Career Certified: Making purpose attainable

Education technology, also known as EdTech, is innovation at its best. For years, classrooms have conformed to a rigorous teaching technique. The last couple of years, however, have seen an influx of EdTech tools being introduced within traditional education. EdTech uses the massive advancement in technology to communicate and introduce tools that engage individuals in a creative and inclusive way.

Career Certified, since its start, has built its foundation on offering individuals across fields the ability to access education and get certifications in diverse industries. Rebuilding careers and revolutionizing education.

CIO Bulletin reached out to Career Certified to talk about the impact they have continued to make.

Q. How did the idea for Career Certified come about? What does the company specialize in?

The company’s origins first started with The CE Shop, which identified and solved a massive gap in pre-licensing and continuing education for the real estate industry. The company positioned itself from there to serve the entire EdTech industry, whose total addressable market in the US is growing at a CAGR of 17% by 2024, totaling $36.5 billion. Currently, Career Certified serves as a parent brand to a growing number of sub-brands that still include The CE Shop. The company specializes in education for the entire career management lifecycle in real estate, mortgage, appraisal, home inspection, insurance, securities, and architecture. But in addition to education, Career Certified is a tech company that has seen proven success through industry pass rates above the competition and is focused on an incredible platform from which to expand, unify, and scale.

Q. As a company, what are your goals? How do you plan to impact a community with it?

Our vision is to make your purpose attainable. With that in mind, our goal at Career Certified is to improve entire communities by impacting the success of each individual through empowerment and the sustained partnership we can provide throughout the lifespan of their career—or even their second or third careers, for some. Part of our secret sauce lies in the quality and delivery of the coursework, most of it using modern, engaging content that includes video and animation, which creates higher pass rates, but part of the success lies in the speed by which we can offer the education and get someone feeling the value of a new career and the impact it has on immediately improving their life and the lives of their family.

Q. What are the services you offer? Who do you serve?

As a leader in multi-vertical education, Career Certified presently focuses on exam prep, pre-licensing, licensing, and continuing education coursework, as well as tools for the entire lifecycle of a professional’s career. The company pairs an easy-to-use platform and flexible learning options with a deep understanding of students’ needs in industries that include real estate, mortgage, home inspection, home appraisal, architecture, insurance, and securities. We serve individuals, businesses, affiliate partnerships, and universities looking to expand their course offerings.

Q. What are the company’s values and principles?

Our core values were established long ago and continue to be our North Star: We are customer focused. We respect each other. We do what we say. We are committed to improving. We have fun. We give back. If we collectively measure every action and intent against these core values, we tend to move forward without friction, innovate at greater speed—ahead of the pace of our customers’ needs—feel satisfied with the day’s work, and are excited to come back for more, all while delighting our customers.

Q. Can you elaborate on progressive education and its importance?=

As the economy has changed and evolved, so has the learner’s experience. Whether it is influenced by the pace of technology and change or the speed by which we retrieve information online, how we learn has shifted. Career Certified has stayed ahead of shifting education needs, serving a predominantly online audience that is looking for flexible learning options that are modernized in delivery. As traditional colleges and universities have become too lengthy and expensive for many Americans, our offerings can arm you with everything you need to know to launch and accelerate a career.

Q. Since its foundation in 2005, how have your operations changed over nearly two decades?

In the last two decades, the company has undergone a lot of sophistication with content delivery, regulatory and compliance know-how, technology upgrades, and go-to-market plans to increase brand awareness and accessibility. My guess is that if you were to look from behind the curtain, inside out, year after year, we reinvent ourselves as a new company, building upon the foundation of our original core values to optimize our internal practices, intake student feedback, and ingest options to improve faster.

From an Operational perspective, the systems and tools that run the company have also modernized, moving from founder based manual processes and tools to enterprise class digital systems and tools.

Q. How does Career Certified plan to keep up with the changing times?

With our tenured, thoughtful team of leaders that is supported by a hardworking, passionate group of colleagues that truly want the best outcome for our customers; we’re constantly evaluating opportunities for growth and change. For instance, we are holding regular focus groups to understand the pain points and changing needs of our customers in all industries. We also recently met to start analyzing how artificial intelligence will change our industry and how we can use this as a point of differentiation, if we should or should not lean into certain future-state benefits of AI, and how that will impact the student-to-professional education cycle.

Q. What are the plans for the future of the company? How does it plan to continue to stay relevant?

We’re already on the path to becoming the leader in multi-vertical career education. Career Certified continues to expand and layer on education for more industries, as well as serve our current industries with professional development tools, with better ways to connect with their peers, and the parallel services they need to optimize their position. Our team will never be on defense, so we are forward thinking as it applies to technology and the ways we can serve our audiences, especially the next generation of thinkers and doers.

A brief biography of the CEO

Gary Weiss heads Career Certified as the CEO, bringing decades of experience in growing and transforming cutting-edge organizations. A few of his most notable professional accomplishments include being the executive for one of the most successful exits in eLearning at Vector Solutions, ushering in double-digit growth as the Chief Operating Officer at Aspen Technology, leading the Cloud Transformation at OpenText, and leading CA Technologies to market leadership in the Security Industry as a Senior Vice President. He began his career as one of the first Sales Reps at a startup company called RSA and helped them grow to become one of the leaders in the security industry. Gary is passionate about his family, consisting of his wife and four children, sports, philanthropy, and sustainability. He currently resides in Tampa, Florida.

“Our goal is to positively change lives and impact communities.”