Upskilling and Reskilling the Workforce with Autodesk Certifications

DANIA ETER: Hello. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. My name is Dania Eter. And I am part of the Autodesk education experiences at Autodesk. And I am thrilled today to talk to you about upskilling and reskilling the workforce with Autodesk certification.

Welcome to the session. I hope you also get to come and see us at AU, where I will be presenting on October 16 at 8:00 AM. Thank you. Just a quick reminder, and I'm sure you're very familiar with this, that all content is property of Autodesk. So you cannot turn around and distribute it unless you have authorization. This applies to all content from Autodesk University, not just this presentation.

Again, I'm thrilled to be here. And I want to start the presentation, instead of immediately talking about what we're going to be talking about today, I want to share with you some quotes that I was able to collect from some of our educators and some of our expert elite learning partners, really about the value of earning a certification.

I am really a big proponent of earning a certification because it makes a difference in somebody's job market and trajectory. And also, employers look for candidate who are certified. In addition, we have a lot of students who are getting certified, so they can start working in the field immediately after high school, not specifically going to higher ed.

With that, all the videos really speak and the course speaks about the importance of earning a certification regardless of where you are in your career, whether you're early in your career or an expert. So with that, you do have access to all the videos. However, let me go ahead and play one of them for you. And let's go to an expert elite, Dan.

DAN STINE: : Hi. I'm Dan Stine I'm the director of design technology, and I lead the research program at top-ranked architecture firm Lake Flato Architects here in San Antonio, Texas. I also teach graduate architecture students at NDSU. And I've written 19 textbooks. One of them is the number one Revit book in North America. And another one is a Revit certification study guide and then an AutoCAD certification study guide.

I just want to share my thoughts on certifications. I think they give students and up and coming professionals a great opportunity to show that they know a baseline of information. And when it's a certification from the manufacturer, if you will of the actual software like Autodesk, that just gives it an extra layer of credibility.

So I always tell students that, if they have that certification in their portfolio and in their resume, it can't help but give them an extra edge on their other students that they're competing against for their dream job. And of course, professionals that are coming in, we often hire people that don't have any actual Revit experience. That might surprise you. But sometimes, we'll have to hire our Autodesk reseller to provide introductory training because we don't have the time to do it ourselves.

And not to say that, if somebody has a certification, we won't still hire a person who has this great other experience and just doesn't know Revit. But it can make a big difference when comparing two people who might otherwise be similar, and one of them has a certification. We know that they have a base level of knowledge to hit the ground running and help develop great buildings in architecture. So just wanted to share that. Thank you very much. Bye.

DANIA ETER: Thank you. Dan, I hope you get a chance to listen to the other testimonials. They really give you an insight about the importance of earning a certification, which is what we will be talking about today for upskilling and reskilling. In fact, let's jump in and talk about today's session.

I'll introduce myself formally. I'll talk to you about Autodesk education experiences, which is the department that I belong to here at Autodesk. Then, we'll follow up with really a detailed view of our portfolio, what is available from a learning perspective for you as a professional or as an educator or as a student of yours, and also look at the portfolio of certification that we have available here at Autodesk.

We'll move on into discussing government funding for educators. There are government funding, specifically Perkins V, that really supports the classroom and really offers government funding to really pay for certification for your students. So if you're not aware of that, we'll talk about it, so you know how to access it and what's available for you in your own state. That is definitely a US-based funding. That is not a global funding. However, we definitely will spend a couple of minutes on it.

Then, we'll try to close it out by really talking about how you can purchase in bulk. I know many of you, as employers, you would like to how can I buy in bulk for my team a certification as opposed to going on our website and really buy B2C relationship, which is a straight cost. But also, if you're an educator and you want to buy in bulk, you can also look at pricing for bulk purchases. And I'll share with you how you can access that.

Then, we'll close up the session by summarizing our takeaways. And we have a great giveaway, not only physically when we are in the session, but also for all Autodesk employees, attendees of digitally and in person. So let's talk about how to get to know us and who I am.

My name is Dania Eter. I've been at Autodesk, and I'm thrilled to be here. I've been here for 2 and 1/2 years. I manage the strategy for the portfolio for certification, and I belong to the certification and curriculum department within Autodesk Education Experiences, which happened to sit ultimately under my marketing.

