Digital badges end the need to pinpoint CV lies

Honesty will be the only policy if a new industry initiative to digitise job candidates’ skills, training and project certifications becomes compulsory.

In fact, under newly launched Acclaim, users get a digital ‘badge’ for each paper-based certification they have, and it hyperlinks to an organisation that can verify the ‘wearer’ as certified.

But according to the BBC, the badges are not just for qualifications. IT workers, for example, with self-taught or hands-on experience can get their skills reflected in a digital certificate.

Users then ‘pin’ the badges to their email signature, personal website or online career profiles like LinkedIn. Acclaim says other platforms will be ‘badged’ in the future.

The group’s Jarin Schmidt said: “Think about someone who has acquired or demonstrated a skill. How do they communicate that? [Our] badges allow that to happen in a digital fashion.”

Spearheaded by the Mozilla Foundation, the open badging system has Adobe, Microsoft Sales Academy, hiring site ClearFit and IT consultancy Citrix, as signatories, among others.

3rd March, 2015

Written by Simon Moore

Simon Moore is one of the UK’s most consistently published freelance journalists on freelancing, self-employment and contractor issues, such as IR35, the Loan Charge and late payment. Trained in News & Features writing by NCTJ-approved journalism tutors, Simon worked in the newsrooms of local, consumer and national press titles, before setting up his own editorial services company, Moore News Ltd.

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