Industry Certifications & Associations for Various Business Majors… Data shows that people earn more & have more job security if they become engaged members of their professional discipline. One way to do that is to join industry specific associations related to your majors. Further, these associations often have certifications with them that externally validate you as a subject matter expert ($$$).

Students: Data shows that people earn more and have more job security if they become engaged members of their professional discipline. One way to do that is to join industry specific associations related to your majors. Further, these associations often have certifications with them that externally validate you as a subject matter expert ($$$). I would give serious consideration to these moving forward in your careers. In fact, for some of these, you can join while still in college. They tend to be free and cheap for college students and allow you to professionally network before you even graduate.

I think you want to send a message to employers that you want to stay current in your field and joining these orgs allows you to do so (resume material). Further, when you graduate, that you look forward to being an engaged member of these orgs and even taking on leadership roles.

For all the multiple majors in our class, I think the list below has us all covered. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you. Sime

Industry Certifications & Associations for Various Business Majors (per discussions I had with colleagues):

Marketing

For marketing, there are several certifications offered through the American Marketing Association:

https://www.ama.org/certifications/. And, I think there are various marketing research associations that offer continuing education and certifications for those wanting to get into that specific area of marketing (like a CRA https://www.iipmr.com/education/cra.html).

For Ad + Promo, unless you get heavy into digital, there isn’t anything really, except maybe a project management certification? There are all sorts of digital marketing related certificates, but HubSpot offers all sorts of certifications (https://academy.hubspot.com/certification-overview), as do many of the individual social media platforms or CRM software (like Facebook or Salesforce). Google Analytics has always been popular one to suggest that students can do anytime, but they are changing their measurement solutions next year. https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/.

Coursera offers all sorts of classes that anyone can pick up to enhance or fill gaps. Nothing beats experience though. Participating in relevant internships, external case competitions, and other experiential learning opportunities are usually enough to validate themselves.

Digital Marketing

For digital marketing, there is no widely accepted industry organization, possibly because half of the people in the industry are self-taught, but there are quite a few localized organizations that seek to bring people together with regularity. Our students will actually be helping launch a Kalamazoo-based professional group in mid-October. “Kalamazoo Digital Media Meetups” will become a quarterly thing for professionals in the southwest Michigan area, and Dr. Cowley will be hosting the launch party in HCOB on the evening of 10/11.

There are many different certifications, but none are industry standards. Email me for a list of free ones that Dr. Cowley recommends to students (although from this list, only a few from Google are ones that are actually requested in job postings).

Human Resources Management

SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, is a 300,000+ member international org for HR professionals that provides several different types of resources, training, and networking opportunities for members. They have affiliate chapters throughout the world at the State and Local levels (MISHRM and KHRMA), as well as student chapters (our own SEHR).

SHRM offers two levels of certification: the SHRM-CP (certified professional) exam and the SHRM-SCP (senior certified professional) exam. If students come out of a college program aligned with the SHRM Body of Skills and Applied Knowledge (BASK), they can take the CP exam as soon as they have 500 hours of work experience. Some of our students who have had internships are able to take the SHRM-CP before they graduate.

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Personal Financial Planning: Financial Planning Association

There are many different avenues under the finance umbrella. Most of these have some type of certification. This page provides a primer on some of the more common designations: https://www.fma.org/finance-certifications

Sales

Hmmm.

Not really? Salespeople prefer to join other associations where customers hang out. Hanging with other salespeople is not helping them sell anything.

Our degree is more advanced than most industry training programs, so no real benefit in spending more money to earn an unneeded certification. Sales results are the only certification worth anything. Produce and thrive or don’t and don’t.

