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Education Training and Certification – How Much Is Enough?
By Doug Allen, CRM, CDIA+ | February 11, 2008
How much education is enough for those of us in the field of Records and Information Management? How much training is sufficient? How many certifications and how many certificates are really required of us? These are all valid questions and questions that are not answered easily.
My memory on the above topic goes back to the days of my college graduation. One of the themes that I recall from my college graduation, in the last millennium, was that education was life long process and not one where a degree signified the end of learning. Since I was not an outstanding student in those days, I recall that my reaction to hearing that was to hope that the graduation speaker in question was mistaken. He wasn’t mistaken at all, and if anything, he underestimated what would be required of the graduating class of 1973.
Education and training have proven very important in my career and have made a significant difference to those who seek success in their careers in Records and Information Management. Alan A. Andolsen, CMC, CRM, President of the Institute of Certified Records Managers made that point quite successfully to those who gathered for the ICRM Reception at the ARMA Conference in Baltimore. He provided clear and convincing information about how those who had advanced degrees and those who had attained the status of CRM had prospered in recent years. I recall being very impressed with the percentage of members of the ICRM who had earned advanced degrees. Alan quite persuasively pointed to the link between education, training, certification and income during his presentation.
Given Alan’s analysis, what should we as Records and Information Management Professionals do? I would recommend that we do the following:
- Document your career goals
- Assess how well your education, training, certifications and experience match the competencies you need to demonstrate to move forward toward those career goals
- Develop your own education plan to fill the gaps
- Involve your employer to the extent that you can, and incorporate your plans into your development goals and performance objectives
- Periodically reassess where you are, reassess your competencies, and continue to fill the gaps created when new areas of knowledge become important to the profession
My own goals are often income based. Your goals may have much more to do with the level of responsibility that you have within your organization, the growth and influence of your R.I.M. program, or the next job title that you hope to target. Those goals are fundamental to the second step.
The second step of assessment requires some measuring stick against which you can judge your progress to date. Fortunately, ARMA International (http://www.arma.org/) has established a set of competencies now, and will soon have an assessment tool available for its members. We will have something to measure ourselves against for the first time in the history of our profession. Hopefully, many of us will be able to use that tool to enable us to better plan for our own professional development.
Once that assessment is complete, making progress will depend on where the gaps exist for each one of us. ARMA will certainly focus attention on providing what education it can for its members, but members will need to determine their own educational priorities. Since education is never “free”, each of us will likely need to involve our employers and to leverage their interest in our development. Whether that education plan includes the pursuit of the CRM as the high level certification that it is, whether it includes the pursuit of a number of certificates offered by other associations, and whether it includes additional higher education, we will undoubtedly want to avail ourselves of any resources that may be available through our employers.
Documenting that education and training can be important - if not for your current position, for the next position you seek. Documentation can be in the form of a degree, an advanced degree (e.g. MBA), or a certification, like the CRM, or CA, or CMC or PMP. It can also incorporate specific certificates that individuals have attained in areas like Enterprise Content Management, Business Process Management, or other areas that provide value to an individual and to an employer.
For those who embark on a path of improving their career path by continuing their education, by achieving certification in the field, my congratulations. The only caveat that I have for any and for all of us is that continuing education is a necessity if we hope to advance in our careers; it is not a luxury. Our field of endeavor is sufficiently broad that the advancement of technology, changes in our professional environment and changes in business practices and regulation will continue to challenge us all.
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