Connecting UMBC Microcredentials to the Skills Employers Value
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) is a leading professional organization that connects higher education and employers to define and support career readiness for today’s workforce.
At UMBC, microcredentials are designed to do more than recognize learning — they make career-ready skills visible.
Every UMBC microcredential must align to at least one NACE Career Readiness Competency, a nationally recognized framework that identifies the core skills employers seek across industries and roles. This alignment ensures that our credentials signal external relevance, not just academic achievement.
Career readiness is the foundation for demonstrating the competencies that broadly prepare college-educated learners for success in the workplace and lifelong career growth. It is, quite simply, the new career currency.
By embedding NACE competencies into microcredentials, UMBC helps learners clearly communicate how their knowledge and experiences translate into workforce-ready skills.
Why This Matters for UMBC Microcredentials
🔗 Signals workforce relevance
Aligning microcredentials to NACE competencies ensures that each credential reflects skills and abilities employers already recognize and value.
🗣 Helps learners tell their story
Students and professionals can use NACE language to describe what they can do — not just what they studied — making their skills easier to communicate on resumes, LinkedIn, interviews, and performance reviews.
🎓 Connects learning to career pathways
Whether learning happens in a course, internship, research experience, or co-curricular activity, NACE competencies help bridge academic experiences with real-world application.
📦 Provides a shared framework
NACE offers higher education and employers a common language for defining, developing, and assessing career readiness across disciplines and industries.
The Eight NACE Career Readiness Competencies
UMBC microcredentials may align with one or more of the following:
- Career & Self-Development – Proactively developing oneself through continual learning, self-awareness, career navigation, and networking
- Communication – Clearly and effectively exchanging information, ideas, facts, and perspectives
- Critical Thinking – Identifying and responding to needs using analysis, reasoning, and situational understanding
- Equity & Inclusion – Engaging people from diverse backgrounds with awareness, respect, and inclusive practices
- Leadership – Recognizing and leveraging individual and team strengths to achieve goals
- Professionalism – Demonstrating effective work habits and acting in the interest of the broader community and workplace
- Teamwork – Building collaborative relationships and working toward shared goals
- Technology – Ethically using and adapting technologies to accomplish tasks and improve outcomes
Learn more about the NACE Career Readiness Competencies ↗
How This Shows Up in a Microcredential
When you earn a UMBC microcredential, you’re not just demonstrating subject knowledge — you’re showing evidence of career-ready competencies that translate beyond the university.
Each microcredential includes:
- Clearly defined learning outcomes
- Assessments aligned to those outcomes
- Explicit mapping to one or more NACE Career Readiness Competencies
This makes your learning visible, portable, and meaningful to employers, graduate programs, and professional networks