CIS and Business Analytics

There are plenty. Here is a list of a few:

Google’s certifications on analytics, big data, cloud, data science, machine learning, etc.
Amazon’s certifications on cloud, big data, data science, machine learning, etc.
Microsoft certifications on Excel, PowerBI, Azure, cloud, Data science, machine learning, database, etc.
Project Management Professionals. Certifications include PMP, CAPM, etc.
International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)
Other vendor specific certifications, such as big data databases (e.g., MongoDB, Casandra, etc.), relational database, etc.
Many industry conferences. See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/events-conferences/ for a small list. Amazon’s re:Invent conference and AWS Summit are good ones too. There are other big ones by SalesForce, IBM, Oracle and other big name technology companies.

Accounting

There are a lot in accounting, the CPA is the most widely recognized certification, followed closely by the CMA (Certified Management Accountant). Some of the other certifications are

CIA (certified internal auditor)

CFA (certified forensic accountant)

CGMA (chartered global management accountant)

The AICPA is the CPA, the IMA is for the CMA, the AICPA is working to expand into management accounting with the CGMA.

Business Law: American Bar Association (that’s all I have).

And of course the major certifications for SCM:

CPSM® Certified Professional in Supply Management

https://www.ismworld.org/certification-and-training/certification/cpsm/

APICS/ASCM Certifications

https://www.ascm.org/learning-development/

APICS Certified Supply Chain Certification (CSCP)

https://www.ascm.org/learning-development/certifications-credentials/cscp/

APICS Certified in Planning and Inventory Management (CPIM)

https://www.ascm.org/learning-development/certifications-credentials/cpim/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sime-curkovic-61617a115/recent-activity/shares/

Business Data Analytics Majors or Minors. Wouldn’t it be cool if your resume had:
1. Advanced Excel (power query & pivot) & macros;
2. Data visualization (Tableau, Power BI & python w/ seaborn & matplotlib);
3. Data mining/RapidMiner, machine learning & data science;
4. Python & Jupyter notebook (data analytics & statistical libraries such as pandas, numpy);
5. Relational data models (Excel data model);
6. Graphic & statistical libraries (Seaborn, Matplotlib, Pandas, & Plotly).

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Leading the way with Lean Six Sigma: WMU students earn certification. https://lnkd.in/g2VDbEPx. The ability to get certified in continuous improvement methodologies and Lean Six Sigma (LSS) techniques all before graduation is just one way students in the Haworth College of Business are preparing to become business leaders. A group of 13 graduate and 20 undergraduate students across the college’s academic programs had the opportunity to earn their LSS Yellow Belt Certifications this spring semester.

The LSS training, which focuses on continuous improvement (CI) techniques, is offered by the Center for Integrated Supply Management. The center intends to make the tools and skills for the methodology accessible to all. To receive the LSS Yellow Belt Certification, students had to meet training requirements and take a qualifying exam—which is the same exam that certifies industry professionals. Tom Kelly, faculty specialist and associate director of the Center for Integrated Supply Management, and Dr. Tom Scannell, professor of marketing, are LSS Black Belt-certified.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sime-curkovic-61617a115_lean-sixsigma-supplychain-activity-6984305341924589568-dTn7?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Again:

Finance: The CFA Institute for individuals wanting to earn and hold the CFA designation, (focus on investment analysis, etc.) and the CFP Board for those wanting to earn the CFP designation (work with individual retail customers on financial planning)

Personal Financial Planning: Financial Planning Association

There are many different avenues under the finance umbrella. Most of these have some type of certification. This page provides a primer on some of the more common designations: https://www.fma.org/finance-certifications
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Sales
Hmmm.
Not really? Salespeople prefer to join other associations where customers hang out. Hanging with other salespeople is not helping them sell anything.

Our degree is more advanced than most industry training programs, so no real benefit in spending more money to earn an unneeded certification. Sales results are the only certification worth anything. Produce and thrive or don’t and don’t.

