All the information you will need is in the Trusted Skills candidate guidebook. You can download this by clicking HERE. If you have any additional questions, please send us an email at support@trustedskills.org

No. The Trusted Skills professional certification considers combined life experiences and recognizes that there are many ways skills develop.

When we think of how we traditionally develop skills, we think of a program or class that we take, and at the end, we are assessed on whether we have the associated knowledge and skills. This is referred to as integrated certification because developing a skill is integrated with the process of verifying the skill.

Trusted Skills professional certification adopts decoupled certification. Decoupled certification recognizes that there are infinite ways to develop a skill, including formal education, work experience, self-directed skill development, and mentoring. The decoupling principle is widely used today in various professional fields, skilled trades, and motor vehicle licensing. Think about a driver's license. People learn how to drive in all different ways. The driver’s test is decoupled from a specific class or approach to learning how to drive. Instead, the test focuses only on testing a candidate’s ability to drive. For this reason, the Trusted Skills professional certification only assesses the skill, not the pathway by which the skill was developed.

Trusted Skills professional certification aims to mitigate risk for employers during the hiring process. Consistent and trusted mechanisms certifying a candidate’s skills remove some of this risk. Employers often request specific educational credentials (e.g., degree) or professional certifications (e.g., a Chartered Professional Accountant designation). These certifications confirm in advance that a candidate has certain skills from an objective and trusted third party.

However, few recognized certifications exist for many areas, including non-technical fields. For instance, a university degree in marketing does not necessarily certify that a candidate can plan, launch, and manage a digital media campaign. The real value of Trusted Skills professional certification is the potential to recognize the infinite ways high-valued skills can develop, whether through volunteering, attending a workshop, or having a mentor.

Trusted Skills professional certification helps all employers; however, we expect it to have the greatest impact on Calgary-based small-medium enterprises. Since small-medium employers often recruit from the local labour market, they could explicitly seek candidates with a specific certification. In contrast, large national or multinational corporations recruit from a global labour market. Therefore, we expect it will be rare that large-scale employers will specifically include Trusted Skills Certification into their recruitment process.

The job market is highly competitive, and most employers receive hundreds or thousands of applications for each job. The job seeker aims to make this decision easier for employers and remove the risk. Having Trusted Skills professional certification helps manage this risk by certifying in advance that the job seeker has the skills the employer seeks.

Once you have submitted your complete portfolio to the secured and private Trusted Skills DropBox (including your Trusted Skills Biography, your Self-Declaration of Trusted Skills, and your Trusted Skills testimonial with the required evidence, you will receive a confirmation of submission from the Trusted Skills team. The full review of your submission will take approximately 2 weeks once that submission is complete.

After your Trusted Skills submission has been reviewed, you will receive a digital copy of your certification badge which you can use throughout your career journey. The badge will be compatible with existing resume and career focused digital platforms.

Skill demand is dynamic and ever-changing, making speed and agility essential. By narrowing the scope to metropolitan Calgary, we also narrow the number of stakeholders involved, increasing efficiency while ensuring economies of scale. Keeping the scope at a city-level focuses the program’s benefits on Calgary-based small-medium enterprises, which represent 99% of all employers in the city. Research shows that small-medium employers depend heavily on recruiting from their local geographic labour market, primarily because of the high cost of moving a new employee. In contrast, large organizations have the ability and resources to recruit from a larger labour market.

Yes. The Trusted Skills professional certification program recognizes that developing skill comes in many forms. For example, an early study we conducted found that only 12% percent of marketing professionals in the sample held a degree in marketing.[i] We know that skills no longer develop through a single path but instead develop in the classroom, online, at work, and volunteering, or a combination of these. The Trusted Skills professional certification seeks to recognize and reward skills, no matter how they are developed.

We will appoint a certified Trusted Skills reviewer to review submissions. The reviewer will have expertise in the specific skill being verified.

To ensure consistency and transparency, all candidates and reviewers have access to a comprehensive skill criteria.

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

Level 0: No evidence of basic skill level

Level 1: Evidence of basic skill

Level 2: Evidence of advanced skill

Level 3: Evidence of expert skill

The current economic model expects a fee to be paid by the candidate for every certification. This fee is solely for cost recovery.

For the prototype, Calgary Arts Development Authority will fully fund the certification fee. The goal of this model is to balance rigour and accessibility. If the rigour of the Trusted Skills professional certification process is compromised, the Trusted Skills professional certification will have no value to employers. However, if the process is so costly that Calgarians pursuing Trusted Skills professional certification face a financial barrier, it also defeats the goal of greater inclusivity in the labour market.

Trusted Skills testimonial is embedded as a component of your Trusted Skills ePortfolio. This testimonial requires a candidate to reflect on how their evidence, experience, and perspective contribute to their skill. The testimonial component is an explicit opportunity for a candidate to provide context and insight to the Trusted Skills reviewer into how you developed your skills and its link to your ePortfolio. The testimonial may be submitted in either written or video format

Trusted Skills professional certification aims to be one part of a network of certification opportunities that help Calgarians develop and show the skills they need to succeed in their career pathways. Skill certification, whether through the certification or an existing certification, is essential to all Calgarians’ success in their career pathways.

When you submit evidence, you will note the team members who contributed to the project. If you did the work independently, you could leave this section blank. But if you worked as a team, you must share the names or handles of co-contributors. Failure to do so results in a disqualification.

Each skill is anchored to a rigorous certification criteria developed by professionals. Your portfolio will be reviewed when applying for certification. For level 2 advance certification, you will also complete a case study. For level 3 expert certification, your portfolio will be reviewed by an expert panel.

A core principle is that Trusted Skills professional certification is only as legitimate as the process and people who verify them. For this reason, an imperative goal of this prototype phase is evaluating a variety of mechanisms to ensure rigour. Each Trusted Skills reviewer will undergo a rigorous evidence-based review to prove they have the currency and ability to review specific skills.

The project is a joint initiative of Calgary Arts Development Authority and Calgary Economic Development. During the prototype, we will evaluate the optimal structure and resources needed for a potential scaling of Trusted Skills professional certification.

Trusted Skills Certification is designed to complement all forms of skill development, including certified skill development. Decoupling recognizes that there are infinite routes to developing a skill. Most skills involve the intersection of certified, non-certified, and informal skill development experiences. Decoupling unlocks and recognizes the importance of this intersection in modern 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 individuals who have these skills to have these rigorously assessed and certified regardless of their background.

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. To receive a “basic” certification in an area, a candidate must demonstrate a minimum “basic” level in each of the certification criteria.

The specific evidence will vary by certification. However, all Trusted Skills Certifications require a candidate to supply evidence that they can do what they say they can do. Often this evidence is in the form of earlier work experience. Whether this evidence was the output of a paid employment or a volunteer experience is irrelevant to the review process, which only considers the outcome.

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. A pillar of this strategy is the critical need to accelerate the development of Calgary’s creative skills. We’re evaluating whether decoupling has the potential to unlock and recognize the existing capacity in the system by providing creative skill developers with a certification path.

Following the prototype phase, the project team will review its success compared to the defined questions. At the same time, we will review paths to potential expansion and scaling of Trusted Skills Certification to other professional fields. Based on this, the project team will evaluate the next steps.