Detailed Relevancy

Continuing the “start over” discussion, this post explores issues to consider when making candidates start over.

The first issue is candidate frustration about losing activities when they are forced to start over. If you have a timeline to get certified, your program most likely requires that all activity must be recompleted if a candidate starts over. Being forced to recomplete requirements is frustrating for the candidate, especially for those activities they have recently completed.

For example, suppose the candidate must pass three exams to get certified and there is a three-year timeline from their initial application in which to get certified. Assume they pass the first exam in year one and the second exam in year three. When they don’t pass the third exam by the end of third year, they must start over. The candidate will be especially frustrated about the now-invalid second exam that they passed within the last year.

Additionally, you may have candidates in this scenario who are incented to not take that second exam in year three. This disincentive stems from the low probability that they will pass both exams in that last year. And, if they don’t pass both, they will lose credit for the one they do pass. Of course, this is a barrier to program revenue that must be avoided.

If the example above is applicable for your program, a good option for dealing with it is to have validity periods for each activity instead of forcing recompletion of all activities when starting over. If you add an expiration period of three years to each exam, passed exams can remain valid for a period of time into that second attempt at the certification. In the above example, their passed second exam will be available for another two years even though they have been forced to start over. The candidate still must prove relevancy in regards to all the requirements (must be completed recently), but each requirement is made invalid per its own timeline.

A second issue to consider when candidates are required to start over is whether certain requirements require a different approval path when they are recompleted. For example, if the candidate must recomplete an application, perhaps it is not necessary to repeat the full manual review of all parts of the application. Instead, you might streamline the application so it includes only those necessary items to recomplete. You could require that the candidate needs to pay the fee, sign the affidavit, and answer ethics questions, however the candidate may not need to resubmit all education and work experience. As in the first discussion point above, this approach delineates relevancy at a more granular level. In this example, work experience was an initial bar that needed to be met, but additional work experience makes no difference when they reapply. The affidavit and ethics responses, however, need to be updated and therefore should be recompleted.

Implementing this strategy would save the candidate significant time when recompleting the application. This approach removes a barrier to the candidate starting over and makes it more likely that you will receive the revenue from the reapplication. In addition, you should see an internal cost savings as your staff won’t spend as much time reviewing and approving reapplications.

Next posting – Test windows vs. on demand testing