FYI: Resources for Info on Suppliers, Customers, & Prospects. A WMU MBA Alum from our Taiwan Program & working in B2B industrial sales, offered the following list of free websites as a resource for research on competitors, customer supply chains, & prospect contact info. Many of these links may already be in your resource list, but if not, they can be helpful:

https://lnkd.in/gV786uxY
https://www.datanyze.com/
https://lnkd.in/gqEUT3BB
https://lnkd.in/gV2KB5da
https://www.apollo.io/
https://lnkd.in/gqR4ZPst

Human Resources Management
SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, is a 300,000+ member international org for HR professionals that provides several different types of resources, training, and networking opportunities for members. They have affiliate chapters throughout the world at the State and Local levels (MISHRM and KHRMA), as well as student chapters (our own SEHR).

SHRM offers two levels of certification: the SHRM-CP (certified professional) exam and the SHRM-SCP (senior certified professional) exam. If students come out of a college program aligned with the SHRM Body of Skills and Applied Knowledge (BASK), they can take the CP exam as soon as they have 500 hours of work experience. Some of our students who have had internships are able to take the SHRM-CP before they graduate.

Graduate Certificate in Business Analytics
Take your data-driven decision making skills to the next level. The graduate certificate in business analytics offers coursework that takes your skills to the next level, preparing you for leadership roles that focus on the intersection of data and decision making. Courses help professionals grow their knowledge and career opportunities in one of today’s most in-demand fields.
https://wmich.edu/infosystems/academics/graduate

Graduate Certificate
The graduate certificate in cybersecurity requires 15 credit hours and offers two tracks: cybersecurity management or secure software and engineering. Customize your program based on the track that will best accelerate your career.
Foundation Courses
Students must successfully complete the following courses:
CYIS 5710: Information Security Fundamentals
CYCS 5710: Network Security Fundamentals
https://wmich.edu/cybersecurity/programs/certificate

How about Project Management? Either CAPM (Certified Associate Project Manager) or PMP (Project Management Professional) is fine. The main difference between the two is that CAPM is an entry level certification no requirement of experience leading projects. PMP requires that. Both certs require the person to take a formal training in project management using PMBOK. We have a class called CIS 3620 which allows students to satisfy the training requirement. Training can also be obtained somewhere else. Without training, they won’t let you sit in the exam.

CIS 3620 – Practical Project Management
This course teaches project management knowledge, methodologies, techniques and tools based on international project management standards. Students are trained in project management software, team techniques and methodologies for key project process groups, including project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and project closure. Techniques and standard-based project management knowledge learned from this course are practical for projects in a wide variety of disciplines.

Food Marketing: Category Management Certification
UNIVERSITY-BASED PROFESSIONAL CATEGORY MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATION
The Professional Category Management Certification offered by WMU and LE is the only university-based category management certification program on the market today that offers industry professionals advanced category management skills. Grounded in the 60-plus year heritage of the food and consumer package goods marketing program at Western and the thought leadership of the Food Industry Research and Education Center, WMU’s program offers the most advanced certification available to the global fast-moving consumer goods industry and is the only category management program where the certifications are recognized as credit hours toward earning an AACSB-accredited graduate certificate in food marketing (certificate program expected in fall 2022).
https://wmich.edu/foodmarketing/certified

Accounting
There are a lot in accounting, the CPA is the most widely recognized certification, followed closely by the CMA (Certified Management Accountant). Some of the other certifications are
CIA (certified internal auditor)
CFA (certified forensic accountant)
CGMA (chartered global management accountant)

The AICPA is the CPA, the IMA is for the CMA, the AICPA is working to expand into management accounting with the CGMA.
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Business Law: American Bar Association (that’s all I have).
__
Digital Marketing
For digital marketing, there is no widely accepted industry organization, possibly because half of the people in the industry are self-taught, but there are quite a few localized organizations that seek to bring people together with regularity. Our students will actually be helping launch a Kalamazoo-based professional group in mid-October. “Kalamazoo Digital Media Meetups” will become a quarterly thing for professionals in the southwest Michigan area.

There are many different certifications, but none are industry standards. Email me for a list of free ones that faculty recommend to students (although from this list, only a few from Google are ones that are actually requested in job postings).