Digital Badges Are Essential for Employers and Candidates Now More Than Ever
Data collected by the UK’s Office for National Statistics reveal that, in just the last three years, 14% of 138,000 HR managers and directors have dealt with at least five examples of employees not holding the qualifications they claimed. That’s nearly 100,000 employees, working in Britain, having lied to get jobs they were not qualified to do. To prevent future deceptions, companies must leverage the ingenuity of digital badges today.
Digital badges, such as those offered for free with Oracle Certification, are also a boon for genuinely qualified job seekers, allowing them to:
-
Demonstrate qualifications on CVs as well as social media.
-
Increase the likelihood of securing a job offer over an unqualified candidate.
-
Show professionalism and concern for the employer, by minimizing their time to vet the job application.
-
Signify their readiness to perform by possessing the skills required for the role.
-
Differentiate themselves from the competition in the job market.
-
Get Hired Faster.
Digital badges are the full proof solution for qualification checks, helping companies to avoid the pitfalls, perils, and price of unqualified hires, while boosting the job and career prospects of honest, certified professionals.
In an increasingly competitive jobs market rife with candidate fraud, digital badges are the breakthrough that allows companies to immediately verify candidate qualifications and avoid the costs, inconvenience, and business risk of unqualified hires. Digital badges also enable genuine job applicants to benefit from instant credibility and avoid losing out on career opportunities to unqualified fraudsters, whose numbers are currently on the rise.
Effect of an Unqualified Hire
The effects of a bad hire are difficult, but not impossible, to quantify. According to a survey by AXELOS, a UK-based global best practice solution provider, in the past three years, nearly 40% of UK companies have spent more than £10,000 re-hiring staff after employing someone who was not properly qualified, with nearly 10% having spent over 4 times that amount.
But the financial impact spreads far beyond the calculable recruitment expenditure. There are many hidden costs, such as the increased management and colleague time trying to coach the incumbent up to speed, and costs incurred through on-the-job mistakes. There are also missed opportunity costs as the business stagnates through a lack of technological innovation, in addition to the untold negative impacts on the business’s reputation – cited by 26% of the HR managers surveyed by AXELOS as the most significant risk posed by under qualified staff.
The estimated fully-loaded costs of an unqualified hire can add up to a staggering sum.
Common Issues with Validating Qualifications
There are many reasons why qualifications are not checked correctly, if at all, even when the process is advocated.
Firstly, how do you check qualifications? Many firms will ask a candidate to email in a scanned copy of their certificates – but these can be easily falsified, even without IT skills. Asking the candidate to bring in their credentials in person is better, but still, doesn’t guarantee their validity. Proper verification traditionally requires time and resources.
Secondly, who is responsible for checking qualifications? The hiring manager? Recruiter? HR administrator? The onboarding team? The external recruitment agency? While it’s in everyone’s interest, qualification checking frequently gets passed around with no one owning the issue.
Thirdly, qualification checks are usually the last step in the recruitment cycle and, as time-consuming administrative tasks, too often get pushed to the bottom of the to-do list and forgotten about, as more urgent needs take priority.
The answer to all these questions may be easier than you think – Digital Badges.
Digital Badges - Made Validation Easy
The use of digital certification badges is a massive boost for background checks, enabling employers to:
-
Instantly and securely authenticate a prospective employee’s skills and competencies.
-
Minimize potential risk to the business of hiring unqualified personnel.
-
Reduce the HR administrative and ownership burden.
-
Make faster, more confident and, above all, more valid hiring decisions.
Job Applications in a Cut-Throat Competition
With the technical skills gap widening, salaries in the IT field are growing as companies struggle to find the qualified talent they need. Consequently, the rise in IT wages has produced a more competitive IT job market, as increasing numbers of recession-hit candidates apply for IT positions with the promise of interesting, in-demand work, a competitive salary, and the enhanced job security of the IT domain.
The attraction of such positions is leading many candidates to push the boundaries of truth on their CVs, studies reveal, with numerous applicants being outright untruthful about their qualifications. Companies, meanwhile, in the rush to hire seemingly qualified IT staff, are making the mistake of rushing through the candidate selection process and not verifying candidate qualifications, ending up with a potentially bad hire.