Many top business leaders and executives have amazing academic pedigrees: undergraduate degrees from top schools, Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees and other graduate degrees, etc. These executives also typically have years of real-world experience in their fields of choice.
That combination of knowledge—educational and experiential—provides a solid foundation for performing in their roles and is often the basis upon which hiring and promotion decisions are made.
An Education/Experience Gap
But there is a potential gap here. While these executives may have had a breadth of knowledge years ago and years of focused knowledge more recently, they are often missing out on a breadth of knowledge on current trends that may be outside the scope of their immediate day-to-day activities and that did not necessarily exist while they were in school.
Consider this: Those who earned their MBAs just 10 short years ago were not schooled at a time where technologies like AI, or machine learning, were being adopted. How, then, can they be expected to lead in an era where such technologies are becoming the norm? Clearly, more and more, education is a process, not an event.
Microcredentials Keep Professionals Up to Date
According to Sarah Fister Gale a potential solution to this conundrum: microcredential programs. “For midcareer professionals who may already have an MBA, microcredentials offer a way to bone up on the latest business and technology trends, while early career professionals can use them to develop specific skills or knowledge that will help them stand out,” says Gale.
Microcredentials are courses, or series of courses, that allow participants to gain knowledge and some level of accreditation in a focused area—e.g., IT or finance—rather than completing an entire program, like an MBA.
This helps learners to focus on the essential skills they need to develop while being efficient in terms of the amount of time they need to put toward acquiring the specific skills they really need.
There is much to be said for the holistic business education offered through a traditional MBA. But not everyone has the time to spend completing this coursework. Microcredentials allow people to focus their energy on specific knowledge and skills while still getting recognition for their studies—and the credentials that can help them move onward, or upward, in new roles.