Career Readiness Certificate
The Arkansas Economic Development Commission is proud to partner with six sister agencies to provide employers with a tool to be able to locate the skilled workforce required to maintain global competitiveness. This tool, the Arkansas Career Readiness Certificate (CRC), also enables prospective employees the ability to document the existing skills that they possess.
A “CRC” confirms to employers that an individual possesses basic workplace skills in Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics, and Locating Information – skills that all jobs require.
The program is based on an evaluation system called WorkKeys, created by American College Testing (ACT). ACT WorkKeys is a validated, EEO compliant system that is used to evaluate a job and compare the skills required by that job, with the skills that applicants currently pose. Job Profiles are created utilizing existing (incumbent) employees to identify the skills required by a job. Utilizing a job profile created for a specific job and comparing the required skills of that job with the existing skills of an applicant allows the employer and the employee to determine if the applicant is a good match for the job.
Potential employees are assessed and CRC’s are awarded based on their evaluation level. Certificates are awarded at three levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold. The profile conducted for a specific job will determine which of these certificate levels are appropriate for each of the jobs profiled.
ACT maintains a list of occupational job profiles that have been conducted nationwide utilizing individual job profiles which have been conducted. Currently there are over 14,000 occupational profiles available for an employer to review.
A potential employee who has earned a Bronze Arkansas CRC has employability skills required for approximately 30% of these occupational profiles. A potential employee who has earned a Silver Arkansas CRC has employability skills for approximately 65% of the occupational job profiles and a potential employee who has earned a Gold Arkansas CRC has employability skills for approximately 90% of these occupational profiled jobs.
Arkansas employers are currently using the CRC Program and report positive hiring, training, and retention statistics over the existing systems that have been used.
Contact:
Joe Franklin
501-683-4708
joe.franklin@arkansas.gov
