ACT Launches Digital Badges for Career Readiness

This is a guest post brought to you by Andy Taylor, ACT's Vice President, Market Segments and Product Management.

ACT is offering digital badging for all new ACT® WorkKeys® National Career Readiness Certificate® (NCRC®) earners and retroactively to all past earners to January 2016. This development affirms ACT’s commitment to ensuring that people are set up to succeed in the modern workforce.

ACT’s WorkKeys NCRC is a credential that identifies and certifies the essential skills needed for workplace success across a variety of industries. The portable, evidence-based credential is earned by completing three ACT® WorkKeys® Assessments that verify skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and the use and understanding of workplace documents. The WorkKeys NCRC helps earners demonstrate their skill level to potential employers, and it allows employers to reliably select candidates from the most qualified labor pool.

Since the pandemic, the workforce ecosystem has evolved rapidly and employees are reevaluating the ways in which they represent their experiences to employers. And employers are hungry to quickly and reliably understand the skillsets of their employees. ACT is working with Credly to digitize the WorkKeys NCRC because of its strong reputation as an industry leader in providing verifiable digital credentials that certify workforce achievements. By adding digital badging to ACT’s WorkKeys NCRC, ACT and Credly are helping to empower employees and workforce ecosystems to be resilient as the workforce evolves. Credly’s reputation and capabilities, alongside ACT’s WorkKeys NCRC, helps employees connect and engage in more opportunities to work, learn, and further their workplace skills. The digital badge is a free, opt-in experience where earners can easily display and share their NCRC digital badge to prospective employers.

Powered by Credly, ACT’s new digital badging feature provides a secure, portable, and verifiable way for WorkKeys NCRC earners to share and showcase their achievements on multiple job search platforms. The new digital badges help high school and postsecondary students, as well as adult learners—including people reentering the workforce after incarceration—see direct connections between their skills and the jobs they are seeking. It also helps states, communities, and workforce developers build strong pipelines of skilled workers. What’s more, individual earners can receive digital recognition for ACT’s WorkKeys NCRC with a current and more visible interface to share and verify earned accomplishments and credentials online at no additional cost.

ACT’s commitment to offering comprehensive workforce development solutions for employees, businesses, and communities is centered around ensuring individuals succeed and advance in their careers—the offering of WorkKeys NCRC digital badging ensures ACT is delivering on our commitment to individual earners. The possibilities for digital badging in the education and workforce ecosystem are just getting started and offer limitless opportunity for future college and career success.

Learn more about ACT’s WorkKeys NCRC program here.