Employers want to hire people with specific skills. Your credentials prove they have them. What you need now is a way for employers to confirm that proof on their own. You can do that by changing how you describe, issue, and share the credentials your members earn.
Make Your Association’s Credentials Easy to Verify in a Skills-Based Hiring Market
Skills-based hiring has created demand for what your credentials document. Employers want proof of what a candidate can do but don’t have a quick way to check it. A verifiable credential carries proof that it’s genuine, lists the competencies it covers, and turns up in the places employers search.
Skills-Based Hiring: What Employers Say and What the Data Shows
In TestGorilla’s 2025 survey, 85% of employers said they plan to rely on skills-based hiring, up from 73% in 2023. But hiring practices are still catching up. Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute found that dropping degree requirements led to fewer than one additional non-degree hire for every 700 hires in 2023.
Hiring managers might have only one afternoon to build a shortlist from 200 applications. They see your credential’s initials after a candidate’s name but have no quick way to learn what the designation proves. You already know what every credential holder can do because they passed an assessment that proved it. Employers are still building their skills-based hiring processes, so now’s the time to put that proof in front of them.
Why Employers Can’t Verify What Your Credential Proves
An employer can find your credential in one search. Learning what someone had to demonstrate to earn it takes research, and most hiring managers don’t have that kind of time.
A certificate PDF leaves an employer guessing about which competencies your member demonstrated and whether the credential is still current, which matters for any credential with recertification requirements.
Industry suppliers, consultants, universities, and boot camps all issue digital credentials now that can be verified in one click. Employers will expect the same from your credential.
What Verifiable Digital Credentials Look Like in Practice
An employer looking at a verifiable credential can click once and see the issuer, the competencies it certifies, its current status, and any employer endorsements. Three pieces of digital credentialing technology make that possible.
Open Badges 3.0
The nonprofit standards body 1EdTech, which develops many learning technology specifications, released Open Badges 3.0 in May 2024. A 3.0 badge is a digitally signed record, so anyone can confirm that it’s authentic and unaltered.
The badge carries the criteria, evidence, expiration date, and competency framework behind the credential. Your association signs each badge with a cryptographic key, and that signature stays inside the badge. The credential remains verifiable even if the platform that issued it shuts down. An employer can also endorse the credential—an endorsement that travels with the badge.
Digital Wallets for Credential Sharing
A digital wallet is an app where members collect credentials from any issuer and can share them on request. Credly, a badging platform many associations use, includes a badge wallet in each member's profile. The wallet collects and verifies badges from other issuers that follow the Open Badges standard. When an employer asks for proof of certification, your member sends the link.
Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL) and the Credential Registry
CTDL, from the nonprofit Credential Engine, is a shared format for describing what a credential requires and which competencies it maps to. Several states use the Credential Registry, a public database of credential descriptions, to build their credential libraries.
Because many professionals have no idea an association represents their industry, publishing to the registry puts your credential in front of workers and employers who might never visit your website.
Five Steps to Earn Employer Trust in Your Credentials
These steps build on each other, so work through them in order.
1. Audit what each credential proves. Separate assessment-based credentials from certificates of completion, then label each one clearly. Employers hiring for skills care about demonstrated competency, and blurred labels weaken trust in everything you issue.
2. Rewrite your competency statements in employer language. Pull the competencies from your job task analysis and phrase them the way job postings do. A line such as “estimates material costs from a set of plans” gives a recruiter something to match against the job description.
3. Ask your digital badge provider the right questions. Find out whether the platform is certified for Open Badges 3.0, whether members can export badges to a wallet, whether each badge displays expiration and revocation status, and whether it supports employer endorsements.
4. Publish a page for every credential you issue. On each credential page, list the competencies, assessment method, renewal requirements, and verification instructions. Adding the same information to the Credential Registry puts it in a public database employers can search.
5. Bring employers into the program. Employers often pay program and exam fees, so they deserve marketing aimed at them. Try one or more of these ideas:
🔹 Invite them onto an advisory group that reviews your competency statements.
🔹Ask them to endorse the credential.
🔹Create a one-page verification guide for human resources teams.
🔹Write a case study showing what certified employees do differently on the job.
Where Your Association LMS Fits in Credential Verification
A verifiable credential is only as trustworthy as the learning management system (LMS) record that backs it up.
When your LMS supports credentialing, the process looks like this:
🔹 When a member completes the coursework and passes the assessment in a certification path you built with competency rules, the LMS issues the credential right away, with the competencies attached.
🔹 For renewal, the LMS tracks continuing education credits and updates the status, so anyone who checks sees current information.
TopClass LMS runs this sequence for you and connects to badging platforms such as Credly so members can share verified credentials on LinkedIn.
A verifiable credential sits in your member’s digital wallet and on their LinkedIn profile, carrying the competencies and current status to every job application and promotion conversation. Employers get what they’ve been asking for: quick proof that this candidate can do the work, issued by the association that knows the profession better than anyone.
See how TopClass LMS can support your credentialing programs by scheduling a personalized demo.