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These Celonis Digital Badges could be among the hottest new credentials for tech pros
I earned my first Microsoft certification over two decades ago when I was working in IT for a regional utility. One of my annual goals was to earn two certifications, and I was working toward my Microsoft Certified Solution Expert (MCSE), which has since been retired. After two tries, one in-person class and lots of late-night studying, I passed the Networking Essentials exam and had earned my very first tech cert.
Back then, the only proof that you actually earned a certification was likely a piece of paper you framed, hung on your wall, and subsequently lost during one of your umpteen office moves. Depending on the certifying company/agency, you might also get a credit card-style ID. Like the Microsoft Certified Professional ID card I got in 2000, cool MCP hologram included.
Digital badges and the Open Badges standard
These certification credentials were fine in a still mostly-analog world, when resumes and CVs were designed to be printed and career networking sites like LinkedIn didn’t exist. By the mid-2000s however, the digital transformation of the tech jobs market had shifted into high gear. IT professionals and job seekers needed a better way to display their certifications and skills. Employers needed a better way to verify those credentials. And, providers needed a better way to showcase their credentialing programs. The time was ripe for a digital credentialing system, and thus the Open Badges standard was born.
In 2010, individuals from the Mozilla and MacArthur foundations proposed the concept of Open Badges. In a white paper written by Erin Knight, then senior director of learning and design at Mozilla and founder of the Open Badges project, and others from Peer2Peer University and the MacArthur Foundation, digital badges would allow your skills and competencies to be “collected and associated with your online identity and could be displayed to key stakeholders to demonstrate your capacities.”
Badges would be more than an image that you post to your Myspace page. Each badge would have metadata behind it that would link to the credentialing organization and allow people to verify its authenticity. In 2013, Mozilla launched Open Badges 1.0 and by 2018 when it rolled out Open Badges 2.0, over 24 million badges had been issued, according to IMS Global Learning Consortium.
At the same time the Mozilla Foundation was rolling out the Open Badges Standard, companies like Credly (acquired by Pearson in January 2022) were creating services to help organizations and companies create and manage their digital credentials. According to the company, since its founding in 2012, Credly has issued over 50 million badges and currently works with some of the biggest names in tech, such as Adobe, AWS, Autodesk, Dell, IBM, Oracle, Snowflake, Oracle and Celonis.
Celonis Digital Badges from Celonis Academy
In July 2021, Celonis launched its digital badge program in partnership with Credly. Using Celonis Digital Badges, you can verify the achievements, contributions, knowledge and skills you have earned by completing various learnings or certification exams through Celonis Academy. Badges can be added to your resume or CV, shared on your social media profile, or embedded in your email signature or on your website.
Celonis Academy Learning Path and Certification Path roadmap
Badges are available for the Academy’s Learning Path, which includes individual courses, training tacks and learnings for Academic Alliance members and Partners. Badges are also available for learners who complete official Celonis Certification Exams.
Created by process experts for process experts, Certification Exams let professionals officially validate their Celonis skills and knowledge. Learners who successfully complete an exam will earn a credential such as the Celonis Certified Data Analyst badge and Celonis Certified Data Engineer badge.
Certification Exams are aimed at Celonis customer users, but are open to the public. Also, as they are practitioner Certifications, Academy training is a great start, however not a prerequisite for taking an Exam. Learners can however, use Academy training material to assist them with acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for competent practice.
To successfully complete the Data Engineer Certification exam, candidates should know how to gather and understand business requirements, collaborate with stakeholders and develop Celonis Data Models designed for specific process mining use cases. Celonis recommends that candidates have at least 6 months of hands-on experience with Celonis Data Integration and 1 year or more of experience in a similar role.
To successfully complete the Data Analyst Certification exam, candidates should be able to gather and understand business requirements, collaborate with stakeholders and develop Celonis Studio solutions that drive business value. Celonis recommends that candidates have at least 1 year of experience in a similar role.
Learners interested in Certification Exams are encouraged to access the Program Guide, Program Agreement and FAQs from the Celonis Certifications page.
