Naomi Boyer
Sr. VP, Digital Transformation, Education Design Lab
Published
March 11, 2025
March 26-27 | Washington, D.C.
Our signature workforce development summit, Talent Forward, will feature panels, keynote presentations, and focused sessions that offer valuable insights into the future of work.
Imagine a job market where your unique skills shine brighter than ever. That's the reality we're stepping into, as new technologies reshape how we approach work, hiring, and career development.
As workforce experts, we've witnessed firsthand how the landscape of work and learning is evolving. Let's break down five key concepts that directly impact how you can showcase your abilities and advance your career: skills and competencies, credentials, digital badges, Learning and Employment Records (LERs), and interoperability. Understanding these tools and resources will help you navigate new opportunities in today's changing job market.
Skills and Competencies
In the context of the future of work, it's important to understand two foundational terms:
- Skills: Discrete, demonstrated abilities, often technical in nature
- Competencies: A broader category including knowledge, skills, abilities, and dispositions
When you hear about skills-based hiring or the skills economy, "skills" often refers to this broader definition of competencies. It's not just about technical abilities, but the full range of what someone knows and can demonstrate in the workplace.
Future Forecast: A "Skills Wallet"– a digital portfolio of verified credentials and competencies – helps a former athlete transition to business, translating teamwork and performance under pressure into valuable management skills.
Credentials
Credentials are documentation of completion or achievement. They come in various forms:
- Degrees: associate's, bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from an educational institution
- Non-degree credentials: micro-credentials, licensure, industry certifications, institutional certifications (from colleges, universities, or employers)
- Experience-based credentials: credentials that recognize learning and acquiring skills can occur in a variety of settings
Newer credentials often require direct demonstration of specific competencies, unlike traditional degrees. These verified credentials provide a more granular view of an individual's capabilities, benefiting both employers in precise candidate matching and job seekers in showcasing diverse skills beyond formal education.
Future Forecast: Combining a culinary degree with sustainability micro-credentials, a chef pioneers zero-waste practices, providing a unique and valuable perspective on restaurant management.
Digital Badges
Digital badges are visual representations of credentials, packed with important metadata:
- Issuing organization
- Date of issuance
- Skills or competencies demonstrated
- Criteria for earning the badge
These versatile, portable, and easily verifiable online credentials allow individuals to curate a comprehensive skill portfolio across platforms like LinkedIn.
Future Forecast: Digital badges in customer service excellence and data analytics help a retail associate advance to a regional operations manager, significantly improving store performance through upskilling of existing talent.
Learning and Employment Records (LERs)
Learning and Employment Records (LERs) serve as the backbone for organizing and sharing credential information. They:
- Collect and organize information from various credentials
- Structure data for interpretation by both machines and humans
- Enable information transfer between different systems (educational institutions, employers, talent marketplaces)
- Empower individuals to manage and share their own skill and credential information
LERs are crucial in making skills more visible and portable in the job market. They allow job seekers to present a comprehensive view of their capabilities, drawing from both formal education and practical experience. For employers, LERs offer a more detailed and verifiable picture of a candidate's qualifications, potentially leading to better hiring decisions and improved job matching.
Future Forecast: LERs turn a stay-at-home parent's volunteer experience into a promising career shift, translating event coordination and fundraising successes into sought-after skills for nonprofit management.
Interoperability
Interoperability refers to the ability of different systems to communicate and exchange data seamlessly. In the context of the future of work, this means:
- Credentials from different issuers can be collected in one place
- Information can flow between educational institutions, employers, and individuals
- Data can be read and understood by various systems and platforms
As the job market becomes increasingly digital, interoperability will play a key role in ensuring that skills and credentials are universally recognized and valued.
Future Forecast: Interoperable credentials allow a self-taught data analyst to seamlessly apply for jobs across industries and locations, their diverse portfolio of skills and experiences translating into relevant qualifications for each opportunity.
The LER Toolkit
Explore a full glossary of key terms in the T3 Innovation Network’s Learning and Employment Records (LER) toolkit for skills-based hiring and advancement.
The New World of Work: Connecting Talent with Opportunity
These tools are reshaping how talent connects with opportunity in today's workforce. Job seekers can collect and manage verified proof of their abilities from multiple sources – combining degrees, work experience, and learning achievements. Employers can identify candidates through a clearer lens, looking beyond traditional credentials to understand the range of skills each candidate brings.
This shift towards skills-based practices creates a more equitable market by focusing on demonstrated abilities rather than just degrees or connections. Job seekers can showcase their full range of capabilities, while employers can make more informed decisions based on verified skills that match their needs. Through these innovations, both talent and opportunity become more visible in today's job market, making the job market work better for everyone.
About the authors
Taylor Hansen