I have spent the last 2 and 1/2 decades working with IT companies managing the portfolio. One of my major company that I worked with and managed their portfolio is Cisco Systems, Palo Alto Networks, and Alteryx. I have great passion for certification. I'm a big proponent of learning. I myself did my doctorate degree later on in life.

I believe in lifelong learning, but I do believe in certification deeply because that is what differentiates you from another candidate. As you heard from Dan, it's not like we won't hire or somebody does not take experience in place when hiring. However, when you have that validated knowledge, skills, and ability through a third-party certification, that gives you an edge over another candidate, obviously.

So with that, let's talk about Autodesk Education Experiences and what is our mission. Autodesk Education Experiences sits under the worldwide marketing under the SOO organization. And we are here to support you as a professional and as an educator when it comes to the business of certification.

We know for a fact that, based on the World Economic Forum, within the next five years, we have to reskill one billion people-- can you imagine-- to really align with the changes in technology and automation. This has been validated now two years in a row in our 2023 and our 2024 Design and Make Report, which states that employers are really seeking the next skill set in their hiring. They're not being able to find the right skill set to be able to align with the new job roles and to be able to perform on day one on the job.

This has also been validated by seeing an increase in the adoption of our certification, all of which with all the industry that we cover, whether architecture and engineering construction or mechanical engineering but also in the D&M space. So the future of work is here. We need to align with the changes of technology and making sure that we're prepared for automation. So upskilling and reskilling is instrumental. And that is what we're here to do for you at Autodesk Education Experiences.

And how are we doing that? Well, we are upskilling and reskilling the market through solving this generation skill gap by providing you with the tight learning and the right certification. Of course, you can engage with our learning, and I have the link here. And certainly, if you choose to immediately engage with certification before you get into learning, you're welcome to do that.

I have both links, which takes you to a website. And you can read in detail about what's available for you. However, this whole presentation is also about giving you insights in regard to upskilling and reskilling. So we're here to solve that challenge. And we can use your support, and I'll speak how you can do that.

Autodesk learning and certification-- Let's do a deep dive now that we have spoken about the importance of getting certified through some testimonials and who we are at Autodesk and how we are ready to help you with learning and certification. From a learning perspective, I will start by sharing with you that we have, on our team, multiple instructional designers who are really available to work with subject matter experts such as yourself.

You heard me say you can help us make that happen. So I'll plug in here. If you're interested to become an Autodesk subject matter expert to help us build courses and learning material, or for that matter, certification and writing items, I'll provide you with my email address at the end, or you can contact our customer service. We would love to have you engage. And that's what makes our certification and learning extremely valuable because it's built with professionals such as yourself.

So we do have learning that is built with high integrity, certified courses. We have education resources for educators. If you are an educator, you can now download that content and be able to use it in the classroom. We have quick start guides. We also have self-paced learning, which somebody can engage with at any time of the day, 24/7 through our website and certainly take it at their own pace.

I do want to mention. This is for free. So all of that's available for you from a content perspective to prepare for a certification or to download tutorials and courseware is free of charge on our website. I did, again, provide you with a link here on this slide. I do want to mention as well, just like I am a person who likes to learn day in and day out, each one of us know ourselves. Some of us like to learn self-paced, digitally at our own pace and 24/7, obviously.

And some of us like to be in an instructor-led courses. That's why we partner very closely with our learning partners-- and I'll give you a detail about our learning partners-- where you can engage with them to take classes in person or virtually, for that matter, however, it's instructor-led, where you're interacting with peers as you're learning.

And some of us like to be hybrid. We like to learn on our own self-paced and engage in a classroom where we have more questions and interactions and learn from a collective environment that people are engaged with us. So whatever you need, whether it's digital or in person, we have it available for you.

So we don't leave you hanging, obviously. We have some preparation material in order to sit for a certification exam. We do have, what I mentioned, the self-paced tutorial and exercises. We also have practice exam, whereas it's a snapshot of what you would see on an exam from a format perspective type of items that you can actually engage with for each one of our certification.

