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Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
More Workers Are Getting Job-Skill Certificates. They Often Don't Pay Off.
More Americans are turning to a booming market for skills credentials—from digital-marketing certificates to online courses in artificial intelligence—to bolster their résumés. Yet most programs deliver few material returns, a new study finds. These certificates, digital badges and other nondegree credentials have proliferated as more academic institutions and other providers spot a lucrative business. Workers, though, have few tools to assess which of data-vars-anchor-text="thousands of options">thousands of options are worth their time and money. Employers, too, often struggle with what to value. Many credentials don't provide a pay boost or lead to a career transition, said Matt Sigelman, president of Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit that analyzed the outcomes for more than 23,000 of the most popular certifications and other credentials. It found that just one in eight nondegree credentials delivered notable pay gains within a year of completion. Using a data set of 65 million American workers and their career histories since 2009, the study compared workers who received a credential with similar workers who didn't get one—then measured the difference in their pay gains and career movements a year later. Burning Glass's online tool lets people search for and assess each of the credentials it analyzed. Even some certificates from elite institutions—and for skills in demand—provided little immediate payoff, according to the analysis, which Burning Glass Institute conducted with the center-right think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. A Project Management Graduate Certificate from Harvard Extension School, for instance, costs $13,760 and takes an average of 18 months to complete online, according to Harvard's website. Of workers who earned the certificate, the share that advanced in their field was only slightly higher than for similar workers who didn't get the certificate—a difference of about 3.7 percentage points, Burning Glass found. Recipients also generally didn't see pay improve any more than they otherwise would have. Credentials that count The credentials with the best outcomes made a difference: Workers who received one of the 2,000 top-performing credentials earned about $5,000 extra a year, on average, within 12 months of completing the programs. Many of the certificates were in nursing, radiology and other medical fields—where credentials are widely valued by employers and labor is consistently in demand. The options are vast, and growing. More than 700,000 different nondegree credentials were available in the U.S. in 2022, according to a report from nonprofit Credential Engine. The number of short-term certificates that workers collected rose by a third between 2013 and 2023, according to Burning Glass. 'There's no single recipe' for a worthwhile credential, Sigelman said. In general, nondegree courses help workers acquire new skills and demonstrate their learning to employers, he said, rather than offering a golden ticket to a new career. And not every credential-seeker is after an immediate pay raise or career transition. Some workers say they get them because employers pay the cost and the credentials could come in handy in the future. How to assess Sigelman recommends workers considering a credential read job postings and identify the in-demand skill set for their desired positions—whether that is project management, data analysis or social-media marketing. Gabriel Sanchez, 38 years old, enrolled in the University of Colorado, Boulder's Cybersecurity Certificate—designed to teach the basics of protecting computer systems—in 2023 to switch from a career in higher education to one in the tech industry. He estimates two or three of his roughly two dozen classmates have landed jobs in the field, based on the group text chain they kept up since completing the course in March 2024. The successful few include Sanchez, who said he emphasized his soft skills and the technical vocabulary he learned from the course in his interviews—rather than expecting employers to be impressed by the credential. The Burning Glass study found that workers completing the Boulder cybersecurity course were about 9 percentage points more likely to switch into the field within a year than similar workers without the certificate. They were about 6 points more likely to move up to a better job in the same field. The university said it discontinued the course last December, after its contract with the third-party course provider ended. 'The name of the certificate doesn't carry any weight the way a master's degree or even industry certifications do,' Sanchez said. 'I knew that this was more to build a set of skills that I can put on a résumé.' To Sigelman, that is the right mindset. 'Credentials can be a very effective way of not only acquiring skills, but validating that you have them,' he said. He thinks many credentials with poorer outcomes were developed without sufficient industry feedback. 'A lot of credentials are being designed based on a loose understanding of what it takes for somebody to get hired in the field,' Sigelman said. Write to Haley Zimmerman at
Forbes
08-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Major Employers Are Seeking A Shared Hiring Language
This is a published version of Forbes' Careers Newsletter. Click here to subscribe and get it in your inbox every Tuesday. Workforce development firm Burning Glass insists that skills, rather than degrees, are the key to job success. Its new skill-specific job description language could be a game changer for 11 million jobs ranging from software engineer and financial manager to customer service. Getty Images Have you ever found yourself struggling to describe your job? What skills are you actually using in your day-to-day? It can sometimes be hard to narrow down, especially when major employers often don't use the same language to describe specific jobs. The Burning Glass Institute (BGI) is hoping to change that. Today it launched its SkillsFirst website, detailing the skills needed for nine job titles—accounting for over 11 million workers— that major employers are using in their hiring process. Joining the nonprofit in implementing this shared language in their hiring practices are 10 of America's largest employers, including Accenture, Bank of America, Blackstone, Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Nordstrom, PepsiCo, Walmart and Verizon. 'Just being able to understand and define the skills required for a job, it sounds simple, but it's actually a really big exercise,' says BGI President Matt Sigelman. It's part of a larger movement toward skills-based hiring, where companies eliminate required degrees (not all, we'd all like to be represented by lawyers with J.D.s!) in favor of requiring specific skills actually used in specific jobs. 