Have you ever seen a LinkedIn profile, resume, or e-portfolio with a digital badge “stamped” in the corner? These badges indicate that the person behind the profile, resume, or portfolio has verifiable skills that could be important to an employer. Understanding just how important it is to catch the eye of a potential employer, John Jay is offering Credly digital badge opportunities starting in January 2022. At the helm of this work is Chantelle Wright, Director of the Center for Career & Professional Development; Elsa-Sofia Morote, Ed.D., Ph.D., Dean of Graduate Studies; and Fern Chan, Director of Continuing & Professional Studies. We sat down with this powerhouse trio to learn more about these digital badges aimed at supercharging the careers of our community members.
For those of us who are new to the idea of digital badges, can you explain the concept and process to us?
CW: These badges recognize a set of verifiable skills or competency that a student has or will gain. To get the badge the student just needs to peruse John Jay’s Credly page [coming in January 2022]; identify the badge that is most appropriate for them; see if they have met the necessary requirements and benchmarks to receive that badge; download it and place it on their LinkedIn profile, website, resume, or wherever they feel a possible employer could see it. Most of the badges for undergraduates require the students to self-identify their skills and experiences. But, in some cases, like the “pre-law badge” students acquire it automatically after going through programs such as the Pre-Law Institute’s Pre-Law Boot Camp.
“So many of our students need to have part-time jobs. We’re trying to help them demonstrate their skills in the job market.” —Elsa-Sofia Morote
ESM: The digital badges are really skills and abilities that are outside of the curricula of the classroom. At the graduate-school level, we provide supplemental information for the students in a short-term course for four weeks. We’re developing two graduate studies courses that could lead to digital badges once they finish all of the assignments, one is Entrepreneurship and Ethics and the other is Financial Literacy. So many of our students need to have part-time jobs. We’re trying to help them demonstrate their skills in the job market because of the demands of graduate school and the need for extra income. Let’s say a student took a Python course—which gives them a highly sought-after statistical programming skill—you can get a badge for that competency and almost instantly draw in employment opportunities.
FC: Our students are doing these digital badge courses for a specific skill set (for professional studies the cost could range from $99 - $1,500, whereas graduate and undergrad courses are free). It’s like a visual representation of their abilities and knowledge that’s easily verifiable. Digital badges can signal to employers that they’ve taken continuing professional studies classes on things like crisis communication or de-escalation—the verification is built right into the badge. It augments LinkedIn profiles to alert potential employers that they have these specific skills. Yes, you have your degree but these badges readily demonstrate soft skills.
“Digital badges can signal to employers that they’ve taken continuing professional studies classes on things like crisis communication or de-escalation—the verification is built right into the badge.” —Fern Chan
Are all of the badges equal in level? How do you verify them if they’re not self-identified?
CW: Some badges require a different level of mastery and they can participate in more activities, programs, or classes to get the requirements for the next-level badge. There are different mechanisms that can be tracked along with the digital badge. For example, if there’s an academic internship, there’s a database verifying that the student has participated in that internship. If it’s an internship outside of our database, the student has to document their hours and track their experiences in order to earn a badge.
How do you think our community will respond to the digital badge opportunity?
FC: I’m pretty sure our students in Professional Studies will really like it. Law enforcement officers love to put up their certificates and stars, so being able to show their skills through a digital badge on their resume is right up their alley. I think it’s something that they will respond to very well. And having different levels of badges, they’re going to be motivated to climb up the professional-development ladder for self-improvement.
What aspect of the digital badge program is still being developed and what can we look forward to in the future?
FC: We’re still working on how to get credit to those people who have prior learning experience through their careers. It’s a matter of demonstrating and understanding what your life experience could be worth badge-wise. Let’s say you’ve been working in the healthcare industry for 20 years but you don’t have a degree, that doesn’t mean that your learning and experiences are less worthy of recognition. We need to come up with a way to validate that experience with a visual representation.
ESM: I believe in the future we can start exploring awarding digital badges to staff members for things like communication skills. Several universities are already doing that. The most important thing is that we continue to find ways to make our community members more marketable.
