Guest Post: Enhancing Personal Success Through Microsoft Office Digital Skills Certifications

The following is a guest post by Daniel López, Sales Director at Media Interactiva.

Currently, the labor market demands better-skilled candidates to fill in job openings. Globalization has urged companies to look for talent outside of their territory, while job-seekers nowadays are also more willing to move away from their home state to find better job opportunities. Therefore, competition within the job market has significantly increased.

As a consequence, companies call for recent graduates equipped with the best-fitting job skills in order to accelerate new employee onboarding. In addition, these days, students are also expected to be digital experts. A university degree just doesn't cut it anymore. 

As it occurs with languages, it is necessary to set the standards for digital skills, as proof of proficiency in these world-leading competencies. Training and validating students, teachers and professionals in this so-called digital transformation era is helping close the skills gap that we are still experiencing in this day and age. This, in fact, is the sole purpose of certifications.

Certifications are valuable and professional credentials by the own technology providers that serve as recognized industry standards to demonstrate mastery in a specific subject matter. Certified candidates are much better prepared for professional success, as they are more productive in using everyday tools at the workplace, including Microsoft.

There are several benefits associated with certifications:

1. Standing out from others with similar experience and qualifications, becoming the best candidate.
2. Boosting professional skills, ensuring user capability to maximize the benefits of new technology.
3. Preparation to carry out new tasks worldwide.
4. Validation of skills, providing proof of real-world knowledge and increasing the chances of getting hired.

Due to the many advantages of getting certified, and the urgent need for a digitally skilled labor force to reduce Europe's digital skills gap, schools should commit to providing their teachers and students with the appropriate credentials.

Media Interactiva, a leader in educational technology and instructional design for the accreditation of digital skills from Spain, has designed the perfect solution for integrating certification training into the curriculum of such schools, as well as for workforce development. This includes providing the necessary means to certify students, teachers or employees in some of the most valuable certifications by the main technology manufacturers, such as Microsoft Office Specialist and Microsoft Certified Educator.

This initiative endorses the European Commission's Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition to tackle the digital skills gap, by developing those skills among the youngest generations while preparing them for success. Media Interactiva supports this cause by providing access to the practice tests and official certifications, available in several languages, including Spanish and English.

Specifically, Media Interactiva has created LearnMOS, a revolutionary program of online courses and practice tests focused on the main Office 2016 applications. This training product has been developed to equip individuals in the highly demanded Office abilities that ranked third within the top 20 skills across representative occupations, gathered by IDC*. 

LearnMOS uses a clear and intuitive methodology that allows the user to practice directly within the application for which they are preparing to certify in. Each course consists of the following steps:

• Benchmark assessment to design a customized learning path based on the user's existing knowledge.
• Learn & Practice & Create directly within the application. This section contains several elements:
  • This is a theoretical explanation of how the application works and some of its different features.
  • Knowledge-based practice to test the user's theoretical knowledge of the application, offering references to related content.
  • Live in the app practice to learn by training directly within the real application. Video tutorials available with step-by-step instructions.
• Validation of knowledge through a series of assessments, both knowledge based and live in the app.

This learning path familiarizes users with the actual application while preparing them for the real certification exam experience through performance-based exercises, overcoming their test anxiety.

The learning platform on which LearnMOS runs is hosted on Microsoft Azure, allowing Media Interactiva to benefit from certain cloud service capabilities, including guaranteed availability and scalability. This enables users to truly learn how to use Microsoft Office- Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2016 easily and efficiently.

Therefore, all certifications promoted by Media Interactiva provide users with useful tools for the education industry, as they help students and teachers prove their knowledge in digital skills, giving them immediate professional credibility.

Maximize employee productivity by reinforcing your team's Microsoft Office 2016 skills. Learn more and get started with LearnMOS now.

*IDC, Keys to the Future: Worldwide Readiness Skills to Ensure Student Success, June 2016