"Employment and Digital Credentials: The Colorado Success Story Part 1," by Brenda Perea
Searching for employees in a dwindling talent pool is costly, time consuming and often times, unsuccessful. Bridging the gap between skills and job availability is crucial to the economy, and completely possible with the help of digital credentials.
Based on my experience working within the Advanced Manufacturing sector at Colorado Community College System (CCCS), I knew that the strategies used to engage employers in developing targeted digital badges was relevant and successful when a Denver based architecture firm contacted me asking about skills contained in one of CCCS’ digital badges. The firm had been looking for applicants to fill three open positions which had been unfilled for 6 months. They heard about the CCCS engineering graphics digital badges, and checked out the competencies, assessment and evidence contained in one of the CCCS engineering graphics digital badges.
Because of the metadata and the granular level of workforce centered competencies accurately described in the digital badge, they were confident persons earning that badge would be great additions to their firm and easily fill the open positions. They indeed filled those positions with CCCS badge earners. This is not just a story about employers finding talent or job seekers obtaining employment, it is the emerging process of using employer engagement to develop digital credentials to identify skills and abilities which are often hidden. Digital credentials that are created with employer engagement provide powerful results. Badge earners better able to articulate their skills and abilities, employers take an active role in finding and upskilling or reskilling their internal talent and institutions of post-secondary education accelerating a participant’s path along lifelong learning.
To learn more about my experience at CCCS and how the digital credentialing program was implemented, download a free version of “Partnering with Employers to Create Workforce-Relevant Credentials: A Field Guide.”
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