Community college students believe combining an academic degree with an industry-recognized certification expands their employment options, according to new research from CompTIA, Inc.
A total of 462 community college students completed CompTIA’s student trends survey. The majority (83%) indicated that industry-recognized certifications provide value by validating that their skills are relevant and up to date. They also overwhelmingly agree that these certifications provide a steppingstone to career advancement (81%) and expand employment opportunities (78%).
“Employers take notice when a candidate has enhanced classroom learning with a certification that’s highly relevant to the job they are seeking,” said Kirk Smallwood, CompTIA’s vice president of key accounts and industry engagement in a press release. “This is particularly true in technology, where successful IT professionals keep their skills current and relevant as the pace of innovation accelerates.”
Among students earning an industry-recognized certification as part of their academic program, nearly all (96%) report advancing at least one step ahead in their career readiness progression. And 46% report advancing several steps ahead.
More information, please
However, only about a quarter of these students (24%) said their academic program has an embedded requirement to earn an industry-recognized certification. Another 24% report their program recommends the certification.
Forty-four percent of students indicated that they want colleges to provide more information about certifications. Another third (34%) weren’t sure if they want more certification information, but are open to it.
Also of interest, nearly half of these students also are a little nervous about the job market. While 66% of survey respondents are generally optimistic about the job market post-graduation, 44% reported a degree of anxiety about the economy.
And students in the 30+ age range feel slightly more positive about the job market than younger student demographics.
Expanding their skill sets
Surveyed students also believe building or expanding skill sets is important to early career success.
The skills they rated as most important – regardless of career field – are leadership, teamwork and communications (88%) and digital fluency (82%). Following that are data and analytics (79%) and project management and operations (77%).
They’re also thinking about how artificial intelligence (AI) may affect jobs. A majority (70%) reported taking some action to improve their AI career readiness. This includes practicing with gen AI tools (40%), learning via YouTube and other free sources (30%) or taking a training course or other learning (18%). That’s despite the fact that only 26% of students say they are generally feeling positive about AI (48% have mixed feelings and 17% are generally negative about it).
