When looking for a career boost, many professionals explore certification and certificate options. After all, why not learn and get credit for your efforts?

But beware. The two terms are often used interchangeably, especially by nascent programs that are a growing segment of the continuing education market. However, certification and certificate programs are not the same. They are designed to meet very different goals.

In the HR profession, as in other lines of work, it’s common for organizations to advertise certificate programs that are incorrectly labeled as certification programs. It’s import to heed the advice of experts.

Certification vs. Certificate

"Be an informed consumer and educate yourself about the important differences" between certification and certificate programs, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) warns its members. ASHA provides two informative definitions:

• Professional certification is the voluntary process by which a non-governmental entity grants a time-limited recognition and use of a credential to an individual after verifying that he or she has met predetermined and standardized criteria.
• A certificate program is a training program on a specialized topic for which participants receive a certificate after completing the course and passing an assessment instrument.

Understand what you’re getting when you are awarded a "certificate of attendance," ASHA notes. This is merely a term for a certificate that is handed out at the end of a course to validate attendance.

Build New Skills with Certificate Programs

"One program is not more or less rigorous than another," posts the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE), an organization that develops standards for certification and certificate programs. "They simply serve different purposes and may require different business approaches, governance structures, development processes, etc."

A certificate program, ICE explains, provides non-degree instruction and training. The goal of a certificate program is to enable participants to acquire specific knowledge, skills and/or competencies.

"Assessment is used to evaluate mastery of the intended learning outcomes; linked directly to the learning event," ICE defines. The assessment content "is narrower in scope" compared to the broad range of content assessed by a certification program.

Measure Your Competency with Certification

A professional or personnel certification program, ICE explains, "assesses knowledge, skills and/or competencies previously acquired." The goal of a certification program, ICE says, is to "validate the participant’s competency through a conformity assessment system."

The assessment "is best used to assure baseline competencies and to differentiate professionals; independent of a specific learning event."

Different Goals and Awards

Another good way to compare certificate and certification programs is to examine the kinds of rewards that participants receive after successful completion.

"The primary focus of an assessment-based certificate program is on facilitating the accomplishment of intended learning outcomes," according to an ICE white paper defining the two types of programs.  Although assessment is an integral part of the certificate program, the primary purpose of the program is to provide education and training, which supports the accomplishment of the intended learning outcomes.

A certificate program, as a result, awards participants who have completed the specific learning outcomes.

Certification candidates, on the other hand, are awarded designations that recognize achievement when they meet the established knowledge, skills or competencies established by the certification program provider. Independent assessment of these traits is the primary focus.

What’s Right for You?

The truth is that both types of programs can be legitimate. The American Hospital Association provides some great tips of things to look for when choosing a program:

• Look for programs that require a rigorous assessment to receive the certification or certificate.
• Find out if the program has been accredited or approved by a third-party organization.
• For certification programs, look for accreditation by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) or the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

"For both certificate and certification programs, there are high-quality and low-quality options from which to choose," AHA concludes. "Some of the lower-quality options are completely bogus, providing a certificate or certification to anyone who pays the required fees. You may have heard stories about persons who have debunked bogus programs by obtaining a certificate or certification in their pet’s name."

Just like in other fields, HR professionals have many certification and certificate options to choose from. The key is to be informed and to choose wisely based on your professional goals and needs.