Show Off Your Skills with Technical Certificates

There are many reasons for wanting to get certified, but one of the most common reasons is to show a potential employer that you hold a certain level of knowledge of SOLIDWORKS. The most popular certification exams are SOLIDWORKS CSWA, CSWP, and CSWE, which showcase increasing levels of proficiency with the software as well as design principles and best practices. New certification programs, like SolidProfessor’s Technical Certificates, demonstrate specific skills and competencies in dozens of in-demand SOLIDWORKS categories, such as sheet metal, advanced part design, surfacing, and more.

Certification in the Workplace

Companies that offer proactive training programs sometimes consider certification part of internal training or professional development initiatives. Some even tie certification to bonuses, pay raises, or even promotions. Kavlico, a brand of Custom Sensors & Technologies, is one such company that successfully raised the bar across its entire team through certification. According to Mike Spicer, CAD Administrator at Kavlico, the company “implemented a certification program where managers have begun to require that the drafting and design staff have SOLIDWORKS certifications, proving their proficiencies.”

To prepare their team for those exams, Spicer provided them with an online certification prep course and achieved remarkable success. “SolidProfessor played an important role in preparing our guys for those certification exams.”

Employees understand that in order to progress in their careers, they need to set themselves apart by demonstrating consistent growth. For employers, encouraging (or requiring) their team to get certified means they can feel confident that their team members are using best practices. By standardizing design skills across your team, employers can increase productivity and stay on the cutting edge of new features and capabilities.

Certification in Schools

For students, obtaining the CSWA certification is a great way to find a job right out of school. At Atlantic Technical College, for example, teacher Kevin Finan encourages his students to get industry certified. “The CSWA is not an easy certification. You have to know what you’re doing. The fact that they passed proves to other students that SolidProfessor is preparing them for the certification exam.” Some students even go after their CSWP while in school to boost their resume. “The students that passed the CSWA are already talking about passing at the professional level (CSWP), and that’s why we introduced SolidProfessor into the class. The next step is getting them to continue to work independently and reach the professional level.”

In both high school career and technical education (CTE) programs and also college engineering courses, instructors work to get their students ready for careers. It is essential to provide students with the resources to help them get hired out of school by arming them with practical knowledge and also the proof of their competency through certifications.
Each CSWA, CSWP, and CSWE exam is different, making it impossible to know which models you’ll receive and what types of modifications you’ll be asked to make. The most important thing is to become familiar with the style of questions asked, their levels of complexity, and how to save time along the way.

A Path to Certification

For SOLIDWORKS users who want to demonstrate specific skills within the software, SolidProfessor recently launched its Technical Certificates program. Technical Certificates, free for SolidProfessor members, are earned by taking a SolidProfessor course and earning an 80 percent or higher on the review test for that course. Each SolidProfessor Technical Certificate earned can be easily shared on LinkedIn profiles and printed for display. Now, SolidProfessor Technical Certifications can help you achieve your CSWA or CSWP by providing a path to these milestones. The CSWA and CSWP exams are robust, covering a lot of skills and requiring both accuracy and speed. SolidProfessor and SOLIDWORKS have partnered to offer a pathway to industry certification through achieving “stepping stones” to specific Technical Certificates.

SolidProfessor’s CSWA Pathway

View the below courses and earn an 80 percent or higher on the SolidProfessor assessment to earn and share these Technical Certificates. Use this pathway to prepare yourself for the CSWA and earn a free CSWA exam code:
· Introduction to SOLIDWORKS
· SOLIDWORKS Drawings
· CSWA Prep Course

SolidProfessor’s CSWP Pathway

View the below courses and earn an 80 percent or higher on the SolidProfessor assessment to earn and share these Technical Certificates. Use this pathway to prepare yourself for the CSWP and earn a free CSWP exam code:
· SOLIDWORKS Essentials for Parts and Assemblies
· SOLIDWORKS Advanced Parts
· SOLIDWORKS Advanced Assemblies
· CSWP Prep Course

In addition to the certification pathways, SolidProfessor’s Technical Certificates can demonstrate specific skills like SimulationXpress, Visualize, Model-Based Definition, Routing, Plastics, Composer, and more.

Earning certification can help engineers get a job or move up in their current job by demonstrating key industry skills and competencies. SOLIDWORKS is developing more capabilities than ever. Gaining new skills and showcasing your achievements through certification will help engineers and designers stand out to employers, get a promotion, or earn a raise.

Certification demonstrates both your dedication to improving your skills and also your technical knowledge. Obtaining a certification proves that you not only have comprehensive SOLIDWORKS knowledge, but that you also have invested in your career and yourself.