'In a time where people might say there's no opportunities for inclusion in the workforce, we actually think that skills-first is a way to say there are opportunities for everybody,' says Donna Morris, chief people officer at Walmart. Jobs with skills listed on the SkillsFirst website range from front-line positions to knowledge workers, including: retail salesperson; first-line supervisors of retail sales workers; sales managers; customer service representatives; customer service managers; financial analysts; product managers; and software developers. Having clear skills listed benefits employers that want to streamline and simplify their job titles. Verizon, for example, was able to go from 70,000 different job titles and codes to just 2,100 after implementing their own skills-first approach in 2021. But such a system also helps non-degreed workers or non-traditional hires—like veterans or immigrants—that make up the 'hidden workforce,' according to Verizon's chief human resources officer Samantha Hammock. It can also help job seekers determine which skills, whether it be something as broad as 'marketing' or as specific as 'UX experience,' that they need for a particular job, and which ones employers are willing to pay a premium for. And for current employees looking for a promotion, different skill levels can help determine what they need to work on in order to grow. You can read more about the launch here. Happy reading, and hope you have a lovely week! Practical insights and advice from Forbes staff and contributors to help you succeed in your job, accelerate your career and lead smarter Tips for growing your career and resilience in uncertain times. Forget being nice—being nosy, bossy and shameless can get you promoted. Burnout is not ambition, hard work needs an audience and more career advice that high-achievers should listen to. Saddled with six figures in debt, students usually scramble for Big Law's summer associate jobs and $200,000 plus starting salaries. This year, as some of the most prestigious firms capitulate to the Trump Administration, some are rethinking their choices and even pushing back. For the last two weeks the Trump Administration has targeted the legal profession as part of the president's quest to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices. After the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent a letter to 20 firms warning them against using DEI during their hiring processes, Trump signed a number of executive orders restricting Big Law firms from representing clients with government contracts. Some, like Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block and WilmerHale, have fought back, suing the administration to block the president's actions. But others, including Skadden Arps; Paul Weiss; Milbank; and Willkie, Farr and Gallagher have bent the knee, providing a combined $340 million in pro bono legal work for causes Trump favors. The pushback from the legal community has been immense. The American Bar Association, associates at Big Law firms, law school deans and even state attorneys general have condemned both actions. But for aspiring lawyers, many of whom want to work in Big Law, the choice of what to do—and how to advocate for themselves—is difficult. What power do they actually have against these million-dollar companies? More than they think. 'What these firms really care about is campus access and the prestige that goes along with that," says Rachel Cohen, a former third-year associate at Skadden's financial practice that virally quit her job over the firm's lack of support for Perkins Coie's suit against the Trump Administration. 'Outside of it, firms don't care very much about what law students think.' So students are taking advantage of recruiting season. A toolkit organized by Cohen is asking public interest students to apply to firms that have caved to Trump and pepper interviewers with uncomfortable questions, or to write to career services offices and ask for those firms to be barred from campus events. A spreadsheet organized by Georgetown Law students is tracking firms' responses to the executive orders, and student groups, like the Georgetown Energy Law Group, are pulling out of recruiting events with firms that capitulate to the administration. But with mounting debt, an uncertain job market and increasing recession fears, not all students are rushing to close the door to a possible $200,000 salary straight out of school. 'It's really hard to turn down that option,' says a first-year law student recruiting Big Law, who requested anonymity for fears of professional retaliation. 'It feels like Big Law is the only answer.' News from the world of work It was another contradictory month for the job market. The U.S. added 228,000 jobs in March, more than expected, with hourly wages increasing 3.8% year-over-year. But unemployment also rose to 4.2%. Job cuts also rose, increasing by over 205% from last March largely due to DOGE cuts at the federal government. In total, nearly 500,000 jobs were cut from the American economy, according to staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Such market uncertainty has led to another month of poor employee confidence, according to Glassdoor senior economist Daniel Zhao. While business sentiment grew slightly, entry-level employees' confidence in their jobs fell the most as recession fears increased. It makes sense––these positions are often the least secure jobs during a recession and can stunt career growth for young workers. One of President Trump's main reasons for implementing tariffs was to support American manufacturing jobs. But his strategy won't bring those jobs back on-shore, writes senior contributor Erik Sherman. Even if companies wanted to, and enough people were willing to do those jobs, it takes a few years to build, equip, and make operational a new factory. Just one week before the tax filing deadline, the IRS is cutting between 20% to 25% of its staff. The first to go: civil rights employees as part of the government's effort to cut down on DEI initiatives. Deloitte is also slashing its workforce due to losing government contracts, the Wall Street Journal reports, though the firm did not specify how many employees would be laid off. It is just one of the government consultant firms that proposed billion-dollar cuts to their contracts last week in hopes of maintaining at least part of their initial deals with the government. That's the size of the newly announced National Apprentice Fund, a joint fund from Google and Jobs for the Future that will provide financial assistance to over 750 apprentices with a one-time award of $2,800. How Two Men Made Billions Exploiting Those With Bad Credit DOGE firings have mostly taken place at what time of the week? A. Monday mornings B. Friday nights C. Sunday nights D. Last day of the month Check if you got it right here.
