Designing a Professional Certification Exam 🎓

and let's talk about the credential skeleton.

So what that in my opinion could or should look like.

I will talk about the exam first and then I will talk a bit more about, you know, let's, let's say the tactical decisions rather than the strategic ones.

And I think a good exam definitely has an AI generated component to it because you want to make sure that it's not an exam that people can take once and then they know the case and next time they, they will pass it.

So AI generated component is.

We could potentially generate unique use case based on, on their business or on some of the life cases that we have, like the anthropic one that I mentioned earlier.

and that should be one part of it.

So they come in AI generated unique case and that is unique to them.

Then within there there are different components that we can borrow from other hiring processes or exams that we already know work really well.

For example, when hiring engineers, there is a code critique component like, okay, here are three different methods of solving this problem.

Which one's the best?

So those are things that we can bring in there as well where we can say, okay, here three different builds, critique them.

And then another really important thing clearly is the actual building.

Because in the end, like the GTME certificate is something that is all about building and being able to actually do that and build at a very high level.

So yes, we definitely want to know their way of thinking and how they think strategically, etc.

But time to build, I think is a very important component as well where we can judge their, their level of building, but also the way that they manage their data.

so be great based on different constraints, credit, hygiene, decision quality, etc.

And not necessarily, okay, how, like did they do everything by hand?

Did they use the MCP for example?

In the end that isn't too important.

We want to make sure that we grade based on the decisions that they took.

And then, ideally, and I think so video defense and all, for example, all of that.

so in a way it can look similar to this take home where it is, okay, you have 24, 48 hours to do this, submit that, have these builds, critique these and those plays and that way we can judge their thinking and then they can defend their thinking.

with a video we can have a human panel in there as well.

And then just judging on, on the skill matrix for you know, David, like data foundation, data modeling, etc, and then when it comes to actually putting that to market or bringing it to market is your authority I think is something that we are uniquely positioned for, that clay is uniquely positioned for where we can bring in different current clients and logos and say, okay, we're going to sit with the Anthropic team and figure out how do they hire world class engineers.

Even now Vibe coding is a massive thing.

How do they still figure out which engineer is the one they want to hire and which one isn't?

We can use that and then we can attach them potentially to the exam as well by saying he worked together with the engineering team from Anthropic, with the X team from OpenAI and bring in all these different names and logos, maybe Jaco von Derkoy as well, who's obviously great at teaching systems, etc.

And then kind of borrow that authority that way.

so this is something that I think this, you know, what I'm presenting here is potentially, you know, great as a skeleton.

But we definitely want to start looking a lot at engineering teams at high performance organizations.

Organizations because they are in a very similar spot.

As I already said.

Okay, Vibe coding is there.

How do they still figure out which engineer is worth the hire and which one isn't?

So that is something that we can use as a homework to make things better.

But b, also to borrow authority, we can work together with employers to say okay, you can start, you know, you can be part of council.

And then that way we also for the other end, so people actually pass it, we can guarantee them like a first round interview at this council company etc.

So we work both sides there different ways we can look at that.

So that's my main thinking there.

when it comes to integrity.

So how do we make sure that it doesn't become.

Let me scroll up for one second.

So nothing against HubSpot, I'm a huge HubSpot fan, but how do we make sure that our credentials are at a higher standard or higher level than theirs?

For for example, more like a CISO exam, for example.

So we have to look at, you know, integrity of course.

So, it can be small things like okay, per candidate case generation is already set, so no leaked answers.

and then be really critical when it comes to target pass rate.

so for example, looking at like CFAs where like if the pass rate is too high, that diminishes, the prestige too low, that's too unreasonable.

So those are things that we critically want to look at and that we want to again work together with potential partners to figure that out as well.

and quickly recapping show integrity, making sure that we work together with or we learn from similar organizations in similar spots and then ideally borrow authority from them as well to put together what I in this case hold the end boss or the GTME exam where people are really just as engineers based on definitely, okay, how do they think?

Do they have the right critical thinking?

And that is something that we can objectively judge, but also actual building because in the end this isn't just a leadership thing or it's great that you can think as a GTM engineer but, but you definitely need to be able to come into a company and get hands on, actually start building.

So very large part of it will definitely be building based on maybe the life cases that we have in university or different cases that people actually need to build for.

So that is how I would put the DTME Professional certificate, how I would put that in the market.