In 2022, we’re prototyping two Trusted Skills professional certification in marketing. Trusted Skills certification helps you manage risk because you can be confident a professional has certified the skills of a candidate. Though the Trusted Skills professional certification program benefits all employers; we anticipate it has the greatest impact on small-medium enterprises. This is because small-medium employers often recruit from the local labour market and therefore could explicitly seek candidates who possess a specific Trusted Skills professional certification.

The Certifying Oversight Board appoints a Trusted Skills reviewer to review your submission. All Trusted Skills reviewers are professionals who have expertise and certification in the specific skill being verified.

A core principle of Trusted Skills certification is that any certification process is only as trustworthy as the process and people who certify it. For this reason, an important goal of this prototype phase is evaluating a variety of mechanisms to ensure rigour. For example, each Trusted Skills reviewer will undergo a rigorous evidence-based review to prove they have the current knowledge and ability to review the skills related to the certification they’ve been assigned.

The assigned Trusted Skills reviewer will use the certification criteria to assign a candidate one of four potential grades:

Level 0: No evidence of skill

Level 1: Evidence of basic skill

Level 2: Evidence of advanced skill

Level 3: Evidence of expert skill

There are an endless number of ways people can develop skills. There are also an endless number of ways to certify those skills. Some of these certifications are highly rigorous and widely recognized, but many are not. This is a problem we think Trusted Skills will help solve. This is because the process doesn’t certify whether a candidate completed a class, workshop, or took an online test. Instead, it certifies whether the combination of these experiences (and many more) helped the candidate develop the skills you are looking for.

Did you know that 40% of Calgary’s labour force are new Canadians? Unlocking our city’s rich talent pool is essential to the future of our city and your business. However, evidence shows that there are systemic barriers preventing many Calgarians from contributing their talents to our city. This is because in areas where there are no recognized forms of certification, employers manage this risk through informal methods, such as checking references or using referrals. Managing risk is an important priority for any business. However, using these informal methods systematically disadvantages some candidates from marginalized communities because they may not have access to the same networks, or travelled a traditional path to developing skills. Trusted Skills certification is designed to focus only objectively certifying skills, not the process that developed them. The goal is to reduce a systematic dependence on informal recruitment methods. The benefit for you as an employer will be a larger and more diverse candidate pool with people who may have taken a more non-traditional path to developing the skills you are looking for.

Each skill is anchored to a rigorous certification criteria developed by professionals in each area. This criterion is open to all candidates and employers to see. In addition, the certification is based on multiple forms of evidence: submission of a Trusted Skills portfolio, a reflective exercise, and a case study. Lastly, a Trusted Skills reviewer with certified expertise in the professional field is the one assigned to assess a candidate’s evidence.

The project is a joint initiative of Calgary Arts Development Authority (CADA) and Calgary Economic Development. For the prototype, CADA is the certifying body.

Trusted Skills certification is designed to complement diverse forms of talent development, including certified talent development. Separating the type of talent development and the assessment of the skill recognizes that there are infinite pathways in skill development. An example is how studying liberal arts could help develop high-demand skills, such as problem-solving and communications. Similarly, sports and recreation can play a significant role in developing skills associated with leadership and collaboration. Trusted Skills certification offers a path for candidates who have these skills to have them rigorously reviewed and certified regardless of their chosen academic path.

Each certification has three defined levels: basic, advanced, and expert. Each level includes detailed certification criteria that define the evidence needed to prove the associated level of skill.

The specific evidence certifying a skill will vary by certification. However, all Trusted Skills certification requires a candidate to provide evidence that they can do what they say they can do. This evidence often comes from previous work experience. Whether it was paid employment, or a volunteer experience is irrelevant to the assessment process — we only consider the evidence of the skill, not how the candidate developed it.

This project is being funded by Calgary Arts Development Authority (CADA), with the support of Calgary Economic Development and the Calgary Marketing Association. CADA is leading the development of Calgary’s creative economy strategy, which has several pillars. One pillar is the critical need to accelerate the development of Calgary’s creative skills.

In fall 2022, the project team will assess the prototype outcomes relative to the questions. If employers and candidates see value in Trusted Skills certification, we’ll review different approaches to future expansion.