When a recipient receives a credential, it’s a cause for celebration. They are now certified in a new skill, belonging to a cohort of experts in a particular industry. But what happens next? How can the credential holder, their prospective audiences and even their credential issuer leverage the value of their new credential?
Credential Holder
By appearing in a Spotlight Directory, a credential holder has access to several benefits that were not available before. First, they are now discoverable for the skills that they possess. Appearing in the directory allows for interested parties to easily search for certified individuals with the skills that they require, meaning that credential holders have a much higher level of visibility than having the credential on their own. They have a direct connection to new opportunities based on their specific skill-sets.
Another benefit to appearing in a Spotlight Directory includes the ability to better self promote. By building up their Directory profile with work experience, availability, and biographies, credential holders can showcase their professional portfolio alongside other experts and specialists in their field. Think of it as a Linkedin network, but exclusively serving one particular industry.
Potentially one of the biggest boons to appearing in a Spotlight Directory from a trusted and well-known entity is the endorsement that this provides. A credential holder’s Directory profile means that they are now backed and supported by their issuer as a certified individual. A good example of this is the Snowflake Credential Holder Directory. Individuals featured in Snowflake's Credential Holder Directory are now approved by Snowflake as proficient in Snowflake's data platform. This kind of validation from a well-known organization lends credence and credibility to an individual’s value in the job market, making someone's entry into a Spotlight Directory a career-defining event.
Credential Owner’s Audience
In this case, we are talking about prospective employers, clients, recruiters, or current managers of credential holders. How does a credential holder’s appearance in the Spotlight Directory affect them?
Finding people for the correct role no longer has to be a gamble on job market websites or involve expensive recruitment agencies. The Spotlight directory doesn’t require you to have a magic combination of search terms to find individuals with the correct qualifications. Instead, it is the one-stop-shop for individuals with exactly the skills and requirements that you need for your hire. Take the nursing crisis in America for example; Hospitals across the United States are struggling to hire nurses fast enough to solve the nursing shortage. Trying to find good enough staff by digging through CVs slows down the hiring process. With a Spotlight Directory, nursing training providers can become the first port of call for hospital administrators to source individuals that are open to working in their location with the exact qualifications required.
Credential Issuer
How does a credential issuer stand to benefit from the implementation of a Spotlight Directory?
With prospective employers using the Spotlight Directory as a one-stop shop for sourcing qualified candidates, this evolves the credential issuer beyond just being a provider of courses to up-skill people. The issuer becomes a resource for talent in an industry, and in doing so can become the arbiter for what it means to be an expert or qualified individual in that space. Take for example a Spotlight Directory of qualified directors, the issuer of those credentials gets to define through their courses what it means to be a qualified director in the market, which in turn leads to more credence for the issuer. More credence for the issuer means an increase in the value of the credential in the market, leading to increased value in the courses that the issuer provides, resulting in perpetual program growth.
For the credential holder, their appearance in a Spotlight directory is a career-defining event because it provides them with the valuable validation and visibility that could not be achieved with the credential on its own. For prospective employers, the Spotlight Directory becomes a way to solve large-scale hiring issues by short-cutting straight to the people with the skills that they need. For credential issues, Spotlight directories become a powerful catalyst for program growth by establishing themselves as an authority for providing talent within an industry and increasing the value and uptake of their programs.
