?
Before I go any further, I’m a big believer in continuous learning; reading, online live or on-demand, podcasts, experiential, mentoring, and so on. I also work at an organization that produces completion certificates. I’m ok with them, but it’s more about the why of posting them.
I understand that for CPEs, CPUs, some certifications completion certificates are needed to show the candidate took a course. Also, I'm speaking about completion certificates, not certifications. Certifications require that you take an exam administered by a third party.
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I’ve seen completion certs for Web Development, that’s rather broad – did you learn everything about Web Development, general overview, strategies, UI and UX? Cybersec Boot Camps - what about cybersecurity, blue team, red team, best practices, incident response, forensics? Risk Management Skills – what skills do we need for risk management? Processes, verified practices, poka yokes – maybe I should take this course because I’m floundering on RM key words. Machine Learning for All – by the title, I’m guessing this is an overview, so if you’re in the Machine Learning world, is this necessary? It seems like the medical student taking the chemistry for all of us non science people.
I think I need to create completion certificates from Netflix and Apple+ shows. For example, completion certificates on leadership from watching Seasons one and two of #TedLasso; Survey of 80s Culture from Stranger Things.
The point is completion certificates mean nothing if you aren’t applying what you learned. My ask is that if you post a completion certificate, put a line or two about something you learned; maybe why others would benefit from the course.
Of course, this is my ask based on extensive research of scrolling through my LinkedIn feed :). I’m sure others feel differently and I’d welcome feedback. Especially from HR and hiring managers.
I have #completed reading an article from Peter Weishaar
Sometimes I feel like I need a certificate of completion for just making it through the day. 😂
Feels like the continuation of the shift on LI from true networking and collaboration to a focus on building a personal brand as the main priority 🤷♂️
The learner posting a completion certificate is a declaration of intent. They started learning about something because they have a goal. Upon completion of a course, the learner is rewarded with a certificate. The learner then shares that with their network. The learner isn’t trying to prove their knowledge to you, nor do they have a reason to. They are sharing this to show they are taking tangible steps in a direction. They’re wanting to be congratulated in some way. The premise you’re looking at it from in the article appears to be ‘why’ or ‘for what specifically’ do you want to be congratulated. Their posting of the certificate without sharing the specific knowledge they gained isn’t passing your litmus test of usefulness. One might rather ask, “what their goal is” or “what they hope to achieve” by taking said course. They’d likely be happy to network with you and explain this, since they’re clearly posting this to update their network in the first place. That shifts the onus off them proving their knowledge to people they might not know to having a constructive conversation that is meeting the expectation of the learner/poster and allowing you to probe more into what they learned if you have real curiosity.