Keeping Certified Candidates Engaged

Continuing the candidate engagement thread, its time for a discussion on how to keep certified candidates engaged. Again, as with candidates pursuing their first certification, the trick here is to motivate candidates to stay connected. A great method for this is to organize a set of tiered certifications that progressively challenges your candidates’ expertise—as a candidate’s knowledge and experience grows, so does the challenge that your program offers. Having an entry-level certification, a senior certification, and an advanced certification provides a certification path that mirrors a candidate’s career path.

Another option is to have ongoing requirements that force a candidate to stay engage. Recertification is the primary means to do this. Many clients require candidates to submit continuing education (CE) in order to maintain certification. In these cases, its important that you have a site that the candidate can report their CE immediately upon completion rather than forcing them to wait until the end when they have completed all of the CE credits and are about to recertify. This way, they have periodic engagement with you as they login and record their progress rather than the single submission at the end of the recertification cycle.

A final option to consider is engaging your certified candidates as judges of who is qualified for certification. There are a couple of strategies you can use to engage your candidate population this way—as judges or as mentors. As judges: consider introducing a practical requirement to you certification path. These work products must be evaluated and graded to ensure they meet the rubric of your program. Senior certified professionals are your subject matter experts and take pride in vetting the next generation of colleagues—many are enthusiastic to volunteer their time to this effort. As mentors: in many trades and professions, mentorship is integral to maintaining professional standards. In some, the relationship is valued highly enough to formalize in the certification and licensure process. The mentor would ensure young candidates are performing the right tasks in the industry while internalizing and practicing the behaviors that are essential to success, thus incubating a truly professional society. As Judge or Mentor, your candidates take on a material role in defining the tenor and quality of your future professionals and you build a culture of connected and engaged candidates.

What do you think?