Are job certificates more important than university certificates?!

7 February 2020

Are job certificates still important at all? This question comes up again and again, and it contributes to the fact, that the topic of job certificates has been critically discussed for years, if not decades. Some authors believe, that job certificates are outdated and no longer relevant. Regardless as to whether one should share this opinion, reality clearly speaks a different language!

According to the study published by Indeed, staffers rate the last job certificate, right after the CV and the cover letter, as the most important element of application. Along with this, several points are apparent.

Applicants underestimate the importance of their job certificates.

On the one hand, applicants overestimate the importance of their certificates and references. On the other hand, from HR's point of view, vocational and university certificates are less relevant than job certificates. Applicants greatly underestimate the relevance of their job certificates comparing to their importance for HR managers.

This confirms the overall tendency in the society to underestimate the value of job certificates. As a result, employees generally do not devote enough time for reviewing their certificates, and blindly trust, that the feedback, received in the final meeting with the boss, will be reflected just as positively in the job certificate.

Recruiters are the ones who decide on the importance of job certificates.

In addition, the results of the study show that HR professionals are still considering job certificates to be very important. It is significant, that recruiters and HRs are the key players in the discussion about whether job certificates are important or not. Ultimately, it is the recruiters who decide whether or not to take the information from job certificates into account when selecting their applicants.

It should be mentioned that, explicitly the last job certificate is of high relevance for HR personnel. There are several understandable reasons for this. If the last employment relationship has lasted for a longer period of time, the evaluation its content is very significant. At the same time, it means that the previous activities and the corresponding certificates are several years old. Qualifications and behaviour may have changed over a longer period of time. Therefore, It is understandable, that the focus is initially placed on the current status. After all, it is important for the recruiter to be able to classify the current performance and behaviour of the applicant.

Conclusion of the study

The conclusion of this study is that employees should not trust individual experts or opinion leaders, who talk down the value of job certificates. Instead, one should consider that HR professionals do use the information from job certificates, and one should make sure, that it will not become an obstacle for one’s own application.

If you would like to know how the language of certificates is structured and what you should consider when talking about your work description, you are invited to read on in our knowledge sector or our other blog posts.

Original source in German