I do want to mention, which is really extremely important, that also, when you go to look at our certification, we have what we call an exam objective. Exam objective is at the high level domain and task and subtask of what you will be tested on, which means we give you pretty much a handout that gives you an insight of how you can direct your studies.

So in combination with taking practice tests, do some tutorial, you can also look at the exam objective and say this is what the exam is going to be about. Let me focus my study in that regard when it comes to those domains. As I mentioned earlier, I have it here as well, I have provided you with a link to all our certifications.

Now, let's step back and mention something that's really important. I have a different ability than one of you or all of you, which means that I could do all of this and feel ready for an exam and fail, whereas one of you can do none of those and sit for an exam and pass. So don't forget that it is really each person's knowledge, skills, and ability that come into play.

Clearly, the exam is fair. It's reliable and legally defensible to make sure that each one of us have an opportunity to pass. However, what I'm providing you here does not guarantee you passing an exam. You need to spend time using the product, engaging with the product. And you yourself know, am I a person who really need to spend 2,000 hours, or I really need to spend 100 hour and I'm OK and feel confident that I have engaged with the exam objective, took some tutorial, and feel confident I can sit for that certification?

So now that we've talked about what's available for learning and preparation for certification, let's dig into the business of certification and what's available for you here at Autodesk. I would say, before we talk about the portfolio itself, I do want to highlight that we partner with Pearson VUE, which is a premier organization that delivers certification exams for the IT space and other professional certification.

Pearson VUE, and I have a link here on the bottom, create, on an annual basis, the value of IT certification survey. And we are part of that survey. And they distribute it to employers and employees or candidates who have taken certification and training in the last year to really see what is the value of earning a certification.

Well, year-over-year, and that is where the excitement happened, is we're seeing quite a bit, not only of adoption, but really, people are saying, I have an increased performance. I can perform on the job on day one. Not to mention, I have a competitive edge to get the next job or to really be promoted on my job when I earn that certification.

Additionally, it gives you credibility with your peers to really earn that certification and say, hey, I am the expert in that space where you can come to me, and I can help you. I'm not surprised of that because we also have recertification for most of our certification, which means that we encourage people to recertify every two to three years, which kept them abreast on the technology for Autodesk and our product.

I do want to mention a couple of things. We're seeing, this year, a little bit of a change in the value of IT certification survey where a lot of more adoption is happening at a younger age. So seekers of certifications are getting younger. We're seeing quite a bit of students at a high school level engage with certification.

And here's why. And I mentioned this earlier, and I'll repeat it. Two things-- one, a lot of students are choosing not to go to higher education or to go to higher education but be working full-time at the same time. Earning a certification or a credential allows you to really position yourself for that job you're applying for.

I also want to mention, just because I've been in the industry of training and certification for quite some time, that I follow very closely what's happening in our industry. Many states are changing and imposing on employers to change the job description or job post to not reflect education level but to really reflect credential. So people are being hired for their skill set, not specifically for what degree they have earned. So that's more reason to get certified and to really position yourself for employers.

I know I could have spoken about the value of earning certification from an employer standpoint, but it's really what's in it for you to earn one. I do believe that certification is a personal decision. Just quickly, employers love to hire people who are certified. Again, they will not pass over somebody with great experience. But when they see somebody certified, they know that this person can work or perform on day one because they have validated their knowledge, skills, and ability.

I am a big proponent of the rigor that we put into the certification here at Autodesk. We have a great momentum going because we build certification following industry standard. What I mean by industry standard is the industry of certification and assessment, and that is the industry that I'm part of.

So we make sure that we follow industry standard and develop our certification with the right rigor, so it's valid, reliable, legally defensible. And also, most importantly, we involve subject matter experts in every aspect of building a certification, which means that people such as yourself are actually helping us write items, making a decision on the cut score where a person can pass or fail, and making sure that we also administer the exam in a professional manner that is proctored as opposed to non-proctored. And the proctoring side also puts another step of rigor in really earning Autodesk certification.

I do want to mention that I am big on speaking about that because what I have seen in the industry, and we have some competition out there-- I won't name names. However, some companies do claim a certificate program as a certification. Let me explain the difference.

