Not too long ago I got started on the self-help, personal development, and life coaching path as part of my overall growth and development. Along that path I stumbled across a couple of webinars and websites that were touting a life coaching certificate.
I hereby gift you with yet another piece of paper declaring you are awesome. Gotta get ’em all.
Now, this sounded interesting because I know life coaches are pretty much in-line with everything I was interested in and looking for, but I had never heard of an “official certificate.” I was wondering what kind of official regulating-bodies or groups would oversee the training, the issuing, and the maintaining of a program that would distribute certificates for qualified life coaches.
Well, it turns out this resource I found was just somebody who decided they would make up a certificate and start selling it to people. Of course, while all the content may have been good, I’m not too sure that that’s an ethically acceptable way to go about a program to help people.
So here I want to talk to you about career development certificates like that, that you may not be aware exist, while cautioning you to pay attention to the credentials associated with such things.
There Are Scammy Sites Out There
To go hand in hand with the example I just gave of my life coach certificate investigation, there are some scammy sites out there that will try to take advantage of the masses of gullible people. Don’t get me wrong here as I’m not saying the actual content of the program is not useful. There very well could be useful ebooks, videos, and courses you can take to get information to help you out on your journey for whatever career you choose.
However, you just need to be sure that you’re not going to a site that is either just trying to get your information and money and then be done with you. You want to go to a site that has some type of proven history in Google and is mentioned on plenty of other forums, message boards, and archived pages. You want to be able to call somebody. You want to be able to verify that the program is at least useful and is legitimate in some form before you commit too much of your own resources to it.
Seek Legitimate Company Offerings
On the same note as point number one above, you want to make sure what they offer is legitimate. Are they an official government or industry recognized group that is allowed, sanctioned, and encouraged to train and pass out certificates of the career development path they’re dealing with? Or do they just appear to be some type of company looking to get your money?
Chances are, if you call someone at the place that’s offering the certificate, talk to them long enough, and look over the motivational hype that they have, you’ll be able to get enough information to see whether or not they’re legit. And that’s if they have a phone number. If they don’t, run. Run far. So far away. You’ve got to get away.
Be Aware of Government Programs
There are actual government programs that issue certificates for career development paths. These will be pretty hard to miss, because if you search for that kind of certificate in Google, you’ll see a result that ends in .gov and that is a government website. Pretty hard to fake that for very long so you can expect a .gov site to be legitimate.
These government offered certificates are more for technical fields that require some base level of knowledge. In these fields, the certificate is that group’s way of saying yes, you do know what you’re talking about and you passed some base level of knowledge testing. Those are legit and may be worth it for your career. Look into it even if you don’t think it’s required for your position as it might be worth the effort.
Certify the Certifiers and Grow
If you’re looking to get certified with your career development and advancement, make sure you’re not dealing with a scammy site, make sure that the company’s offerings are legitimate, and know that there are real government and industry certified bodies out there that are interested in seeing you grow. So be cautious out there and save your money for legit stuff.