Pick the badge that's right for you
As of July 2023, there are 70 Celonis Digital Badges, such as the Celonis Foundations badge I earned when I joined the company. You can see a list of the badges and learn about each of them on the Celonis Credly page.
To help you pick the right badge or badges for you, some badges are grouped into the following collections:
Course & Training Track Badges: Badges for individual Celonis Academy courses and training tracks on using the Celonis Execution Management System (EMS), such as Get Data into the EMS
Academic Alliance Badges: Training tracks designed for students, researchers and academics, such as Process Mining - From Theory to Execution
Partner Badges: Badges for official Celonis Partners who complete training and validation, such as the Masterclass Post-Sales
Certification Badges: Badges for learners who successfully complete an official Celonis Certification Exam
150,000 badges and counting
In 2022, Celonis issued over 150,000 badges to more than 57,000 learners. From these tens of thousands of badges, the most in-demand ones are:
Celonis Certified Data Analyst: Awarded to learners who successfully complete the Celonis Certification Exam - Data Analyst, this badge is the most in-demand with Customers.
Celonis MasterClass Pre-Salesand Celonis MasterClass Post-Sales: Aimed at Celonis Partners, the Pre-Sales and Post-Sales MasterClasses are designed to enable learners to maximize value for customers with Celonis.
Celonis Rising Star: Aimed at Academic learners, the Celonis Rising Stars Program is designed to help students prepare for a career in process mining.
"At the Celonis Academy, we commit to helping our customers, partners, academics, and public learners develop the skills needed to reach their professional goals with Celonis,” said David Jeggle, Head of Celonis Academy. “Training takes time and dedication. So, we want them to share their achievements with the world. That's why we continuously release new Celonis Digital Badges."
Personal stories from two badge earners
Joren Kamerling and Markus Otterberg are two Academy learners who have shared their accomplishments with the Celonis community and the world. Kamerling is a Management Consultant with Quint (an international consulting, training and technology company) and Otterberg is a consultant with Biswise (a software and IT consultancy). Each has earned over a dozen badges and was featured in Academy Learner Spotlight.
Here's how they described what they like most about Celonis Academy, to me:
Kamerling: I really like how Celonis Academy combines theory, testing and practice. Most courses start with some theory, a few pages, not too much, on how things should work. Then, there’s a short quiz to test your knowledge of the material. And finally the course takes you to a training environment where you can actually put that theory in practice. You can build actual KPIs, calculate throughput times, or can play with the process explorers. It’s a really nice circle to have.
Otterberg: The learning material isn’t just a wall of text you have to get through to learn the system, but it actually lets you use the system. You get these guided learning tours that ease you into using Celonis, and then you actually get to use it and you need to learn it. Then in the exams, you had to set up an analysis and connect the data correctly to be able to pass the exam. I also like that Academy lessons provide hands-on experience, as well as the project methodology and tons of best practices that Celonis has developed. The Academy is both a well of knowledge, but also a tool that lets you get hands on. It's a good mix.
Add process mining to your resume or CV
Employers are looking to hire data-centric employees (data scientists, data engineers, strategy managers, etc.) who have process mining, process management, or execution management skills. As Celonis Chief Scientist Wil van der Aalst said on Mary Jo Foley's Petri's MJFChat podcast this month, “Process mining is becoming the new normal in larger organizations.” Earning these skills and showcasing them through Celonis Digital Badges, could be your ticket to earning a top tech job.
For more information about Celonis Digital Badges, Certification Exams and the free, on-demand training courses and learning material available from Celonis, check out the following resources:
Top process mining and execution management training courses of 2022
Celonis Academy wins Gold Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award for second year running
Learn PQL with these free online courses from Celonis Academy
Process Mining: From Theory to Execution (free 10-hour, on-demand course developed by Celonis and the Process and Data Science (PADS) group)
What is Task Mining? (free 4-min video introduction to task mining)
Celopeers job market message board
Update July 24, 2023: Added information about Celonis Certification Exams and the Celonis Certified Data Analyst badge and Celonis Certified Data Engineer badge.
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