By Marni Baker Stein, Chief Content Officer, Coursera
Today, I’m pleased to share some new independent research from Stanford Graduate School of Business, highlighting the employability benefits offered by micro-credentials on Coursera. The new paper, “The Value of Non-Traditional Credentials in the Labor Market”, reports results from a randomized experiment, finding that sharing micro-credentials as proof of skills acquisition increases the chance of a learner getting a new job. These effects are particularly strong for learners who lack traditional credentials, do not have relevant work experience, or are based in emerging markets.
“Our research shows that micro-credentials, when shared on professional platforms like LinkedIn, can meaningfully boost employment prospects for learners who traditionally lacked access to the labor market” said Susan Athey, professor of economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business “By making skills more visible to employers, these digital credentials help level the playing field for talent in emerging markets and underserved communities.”
“It was striking to see how a lightweight change — simply removing small frictions in the sharing process — could lead to such a large increase in credential sharing, which in turn boosted the rate at which people found new jobs,” added Emil Palikot, co-author of the study and assistant professor of marketing at Northeastern University.
Technological change continues to transform global labor markets. It is both increasing the demand for digital roles and enabling individuals to be hired for these roles, regardless of their location. Talent in emerging markets often lacks training for these roles, driving learners worldwide to pursue job-relevant micro-credentials to close skills gaps and access new career opportunities.
To explore the impact that micro-credentials are having on learner employability, Susan Athey and Emil Palikot, researchers at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Northeastern University, conducted a randomized experiment that measured the impact of credential sharing on job outcomes across a cohort of 40,000 Coursera learners. They sought to understand:
- The Impact of credential sharing on employability — Do micro-credentials effectively enhance job prospects by equipping learners with new skills and demonstrating them to employers?
- Effectiveness of platform-driven credential sharing — Assess how Coursera’s built-in features and prompts influence learners’ likelihood to share their credentials online.
- Differential benefits for underserved learners — To what extent non-traditional credentials benefit learners from developing countries or those without college degrees, and which group has the most to gain from these opportunities.
Key findings from the study include:
- Showcasing non-traditional credentials on professional networking platforms can significantly improve employability for learners, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Learners who shared a micro-credential on LinkedIn to signal their new skills were 6% more likely to report new employment within a year after doing so than those who did not share their earned credentials.
- Encouraging and simplifying credential sharing works. A platform feature, consisting of nudges and a streamlined sharing process, increased visibility and job outcomes.
- The benefits of micro-credential sharing were greater for learners with lower baseline employability. Coursera and Stanford GSB found that learners in the bottom employability tertile — based on their initial probability of reporting a new job according to characteristics such as their past employment history, level of education, type of university, and age — experienced an 11% increase in employability.
The study authors recommend that:
- Online learning providers should continue to develop and promote features that encourage the sharing of non-traditional credentials. All of Coursera’s credentials, which are offered by top universities and leading industry partners, can be seamlessly shared on LinkedIn.
- Educational institutions and policymakers should support initiatives that enhance the credibility and recognition of non-traditional credentials. By doing so, they can help learners from disadvantaged backgrounds effectively signal their skill sets in the absence of traditional degrees or relevant work experience, thereby improving their employability.
These findings offer strong new experimental evidence that gaining and sharing micro-credentials can reduce disparities in employment outcomes, particularly for those without traditional credentials or strong employment histories.
Coursera continues to expand its collection of micro-credentials and recently released ten job-relevant Professional Certificates, offered by leading industry players including Amazon, Dell, IBM, Microsoft, and XBOX. In 2024, Coursera recorded over 4.3 million enrollments across our portfolio of Entry-Level Professional Certificates, which are equipping learners from all backgrounds and geographies to attain the most in-demand remote digital jobs in under six months.
The full study can be accessed here.
