Professional certification

A professional certification, also known as a trade certification or professional designation, is a credential earned to demonstrate a person's competence for a specific job or task. Not every certification that allows the use of post-nominal letters signifies educational achievement or is granted by an agency tasked with protecting the public. At its core, a certification is a third-party verification of an individual's knowledge or skill level within a particular industry or profession, and it is typically awarded by professional societies, colleges, or private agencies. Certifications are often time-limited.

Some expire after a set period, such as the lifespan of a product requiring certification for its use, while others can be renewed indefinitely if ongoing requirements are met. Renewal usually involves continuing education, demonstrated by earning continuing education credits (CECs) or continuing education units (CEUs) from approved courses. This process differs from occupational licensing; in the United States, licenses are issued by state agencies, whereas certifications come from professional societies or educational institutes. While obtaining a certificate is voluntary in some fields, in others it may be legally required by a government-accredited agency to perform certain jobs.

In other countries, licenses are granted by professional societies or universities and may require a certificate after several years. The assessment for certification can be more thorough than for licensure, though the two processes are sometimes very similar despite their different legal statuses. As noted by Phillip Barnhart in The Guide to National Professional Certification Programs (1997), certifications are portable because they do not rely on a single company's job definition, offering employers an impartial, third-party endorsement of a candidate's knowledge and experience. Many certification programs are linked to professional associations, trade organizations, or private vendors aiming to raise industry standards.

These programs are often created or endorsed by associations but remain independent from membership organizations. Certifications are common in fields like aviation, construction, technology, environment, healthcare, business, real estate, and finance. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defines a certifying agency by two requirements: delivering an assessment based on industry knowledge that is independent from training courses or providers, and granting a time-limited credential to anyone who meets the assessment standards. The Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE) sets accreditation standards for certification programs based on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, a joint publication of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME).

Categorization

Many certification organizations are also members of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP). There are three general types of certification, listed by development level and portability: corporate (internal), product-specific, and profession-wide. Corporate or internal certifications are created by a company for internal use, such as a one-day training course for sales staff. These certificates have limited portability but are the simplest to develop.

Product-specific certifications are more involved and apply to a particular product across all uses, common in the IT industry where personnel are certified on specific software or hardware versions. These are portable across locations using that product but not to other products, as seen with international shipping certifications under the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The most general type is profession-wide certification, often offered by medical specialties. A professional organization may establish such a certification to apply standards, raise practice levels, and protect the public, making it portable to any workplace.

This generality increases program costs, as creating a legally defensible assessment for an entire profession is extensive. An example is a certified public accountant (CPA), which qualifies a professional for general work in the field, not for a single company or software. Many tertiary education providers also grant professional certificates for completing an educational program. These certificates typically focus on a specific subject, and their curriculum often mirrors that of a master's degree in the same area, sometimes offering the same courses.