IT and technical certifications can help organizations validate skills, strengthen workforce capabilities and prepare employees for emerging technologies. But realizing their full value requires integrating credentials into broader learning and talent development strategies.

In this episode of The Business of Learning, sponsored by Pearson, Krista Ketchmark, an executive sales leader at Pearson, shares insights from Pearson’s recent research on the value of IT certifications and explores how organizations can use credentials to build workforce capabilities, support career development and navigate the evolving demands of an AI-driven workplace.

Tune in now for insights on:

• Key findings from Pearson’s research on the value of IT certifications and what they reveal about today’s workforce
• Strategies for integrating certifications into continuous learning, career pathways and talent development programs
• How certifications can help organizations build confidence in employees’ skills, adapt to emerging technologies and strengthen business outcomes

More Resources:

• [Article]: Why IT Certifications Work Best as Part of a Capability Framework
• [Resource]: Corporate Training Strategy: A Practical Guide for L&D Leaders
• [Wiki]: Certifications for Training Professionals

The transcript for this episode follows:

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Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Hi, and welcome back to “The Business of Learning.” I’m Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz, editor-in-chief here at Training Industry.

Sarah Gallo: And I’m Sarah Gallo, a senior editor. Today we’re exploring the role IT certifications play in helping organizations build skills, develop talent and keep pace with evolving technology. We’ll also look at how L&D leaders can use certifications as part of a broader strategy for continuous learning and capability development. So to learn more, we’re speaking with Krista Ketchmark, an executive sales leader at Pearson. So Krista, thank you so much for joining us today.

Krista Ketchmark: Yes. Thank you so much for having me, Michelle and Sarah. I’m glad to be here.

Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Excited for this conversation today. So to kind of get things started and set the stage for our conversation, I’d love if you could clarify what we mean by IT certifications. So when we talk about certifications in this context, what type of credentials are we referring to?

Krista Ketchmark: Absolutely. That’s a really great way to ground our conversation, because here at Pearson, we are all about learning, and certification is a really powerful proof point of learning. And when you think about certification and licensure, it’s across many different professions. And here at Pearson Professional Assessments, we deliver those certifications and licensures across all of those professions, from finance, healthcare, IT, academic admissions, English language learning and, of course, information technology. And individuals who are taking those tests, they are earning an industry-recognized credential, and the test is part of that required learning journey. And if I dive a little bit deeper on information technology certification, those are tests that are asking individuals questions to validate their knowledge, skills and abilities for IT-related or technology-specific work. And those are roles like a software developer, a web developer, an information security analyst and more. And there are some really recognizable brands behind these information technology certifications, like Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, Meta, Adobe, Autodesk, and the list goes on and on. And sometimes people ask me, “What’s the so what with IT certifications? There’s so many different ways that we can learn and validate our skills. We can take LinkedIn courses. We can take YouTube. We can watch YouTube videos. Self-paced learning. We can go to an instructor-led course. What does IT certification do?” Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve watched many LinkedIn courses before, and sometimes I’m multitasking, so I’m probably not picking up everything that I could if I was giving it my undivided attention. But for an individual to pass a very challenging IT certification, that learning stuck. And earning that certification is the proof point that they now have those valuable work-ready skills. That is why employers, now more than ever, are turning to certifications as a strategic role for them to close the global skills gap and have that level of confidence that those employees actually have the skills that are needed to help them adapt in this ever-changing technology that we’re seeing today.

Sarah Gallo: Awesome. Thanks for kind of clarifying what certifications we’re talking about here, since there’s definitely a lot available. No shortage on the market today. Krista, I’d love if you could share some of the findings that stood out to you from Pearson’s recent research on the value of IT certifications, and what do you think those findings really tell us about the role certifications play in today’s workforce?

Krista Ketchmark: For sure. I love talking about our value of IT certification research. We’ve been doing it now for over 10 years. And just to take a step back for our listeners here, each year we alternate between talking to employers and talking to employees, and each year we reach around 500 employees around the world, and we reach about 25,000 employees around the world. All of this research is focused exactly as you have described there on the value of IT certification. There are a couple of key findings that I’ll call out here and connect it to the “so what” that I mentioned at the beginning. For employers, our recent report, those employers said that they found positive ROI. Ninety-three percent of organizations reported positive ROI from their certification investments. And that positive ROI shows up in ways that you would expect, like their technology workers are more productive, they have better performance overall. But the positive ROI also shows up in ways you may not expect, like better employee retention and higher customer satisfaction and the ability to win more business. That’s really interesting for employers. And then if I shift gears to employees, what they report is that when they got certified, it made them be eligible for a promotion, it made them get a pay increase, and the part that I really love the most is that they said that it boosted their confidence, their self-confidence, not just at work and their capabilities, but in general, that earning that very challenging certification was a big confidence booster. So in the end, when you think about all of these things, this long-standing research that we’ve put together that’s global and independent, it gives large-scale evidence to both employers and individuals that IT certification can deliver some measurable business and career outcomes.

Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: That’s really interesting because I think sometimes we often see, like from research, what business may be viewing as a positive, employees are not kind of seeing that same outcome. And it really sounds like here that we’re really seeing kind of that positive impact from both the employer and the organizational standpoint. So that’s really encouraging there. So as we know, organizations often invest in certifications with a specific goal in mind, but earning the credential is really just one step in that learning journey. How can employers build on certifications to create more of a continuous learning and long-term capability development?

Krista Ketchmark: Yeah, you’re spot on there, Michelle, that it’s critically important that organizations are not treating certifications as the finish line or a one-and-done initiative. They need to create that continuous cycle of learning, validation and application. I’ll give some practical pointers here or recommendations. Number one, it’s important to pair certifications with hands-on practice. Employers need to give newly certified individuals the ability to apply that new skill to a real project. Think about this for a second. Think about a skill you haven’t used for a while. Maybe it’s playing an instrument. Maybe it’s speaking another language. I have a kind of funny personal example. I recently tried to do a cartwheel, and it was an epic fail. I used to do dozens of cartwheels a day when I was a kid, and I tried to do one, and I haven’t used that skill in so long that I didn’t realize I don’t know how to do a cartwheel anymore. The same is true with these certified individuals, that when they earn that IT certification, they need to immediately start applying the skills that they’ve learned. Employers need to keep that in mind and think about projects that they can be assigned to that they can use the skills that they have just learned. Second thing would be to create a mentor program. I started at Pearson as a mentee, as an intern, and I had a designated mentor that helped me, and it was critically important to my success. Same thing here, that employers should establish a mentorship program so that newly certified individuals are mentored. People that have expertise and are certified can provide that scaffolding for them so that they can have peer coaching, peer observation, peer feedback, and as they’re assigned to a real project, they have a peer there that will help them be successful in that project. I’ll give a little example here. Let’s say an individual just earned a network administration exam, like a Cisco Certified Network Administrator exam, for example. You might task that individual with a real project, such as go improve the network reliability of our office. And that individual can apply the recently learned skills to do things like analyze help desk tickets, identify recurring connectivity problems that have happened in the office, investigate the network and make some recommendations. And then, working in concert with their designated mentor, they can start to prioritize and work through those recommendations. All of this is happening through that effective cycle of learning, validation and application. And I think it’s really interesting to point out that certified employees will make this easier because, in our research, employers report that certified employees have better leadership capabilities and better mentorship capabilities. This is a natural ecosystem for them. All they need is a little support and structure from management and this is going to be successful. So that real value happens after someone earns the credential. They get the opportunity to put those skills to work solving real problems, and they have that scaffolding of a successful mentorship with their fellow colleagues. And then eventually what that does is it helps them be recognized for their contributions, and leaders will see that they are well suited for continual growth and leadership opportunities within the company.

Sarah Gallo: Awesome. Yeah, kind of that wraparound support with mentorship is really key, and the application piece too that you mentioned, Krista. I’d love to kind of step back a second and kind of talk about, for L&D leaders who want to just get started making certifications part of their overall L&D strategy, do you have any recommendations on where they should start? And maybe how they can determine which capabilities their business needs, or how to identify the right certifications and really build those into career pathways and programs.

Krista Ketchmark: I would recommend that L&D leaders start with key business problems that should be solved, with business priorities, if you will, and then sit down with leadership and determine a singular business problem that everybody agrees needs to be solved. And it will take some compromise and discussion because every leader has different things they’re trying to do at the company. But that is essential, to sit down with leadership and start with a singular problem that you’re trying to solve, and then work backwards from that problem. Think about the skills your employees need in order to solve that problem. Then once you have that, you can then identify the certifications that connect to the skills that are needed by those employees. And I can give you a small example here. Let’s say an organization decides that their core problem is responding faster to cybersecurity incidents. The skills that somebody might need as employees would be a mixture of technical, analytical and communication skills. So now you have the skills identified. You can start to do some research around the types of certifications that would help your employees develop those technical, analytical and communication skills. And I’ll make things a little bit easier for our listeners. The certifications that best align to those skills are things like the Security+ certification by CompTIA, the Security Incident Handler certification by GIAC and the Information System Security certification by ISC2. So that’s the practical way that I would recommend L&D leaders start. Start with a business problem, but make sure you get buy-in from leaders. There is an example of an organization I was recently talking to where the L&D leaders had all the best intentions, and they rolled out a certification strategy, but they failed to do that, right? They failed to identify the business problem and then meet with leaders to get alignment on that problem. And I’ll tell you what happened when they rolled it out. They immediately started receiving complaints from managers and employees. Managers said, “I don’t understand why these certifications are relevant to the jobs that my employees are doing. I don’t see the value in the certifications, and my people don’t have time for this.” And the employees said the same thing. The employees said, “I’m so busy. I’m completely slammed. I do not have time for the amount of time it will take for me to get prepared and to take this certification.” Ultimately, they had to hit pause on their strategy and take a step back. So it’s really important to start with that business problem you’re trying to solve, work backwards to the skills that are needed to solve that problem and then land on the certifications that can help you develop those skills that are needed.

Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Thank you for sharing that. I can’t imagine, like, the alignment piece is so important when rolling out training, and when kind of businesses kind of miss that step, they’re really in for some unforeseen outcomes, like you mentioned there. So with AI pretty much changing jobs so quickly, some people may be wondering whether certifications can really keep pace with technology. I know many people out there are really wondering, are certifications worth it? So based on your research, I’d love if you could kind of share a little bit why you think certifications are becoming more valuable in this age of AI and how they can help organizations build confidence that employees really need when they need these skills to work with these emerging technologies.

Krista Ketchmark: So Michelle, you hit on the number one question I am presented with, probably in the last 12 to 18 months. That’s the question that has come up the most: Are IT certifications obsolete in the age of AI? And our research shows directly opposite, that employers have reported that technology is changing so rapidly, and AI knows how to do things today just as well as humans, but what AI doesn’t do that employers still need employees to do is to be able to collaborate effectively with AI, ensure that the outputs from AI are accurate and that the outputs are actually solving the problems at hand. That’s where employers are reporting an increasingly important focus on IT certifications as that trusted way to validate that their employees can adapt and apply new skills effectively and to work effectively with AI. And when you think about the IT certifications, the way that helps employers specifically with AI are in two ways: general abilities and AI tool-specific abilities. Going to general abilities, we have Pearson’s Foundations of Generative AI certification, and what that does is it provides a tool-agnostic skilling solution that you will need if you’re working with any kind of AI. It does things like tests your knowledge around effective prompt writing and responsible use of AI, so you’re not doing a big no-no like putting a confidential company contract into ChatGPT, for example. Going into specifics, there are specific certifications tied to AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, Adobe Firefly and Salesforce Agentforce, as just a few examples, where those certifications verify for employers that their employees know how to use those specific AI tools. When you combine those two things together, the general capabilities and the specific AI tool capabilities, employers are not viewing AI as a reason to move away from certifications. They’re actually saying that they see AI as a reason to make certifications more strategic and more tightly integrated with continuous learning and workforce development.

Sarah Gallo: Definitely. I love your points around that validation piece, that these certifications really help validate that employees have the skills needed to work with AI effectively, evaluate outputs, and it seems like that would be beneficial for both employees and the organization as well. I guess next, another thing that Pearson’s research highlighted was that certification can help businesses attract and retain talent, also gain new business and, again, build that credibility. For organizations that maybe haven’t invested yet in certification, what do you think is one of the biggest opportunities they might be overlooking, and what first step would you encourage them to take?

Krista Ketchmark: Great question, Sarah. So you named a couple of them. The biggest opportunity that they might be overlooking is recognizing that certification is not just a one-time learning investment. It is important to look at certification as an overall workforce strategy. And there are really four key benefits that employers can see from having a certified workforce. The one you just mentioned are that certifications support hiring better talent. What that means is your HR department needs to be prioritizing candidates that have IT certifications over those that don’t because you know that they have validated proof points of learning that they can bring immediate value to your business. Number two, certifications help organizations address skills gaps. It’s less about, can I hire people with the right skills these days? It’s more about, can I make sure that my employees today are evolving at the pace that I need them to, adapting at the pace that I need them to keep my business current and to protect my business? And number three, and I mentioned this before, but certifications are an incredible confidence builder for employees. It builds confidence not only in themselves, but in the work that they’re doing, and it also builds confidence with your customers. And that leads to the fourth and final benefit to organizations, that having a certified workforce brings business outcomes such as employee retention, engagement, as well as winning more business. And I’ll give a quick example here. Some employers have reported that they were able to win more business when they listed all of the credentials that their employees have earned. And if you think about company A versus company B that’s bidding on business, and company A is able to tell a customer, “Here are all the certifications that my employees have that directly pertain to the products and services you’re purchasing from us.” Organization B doesn’t have that. They don’t have a certification strategy. Employers report that customers awarded business to them because they had more confidence in their ability to actually deliver on those products and services because of the certifications.

Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Wow, Krista. I think you’re wrapping us up on a great note there. Thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. How can our listeners get in touch with you after the episode if they’d like to reach out?

Krista Ketchmark: Yeah, absolutely. I love talking to organizations about their skilling initiatives, and I love hearing about the positive impacts of learning. I work at Pearson Professional Assessments, and I can be reached at krista.ketchmark@pearson.com. I’m also a big LinkedIn junkie, so feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Sarah Gallo: Awesome. Thanks, Krista.

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