Re: Certification--a new concept. Discuss.

Subject: Re: Certification--a new concept. Discuss.
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 10:22:42 -0400


Gene,

First, FYI, your email address is bouncing.

Second, if you go back to my original post, the idea is to evolve something organically that eventually makes inroads into the consciousness of hiring managers (maybe not HR folks--ever--but doc managers who themselves became certified some years previous, for example).

Here's the model that led to this discussion at dinner yesterday: My wife gets to put "IBCLC" after her name. That means she is an international board-certified lactation consultant. Even after 25 years of existence of that particular credential, it does not carry a lot of weight with hospitals or universities and most healthcare professionals are not familiar with it. However--and this is the point Tina made--it doesn't stand alone. In her case it comes _after_ "MD, FAAP," both of which are more broadly familiar in the medical community. In the case of the majority of IBCLCs, it comes after "RN" or "APRN" or some other relatively high-status qualifier. So it is an adjunct credential. Here is a doctor. And, oh, by the way, she also knows a lot about lactation (something that isn't taught in medical school). Or here is a registered nurse, and, oh, by the way, she also knows a lot about lactation.

Meanwhile, people who have earned the IBCLC designation have gone on to organize a number of international conferences that are held each year for people at all levels, from rank-and-file La Leche League members to medical researchers. The people who attend these conferences give appropriate credence to speakers who are IBCLCs and they are in many cases motivated to study and sit for the exam themselves. In the last few years, MDs who are IBCLCs as well have formed a new organization, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, which has elected fellows (just like any other medical academy does), and Tina gets to put FABM after her name, as well--an abbreviation that, maybe another twenty years hence, will be recognized by the average pediatrician or gynecologist scanning a journal article's authors.

What's my point? My point is that it takes time to achieve credibility. You can't attain it instantly, no matter how rigorously you define the criteria for a certificate.

Dick

Gene Kim-Eng wrote:


OK, I get the idea. The problem with this thinking is, since there's no recognized "tech writer certification," if someone were to present one
to me as a qualification, my first reaction would be to ask, "what's this
certification based on?" Once I got an itemized list of the areas the
certification tested, I would compare them to my own list of required
skills for the position and then decide if the cert meant anything to me.
In the case of a hiring manager who has no experience as a tech writer,
this would be the natural reaction even if the "tech writer certification"
was already recognized within the technical writing community. So I
don't see anything "new" about this way of looking at certification,
because that's always been the way any certificate that can ever be
devised will be evaluated by those it's presented to.



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Follow-Ups:

References:
Re: Certification--a new concept. Discuss.: From: Mike O.
Re: Certification--a new concept. Discuss.: From: Dick Margulis
Re: Certification--a new concept. Discuss.: From: Gene Kim-Eng
Re: Certification--a new concept. Discuss.: From: Dick Margulis
Re: Certification--a new concept. Discuss.: From: Gene Kim-Eng

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