How automation credentials can elevate your career—now more than ever

They allow you to learn new (and better) ways to perform your job; they enable you to break into certain industries and departments; they empower you to work cross-functionally, and much, much more. This is all the more true for growing fields like automation—which is why I found the opportunity to build vendor-agnostic automation courses at Workato (as part of Workato’s Automation Institute) so appealing.  

I’ll provide some background on the course we’ve already launched and the next one in the works. But I want to start by providing some context on why automation skills and credentials are more crucial than ever.

Automation is becoming a business-critical initiative across teams

My colleagues recently put together the second iteration of a report called the “Workato Automation Index”—which required analyzing how 900 of our clients used our platform over the course of a year.  

While there were a bunch of interesting findings, one that stood out to me was the sheer growth in automations built by different departments.

This tells me a few things. For one, our low-code UX is clearly giving business teams the chance to build integrations and automations themselves. And secondly, these different teams realize the gains that come with automating their various processes and, as a result, they’re doubling down. 

The combination of these two factors (low barrier to entry and high demand for automation across teams) means that there’s an opportunity for employees to get involved and to make a real difference in their respective team’s automation initiatives. 

So, how can employees (or candidates) get started if they want to get involved in the ever-growing automation activities at an organization? By (you guessed it) taking digital courses on automation and earning credentials.

Why automation credentials are key to getting involved 

Here are just a few reasons that come top of mind:

Provides the skills you need to implement high-performing automations 

Thanks to low-code/no-code tools, you don’t have to be a developer to build automations. 

That said, automation-building still requires a certain amount of expertise. For example, you’ll need to be able to identify and prioritize the processes that are most ripe for automation. And you’ll need to know how to measure the returns from your automations so that you can invest in what’s working and move away from what isn’t.

Taking courses from a reputable program can give you these skills, among many others—allowing you to automate intelligently, quickly, and confidently.

Establishes trust with your current or prospective employer

The data used in automations is often confidential and/or business-critical. As a result, allowing anyone to access them can lead to significant issues, from eroding customer trust to regulatory fines. 

By proving that you know how to build automations—via your credentials—, you can ease these concerns and face less resistance in getting involved. In addition, some courses (including our soon-to-be-released Enterprise Automation Certification) cover actionable insights on implementing governance and security controls for your enterprise automation platform. These credentials can, therefore, not only show your employer (and the market at large) that you understand the role governance plays in automation, but that you yourself can oversee these controls.

Get the automation credentials you need to thrive

Leveraging your credentials, you can take on automation projects that allow you to work with new teams, challenge yourself in new ways, and deliver more value to the business—which can help you earn a promotion. 

Moreover, listing the credentials you earn on your resume (and the automation projects you’ve been able to participate in, through your credentialing program) can help you stand out as a candidate and apply to more lucrative opportunities—especially when those credentials come from credible sources. 

While you can earn credible credentials from a variety of places, we believe that when it comes to showcasing your expertise on automation, our credentials can be hugely valuable—and not just for demonstrating your ability to use our platform.

Our Automation Institute now also offers platform-agnostic courses that teach you the art and science of building impactful automations. They’re taught by true masters of their craft who have several years, if not decades, of experience in designing and building automations and in scaling automation programs. And once you pass one of these courses, you’ll not only receive an easily-shareable credential but also get added to our Credential Directory, where hiring managers can discover you.

Here’s a closer look at a course we’ve launched and another we plan to release soon:

Marketing Process Automation Certification

The course includes about two hours of on-demand video content from experts like Scott Brinker, the VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot and Editor at chiefmartec.com, Zann Yap, our Director of Demand Generation, and Josh Lucas, our RevOps Solution Manager. 

Through the course, you’ll learn how to automate marketing events, lead management, campaign operations, and a whole lot more!

Enterprise Automation Certification 

Dan Kennedy, our VP of Enterprise Architecture, Massimo Pezzini, a former Gartner Analyst and our Head of Research, Future of the Enterprise, and Priya Dodwad, an Engineering Manager at Rapid7, will walk you through everything you need to know about enterprise automation. This includes defining it, outlining its benefits, and breaking down how you can build an enterprise automation team and an enterprise automation platform.

While we’re thrilled with these courses and are confident that they’ll help you meet your career goals, we know that there’s always more to learn when it comes to automation. To keep up with the courses we launch throughout the year (and beyond), you can bookmark our Automation Institute’s homepage or follow us on Linkedin.