Tracey Flynn

Page 4 of 6     1  2  3  4  5  6 

There's no magic number to the timeline for recertification. Certain industries and professions seem to have standards. For example, requiring recertification every two years is typical in the computer industry, and three to five years is typical in education and healthcare. Many organizations gravitate to norms for their industry or profession. In establishing recertification requirements it's important to analyze whether the skills or technology change frequently.

Test item / exam development has a separate list of steps:

Although it can vary according to an organization's individual process (or contain additional steps because of a test delivery vendor's requirements), the standard test-development process consists of the following twelve steps, from start to implementation: Identify work behaviors. Define the objectives. Create a test blueprint. Draft the items. Review and revise items. Align and create curriculum materials. Conduct a beta test (pilot). Revise the test and curriculum materials. Determine the cut (cutoff) score. Administer the test. Review the reports and scores. Revise the test.

Some organizations adopt a maintenance plan rather than recertification. A maintenance plan allows certified individuals to keep their certification or license as long as they comply with additional requirements within a specified timeframe. For example, nurses and teachers must have continuing education credits to maintain their credentials.

Why should you offer and require recertification? Recertification is certainly an appropriate strategy when knowledge or skills quickly become out of date. It also prompts those certified to refresh their skills and knowledge. Some organizations also have a recertification requirement because their competitors do or because it creates a self-sustaining program. Before making a recertification decision, your organization should conduct another job task analysis or survey the experts in the subject area to determine whether the skill sets or products tested change and become out of date.

Maintaining Candidate Perspective

In communicating with candidates, it's important to address all their potential concerns about the recertification program:

• Why should a candidate recertify?
• What are the benefits of recertification?
• What will a candidate receive for recertification? (The collateral should be different than for the original certification and provide an incentive.)
• How does recertification affect business-partner accreditation agreements?
• Will the database automatically trigger a certification announcement to be sent to candidates when they achieve recertification?
• How will fulfillment (of the "stuff" one receives upon recertification, such as certificates, logo sheets, jacket, and ID badges) be triggered?

<
GoCertify: How important are the perks/benefits of a particular program - i.e. priority technical support, discounts and so on?

Tracey Flynn: The perks are very important to the participant, the exam candidate. Every certification program needs to answer an individual's question, "what's in it for me?" Since there's heavy competition among certification programs it's not enough for the program to simply offer a certificate. Programs that are serious about competing for the best and the brightest should be thinking about the value of their program and what makes it the most desirable. The days of "just build it and they will come" are over.

Page 4 of 6     1  2  3  4  5  6