On Credentials and Capability: Why the Resume Fails to Measure What Matters
A reflection on the gap between formal credentials—degrees, badges, resume markers—and actual competence in creative work. The writer argues that the machinery of credentialing (universities, skills quizzes, LinkedIn assessments) measures trivia and test performance, not the practical judgment that clients and colleagues actually value.
After obtaining my undergraduate degree (first degree), I found myself lost in the world outside the safety of a classroom. The realities of the ‘real world’ or job market hit me hard in the face. It was in the middle of the recession and getting a job was not easy even for a honor student like me. The truth is, I had been told or I told myself a lie about university.
I had come to believe that all I had to do was ace the tests and companies will be there on my graduation day fighting to recruit me but the reality could never have been further from the truth. After graduating cum laude it was only a matter of months before I started feeling like I didn’t know anything.
I get the same feeling when I try to update my profile on LinkedIn. The last time I tried to get a photoshop skills badge ( by taking a skills quiz), I was presented with a test which really wanted to see if I knew the names of all the different tools and their functions rather than me actually knowing how to use the tools.
The first five of the fifteen questions threw me off and I gave up on the test. I stopped writing this article at this point to go back and take the test and this time around, I got a badge for performing in the top 30% of people who have taken the photoshop skills quiz.
That was just to show you how another random 15 questions which I could not answer could be given to me and a conclusion made that I don’t know much about photoshop. Like, visually, I know in my head what different blend modes will produce but I really don’t know the exact science.
I doubt a client who needs a flyer cares if I know the science behind blend modes so long as I am able to give them a good looking flyer for their event. Like who cares about the algorithms photoshop applies to detect edges when I use a selection tool if I am able to remove the background from an image as requested by a client? (cont...)
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- Norbert Foy
Written in 2021, at a moment when remote work and portfolio-driven hiring were reshaping how talent was evaluated, and when digital credentialing platforms (LinkedIn, Coursera, skill badges) were proliferating as proxies for expertise. The writer speaks from the dissonance of having graduated with honors into a weak job market, only to discover that institutional validation does not prepare you for—or predict—real-world capability.
The piece holds weight then and now because it names a persistent fraud in how we sort talent: that measurement and mastery are the same thing. In an era of increasing credentialism and algorithmic gatekeeping, the writer's insistence that a client cares only whether the work is good—not whether you can name the tools or explain the science—is a quiet but necessary provocation. It speaks to anyone who has felt diminished by a failed test or a sparse resume, and refuses the equation that credentials equal competence.