Increase Employment Potential - Display Your Certificates Online

It is an indisputable fact that all certifications are earned from a professional forum, society or an institution. Typical professional institutions for certifications are public/private universities, private issuers for some specific certifications such as PHP, MySQL, Wordpress, and many other web development certifications. However, some certifications are periodic and must be renewed at a fee, while others will have to be upgraded to the latest standards. Regardless, each and every certification you attain will increases your employment potential.

Certifications are very common in Technology, Aviation, Construction, Health, Real estate and finance sectors. I am going to discuss Technological (Web Development) Certification in detail. How are these earned, whether or not to display them, and how to best show/include them in your online/offline career profile. To all the freelancers out there, both beginners and the veterans in the field, understand this: Your profile is everything in your career life. This article will explain in detail how to feature your skills and increase your employment potential..

Some of the Best Reviewed Freelance Websites; Employment Potential Tips

I took the liberty to go through quite a lot of freelance websites with the aim of finding an objective comparison between them. My goal was to study and discover how certifications are displayed. And also, how freelancers’ profiles are portrayed for employers to see. A good number of these freelance websites allow the viewing of certifications. Some haven’t yet provided the permission to upload and view one’s certification, but are planning to grant the permission soon. The rest either have this option or will never include it.

Now I will tell you something you probably did not know before. Every freelance website out there will claim they are the best, number one in the industry. You shouldn’t be worried at choosing because I am going to provide you with a glowing review and comparison of some of the most popular. However, different platforms may try to convince you to register with them, it is you who will make up your mind on the best one to join. If you want to make a difference in your career life, then keep reading.

Upwork

Upwork is a combination of both Elance and Odesk companies that merged in 2014. This combination resulted in a formation of one powerhouse called UpWork. It then acted as a premier platform for both the beginners and top companies to work with the most talented and independent freelancers. They've created a world of unmatched talent, expertise and opportunity, where client and freelancers will be able to work together without geographical barriers.

According to the digging done by my excellent team, we realized that Upwork allows uploading and displaying of certifications. Here are some comments we got from their help desk:

"Yes, it is possible to upload/post relevant certifications on a freelancer’s profile page. There's a section in the freelancer's profile where you can upload certificates. However, the certificates will not affect your account being displayed higher in search results."

Despite them granting permissions for freelancers to show their certification achievements, most clients will check out your profiles and the certifications could give you a chance. Others won’t and will consider your already done work and skill-sets in play.

Since Upwork provides a guarantee on the genuineness of work done, and that they ensure the contract terms between the client and freelancer are followed and met. All payments are made in time and that there is room to file disputes just in case of an issue. I would recommend that you consider this online marketplace. Should help increase your employment potential. Well done, Upwork!

Toptal

The Toptal is an online freelance website marketplace for freelancers on various topics, like web development and programming, engineering. It was created by engineers who were looking to working with top tech-talented individuals and exciting companies globally.

We did consult with them about their certification policies. We were honored with a written response from their inquiries team leader. Here is what they had to say about the issue of certification on a freelancer’s profile:

"Although we don't have the certification section in profiles, I think there's a possibility that it may be added shortly.”

Toptal only allows its clients to list their skills on their profiles without actually having to upload them. My team further went on to inquire about the criteria they use in considering a freelancer for a job post:

“Regarding when searching for talents, the outcome depends on the skill set the client is looking for. Results are always random, and we don't have a way to priorities someone.”

My team and I also took the chance to inquire more about their plans to utilizing the Mozilla Open Badges. I must say we were fortunate to get a response, still we were informed that there are no announcements for implementation to Mozilla OpenBadges technology. As we talked in a previous article, OpenBadges is a surefire way towards increasing your employment potential.

It is then I concluded that Total doesn’t allow freelancers to upload certifications on their profiles yet. But they are working towards enabling this feature. This will help freelancers out there to be able to display their lifetime achievements to the whole world to know. Feel free to check Toptal out at https://www.toptal.com/about

Freelancer.com

Freelancer.com is a global, outsourcing, and crowd-sourcing market for a good number of projects and experiments. Their website is their primary marketplace for both employers and freelancers. It is through this marketplace that the company will employ the freelancers to work on their projects in areas like writing, web development, data entry, design, marketing, accounting, and legal services.

According to my research, I confirmed that freelance.com allows freelancers only to write their skills on their profiles and not uploading them. We managed to contact their team and were lucky to get their response:

“At this time, only cover and profile photos can be uploaded on a user's portfolio. You just need to add the particular skills on your portfolio instead of uploading certifications. Also, we have our criteria on how to rank freelancers. Here are the factors that affect the rankings in the search results:”

• “Number of good reviews”
• “Number of bad reviews and incomplete jobs”
• “Amount of Milestones”
• “Size of Milestones”
• “Hire Me Accept Rate”
• “Lifetime earnings”
• “Amount of reviews”
• “Experience on similar projects and employer”

They have received multiple award certification for their reliability, efficiency and the best services they offer. I would recommend you include it in your top choices for increasing your employment potential. Take your time to look them up at https://www.freelancer.com/about

99Designs

99Designs is the leading graphic design marketplace for freelancers. They connect freelance designers with creative people, graphic organizations, savvy businesses, and genius entrepreneurs, generally, anyone who needs good work done.

These are the reasons this platform could also help increase your employment potential. Unfortunately, they don’t yet enable certificate displaying:

“We do not have these kinds of features. Your profile will automatically accumulate your design experience based on the contest you have participate where you have been chosen as a finalist or a winner.”

PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour is another online marketplace for freelance work. Their main aim is ensuring that everything they do meets their purpose, which is helping individuals start and build their businesses and achieve their dreams of being independent.

PeoplePerHour freelancers currently unable to display their certifications, but the team is working hard to add this feature to their website system. They, however, are willing and open to ideas on how best to improve on this. Here is the response we got from their representative:

“I am afraid that we don't usually allow users to display any relevant certifications in the portfolio section of their account because their full details are shown on them, but if you would like to send me the certificates that you wish to upload I'd be more than happy to go over them. However, displaying your certificate will not change the way your profile is listed.”

Following the response we got, it got me curious to know more about some of the other features they could come up with or even the already existing. I mostly directed the question to the use of Mozilla Open Badges on their website. Here is the response we managed to get:

“In regards to Mozilla Open Badges, we used to have a similar kind of feature on the site which was also relevant to each user's certifications, and we are considering bringing that feature back.”

I then came to a conclusion that PeoplePerHour is trying all its best to see to it that certification displaying feature is enabled. It is, therefore, the reason why I will strongly suggest you look it up and learn more before you make your final decision, about which freelance website you will go for. Take a knack of your time to look through PPH at http://blog.peopleperhour.com/about/

Summing up

In summary, we can conclude that displaying earned web certificates is one of the most valuable achievements you’ll ever include into your profile. This will effectively increase your employment potential. Web certification professionalism to your profile. Almost all freelance websites that haven’t included the certification displaying feature have confirmed to include the feature soon.

Why not take your time go through the article once more before you make up your mind on the best freelance website to go for. Success!

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