Certification is testing for your knowledge, what you learn, your personal skills and ability to be able to engage with that certification and use the product, whereas a certificate program is simply an end-of-course knowledge check, an end-of-course assessment that really validate what you just learned, which is knowledge. So please, please, as you are engaging with certification, whether it's Autodesk or other certification, please understand how they develop it, what rigor it is, and is it really a certification or a certificate program.

I do want to mention, considering we are very involved in putting Autodesk certification on government funding, they do require us to follow industry standard. And they are very rigorous in looking at how we follow processes, and we make sure that we follow industry standard. So I am very proud of what we have to offer you. And definitely, rest assured that employers know the difference between a certificate and a certification.

Also, I want to mention that every person, when they earn a certification and they pass the exam, they receive an email from Credly. Credly is our badge provider. And the badge is very important to be adopted, which means you have to accept the badge to be able to use it on social media accounts, your digital resume, and LinkedIn. And that badge is instrumental to help employers and recruiters find you and that you become also discoverable on the talent directory that's available from Credly.

I do want to mention that each badge has metadata, which allows employers and others to really click on it and to be able to see what is the certification you've earned, what is the product, the level, the domain, when you took it, and when it expires. So that's a great validation of your expertise through a digital format where you don't have to tell an employer anything. You just provide them with a badge, and they're able to really click on it and get that metadata from the source from Autodesk.

We've seen quite a bit of adoption of our badges-- 80% for professional, not so much from students. So if you're an educator and you are in a classroom, please encourage your student who passed the certification exam to really accept the badge and use it for their benefit when they get that email from Credly.

So now that we've talked about the importance of getting certified, the value of Autodesk certification as opposed to a certificate program, let's dig deep into Autodesk certification. We have four levels of certification-- a certified user, associate, professional, and expert. Our user level certification is the lowest of the low. It's tailored to students, really more in the high school.

And it's really a software-based. So it's a product-based certification where the associate professional and expert are actually role-based certification, which means that, although it is testing your product, it's also giving you workflows related to a job role.

I do want to mention that you don't have to take one after another. If you feel you're ready to take the expert, feel free to sit for that. I will also mention that our biggest interest we're seeing in the last few years is really in the user, which is the entry level all the way to professional, more so than associate and expert.

Now that we've talked about the levels, let's talk about the portfolio itself. This is evolving as we speak. I know last year when I presented, many of you have been asking for other type of certification. I will say to you that, right now as we speak, one month ahead of AU, we are really looking at what other certification we will be building for the future.

What you see here is an overview and all the badges that we offer. We actually have 21 certifications, 6 of which are user level and 15 on the associate professional and expert. You can see on the left-hand side all the products and then, progressively, the certification that we offer and the badge that a person can earn.

Couple of things that I would mention-- the certified user is typically made for a secondary student where the associate, professional, and expert are really for early career, vocational, all the way to expert level. You can choose what certification to take. It's up to you. We don't dictate that, but we give you some guidance on the hours.

I will also mention that we deliver our certification globally, all of them. And we deliver them in a testing center if you're a person who likes to be in a testing center format. Or you can take it from the privacy of your own home or office, and you will be proctored. And you'll schedule that when you schedule your certification exam.

Our user level certification is localized in 12 languages. Our associate, professional, and expert is only delivered in English. Last, I would say, you can see quite a bit of focus here on the Fusion portfolio because that has been our strategy.

However, I want to remind you, as I mentioned earlier when I start talking about the session, that we are currently really looking at what are the next certification that we will be building and reevaluating the portfolio to make sure that we serve you and serve the market for what they need for the next few years. Obviously, certification does not and is not built overnight. And again, I'll plug in here. If you are a subject matter expert and you're interested to help us build training or certification, make sure to reach out.

So let's dig into the user level certification. We have a partnership with Certiport. Certiport design, develop, and deliver our six user level certification. You can see them on the right-hand corner. They're all entry level. You have access to live in the app as you're taking the exam. You do not have to recertify for the user level, which means that you take it once, and you're certified for life. As I mentioned, we deliver it in 12 languages.

