69% of certified ServiceNow professionals agree that their certification made a positive difference in their career. That is according to global market intelligence firm IDC. In my last blog, I spoke about industry certifications and if they really make a difference. This time, I wanted to look at ServiceNow certifications specifically, and their value to your organization and to you personally. Based on this statistic, we’re off to a great start, but before we go any further, let’s take a step back and see what ServiceNow offers with regard to certification.
ServiceNow offers industry-recognized certifications for a range of personas in multiple formats. There are three different types:
- Mainline Certifications:
- Mainline certifications are available for ServiceNow administrators, developers, application specialists, and implementers. They require a proctored exam managed by a third-party company called Kryterion on a platform called WebAssessor. With each family release, users with a mainline certification must take an online delta exam that typically comprises ten or fewer questions. For ServiceNow’s fall family release, certified individuals must pay an annual fee, per individual, (not per certification) to maintain their current certified status. This means an individual with three ServiceNow certifications would still only pay the annual fee one time, regardless of the number of certifications they carry.
- Micro-certifications:
- Micro-certifications are earned through online exams taken in Now Learning. They are free to all users, but students must take the pre-requisite course to gain access to the exam. In some cases, students will earn their Micro-certification through an assessment simulator instead of an exam. A simulator has students perform actual tasks within a ServiceNow instance to show they can perform the tasks associated with the product. Examples of Micro-Certifications include Predictive Intelligence, Service Portal, and Automated Test , to name a few.
- Suite Certifications:
- Suite certifications are automatically earned when students achieve specific certifications and micro-certifications within a product line. There are currently four suite certifications: IT Service Management Professional, Customer Service Management Professional, and Human Resource Professional.
For students to receive a voucher to take a certification exam, they must take the associated course. Mainline vouchers are included at no additional charge with all live courses that have an associated voucher. For on-demand courses that have an associated voucher, those vouchers are available for purchase within 12 months of completing the course. It is important to note that the certification itself must also be attempted for the first time within that 12-month window.
More information on ServiceNow’s Certification program can be found in the following FAQ.
Now that we have a better understanding of ServiceNow’s Certification Program, let’s go back to the question of whether ServiceNow Certifications are worth it. I mentioned at the beginning that 69% of certified ServiceNow professionals agree that their certification made a positive difference in their career, according to the IDC. But what else did they find out? According to the 2021 IDC InfoBrief, we also know:
- Certified ServiceNow professionals have experienced accelerated promotions by 3–12 months.
- 31% of all certified respondents say that ServiceNow certification has positively impacted their salary.
- Certified ServiceNow professionals are about 38% more productive overall than non-certified professionals.
- Certified ServiceNow professionals are 1.2 times more influential overall than non-certified professionals.
- 27% of certified ServiceNow professionals agree that their ServiceNow certification has helped them get a promotion.
These statistics clearly show that ServiceNow certification helps improve employee performance and accelerates career growth for ServiceNow users. For more information on the IDC study, please visit The Benefit of ServiceNow Certifications to Your Career. You can also find out more about ServiceNow’s Training and Certification program here.
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The Ask a Training Expert blog is published monthly by members of the ServiceNow Training Solution Consulting team. For more information about ServiceNow Training and Certification, visit our website. Please comment on this article to see your question featured in upcoming blogs.
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