And it's close to an hour 15 minutes with 30 questions. And the type of questions you typically see on a user level exam is multiple choice or fill in the blank. So that is, again, the lowest of the low. A lot of adoption is in the high school level, secondary market. However, if you're a person who just changed careers or you're just starting with our product, that is also a good certification for you to engage with.

Now, for the professional level certification, we have 15 of those. We design at Autodesk and develop the certification. We only deliver them through Pearson VUE. Interesting enough, Pearson VUE also owns Certiport, which is the company that we work with for the user level. And both companies are owned by Pearson Education out of the UK as most of you most probably are aware of. It's a big education company.

Our 15 certifications are anything from early in career for the associate to the expert level, which a person who is professional has been a graduate for some years and have been working. You don't have access to the software as you're taking the certification. It is a longer certification, so it's 45 to 60 questions, 90 to 120 minutes depending.

And most importantly here is we do require recertification for our associate professional expert. And why? Because we want you fully aware of the changes that we have in our technology, so you're always abreast on the changes and being able to work along the new versions of our software. For Fusion, typically, is every two years because it's an evolving technology. For all other certification, it's typically three years.

The type of question you see on a professional level certification is multiple choice, drag and drop, hotspot, and graphic interpretation. A quick reminder-- we deliver all our certification across the globe in Pearson VUE testing center, or you can take them in the privacy of your own home or office. Each person prefer a different angle, to be honest with you.

You think that online proctored exam are much easier. Yes, they are. But you have to really respond to making changes in your environment, so there is no cheating involved. So make sure that you choose the potential of being in a test center or in your own office, depending what works for you. Lastly, a quick reminder, we only deliver the professional level certification in English only.

Now that we've talked about the portfolio, let's jump in and really talk about available government funding. This is a US-based funding. This does not apply for all of you who are listening here for the global market. However, in 2006, there is something called Perkins V that has been created. And I'll speak a little bit of detail for that.

But I will say to you, every state operates differently. There are 50 states. 38 of them require us to apply for something called a stateless, which Autodesk applies and put our certification on the state list, allowing teachers and educators to access funding for their classroom to buy for those certification for free. Perkins V has been put into law in 2018. It is available for all educators for technology classrooms.

And also, I provided you here with a link. That link takes you to every single state, depending on where you are. You would learn about how to apply to government funding and to access that money. Again, cannot speak to every state. I have them documented for you because every state is different how you access the funds.

I will mention, if you're in a small school, typically, the teacher will have to deal with that. If you're in a large school, higher ed or even a large high school, you might have somebody on the team as a coordinator or a professional who deals with funding. And that's the person you would seek to in case they are not aware of Perkins funding.

Here, I give you a link to the US Perkins funding, so you can read more about it. I will mention it is $1.4 billion annually that's provided in education. It is instrumental that you know that this is available for you, for the classroom, for technical education for your students, so you can prepare them for the job market. If you're not aware of it and you really are interested, use those funds. Go ahead and click on the link from the previous slide. It takes you to whatever state you are in, and you read more about it.

I would not pass by this because a lot of the students cannot afford certification. And that's a great way for you to be able to supplement the classroom and close the training that you have provided in the classroom with a capstone certification. So they earn that, and they're ready for the job market.

Now that we've talked about the value of earning a certification, what's available from learning perspective, we talked about Perkins funding, the portfolio for certification, let's talk about how you can access bulk purchase. Many of you can engage one on one with us through our website and actually have a B2C relationship and buy our certification at a straight price. All of this is available on our website at Autodesk/certification.

Now, if you are a teacher, an employer and you really want to buy in bulk for your team or for your students for the certified user, you will engage with Certiport. I would say take your cell phone, scan that QR code. It gives you a list of representatives in your area. We have multiple representatives across the country. And those representatives will allow you to engage with them to really buy in bulk.

But also, if you're an educator and you want to make your classroom a testing center so your student don't leave the school to a testing center or an online proctor experience, you can become a testing center for Certiport. That is the same person you would work with to buy in bulk certification exam, but also becoming a testing center for Certiport that deliver our user level certification.

From a professional certification standpoint, we partner with authorized learning partners. Our amazing learning partners have very similar mission as ours. They are here to support you skill and reskill and upskill to be able to be prepared for the future of work and to really engage with the new skill set that is here with the automation and changes in technology.

We scale globally with our learning partner for our professional level certification. You can see, from this map, we have a representation in every region. TD SYNNEX, thinkEDU are pretty focused in North America. In South America, we have ETC. We have KnowledgePoint that's responsible for the EMEA. And then, again, we have TD SYNNEX and NWH looking at the rest of the world.

Each of those companies have worked with us very closely to provide them with the best price possible. So you can buy from them vouchers for reduced price for your team in bulk. I will also say that the same providers, as I mentioned earlier, have instructor-led training. They also have digital learning that you can supplement with whatever is available for free from Autodesk.

I'm not going to read the slide for you. But as you can see from this slide, we have a representation across the globe. This takes to you the location, the name of the partner that we work with, and all the offering that they have in the bullet format.

So as you are reviewing this deck, make sure to really look at each of one of those and see which one aligns with your region, so you can contact them. Of course, if you are missing anything or you have still questions, you always are welcome to contact us or customer service. And I'll be providing those details in just a second.

I am so grateful for you spending time with me today. It's been really a pleasure talking to you about certification. I'm very passionate about it, clearly. I spend my whole career working in the training and certification, specifically in the IT space leading programs. So I hope you engage with us as Autodesk is really an amazing point to really, not only grow the portfolio, but also serve you as our customer and partner when it comes to supporting our product.

To close, let's talk about giveaways and takeaways. I do want to mention that every one of you here with the digital format or if you're attending Autodesk University have access to a discount code to take our certification. That discount code is AU2024. That discount code is for 50%. You can use that as a form of payment, as you are typing up which certification you need from our website.

It applies to the professional portfolio, so it's associate, professional, and expert, not the user level. That code is valid up to March 31, 2025. That means you need to schedule the exam on the website and sit for the exam by March 31, 2025.

I do want to mention and remind you that all our certification you can take them online or in a testing center and that don't pass by this great opportunity of really saving close to 125 if you're taking the expert. To give you an insight here, our associate level certification is 150, our professional is 200, and the expert is 250. So if you're taking the expert, you're saving 125. If you're taking the associate, you're saving $75 on this discount code.

I did mention that, if you have any challenges or you need to become a SME or you're trying to register and use this code and you have any challenges, feel free to click on the links below, whether it's Pearson VUE or our own customer certification support here at Autodesk, so we can help you go over the hump and make sure that you schedule your certification exam and you take the certification.

Now that we've talked about this amazing discount, I encourage you to actually come to the session because I'm also giving for free 25 certification exams. So 25 lucky members of the people who are sitting in the room as we are presenting this on October 16 will be getting a free certification exam. And of course, if you still want to take another one, you have 50% off.

In Closing, I would say that I also created a handout. A handout will be posted with the video. So you can access the handout as it has multiple additional insights into certification exam, some tips of the tricks of taking the certification in addition to what we've talked about today.

So today's topic, we talked about the value of certification. We talked about what's available from a learning perspective and training with learning partners and cert prep material. We talked about the portfolio itself. We talked about available government funding for your classroom if you're an educator and how to purchase in bulk for your team or for your students.

A quick reminder, we talked about the 50% off. But also, I want to mention that, if you have a chance to really fill out the survey, I would really appreciate it because, to be honest with you, I'm extremely excited and thrilled to be here. But I cannot do better if you don't tell me what we're missing. And if we're doing something good also, please let us know if this is something you want to hear about year over year.

Lastly, I don't want to leave you hanging. I do want to mention that my email address is provided here. It is dangerous that I'm giving my email address. But I definitely want you to have it in case you have any questions, concerns, feedback. Or if you want to become a SME and you don't want to contact customer service to become a SME, I will be more than happy to connect with you and provide you with the right team member to work with to become a SME.

I am super grateful for your time today. Thrilled to be talking about a topic that I enjoy. I am really, really excited for you to take a certification exam from Autodesk, earn a badge, showcase your qualifications, get the new job, get promoted, and, hopefully, engage more with our product line. I hope you're enjoying the conference. And if you're coming to the session, I look forward to seeing you. Meanwhile, you have my email address. And I hope you enjoyed the session. Thank you.