Michael Lord

How do you show a potential new employers that you know how to use SOLIDWORKS?    Or display to your existing employer that you are continuing to advance your skills in SOLIDWORKS?

The best way is to have achieved Certification through the SOLIDWORKS Certification Program.   Whether that is to become a Certified SOLIDWORKS Associate (CSWA) or a Certified SOLIDWORKS Professional (CSWP).  You may have climbed to the top of the mountain with your achievements and have become a Certified SOLIDWORKS Expert (CSWE).   Or any of the other Certifications offered in the SOLIDWORKS Certification Catalog.  Your SOLIDWORKS Certification is a quantifiable level of your ability.

But what if you are not quite ready to take a practical exam, or you have your CSWA and are building up your experience.  You still want evidence to show that you are working towards greater goals.

That is where SolidProfessor can comes in.  SolidProfessor now has added Technical Certificates, for the majority of their lessons.  Technical Certificates are achieved by successfully completing the Review Tests at the completion of each subject.

Lets take a more detailed look at how one goes about obtaining a Technical Certificate.  I have my CSWP and have spent enough time around the software to really be putting in the effort to obtaining my CSWE!   With that in mind I selected the Surfacing Lessons.   I have a reasonable understanding of Surfacing without having ever had any training on the subject.

You should watch ever video lesson on the subject for your own benefit.  Although there is nothing stopping you from jumping straight into the Review Test.    I never failure to pick up something new every time I view a SolidProfessor video lesson.  Even if I know or have use the feature.  There is either a functionality of that feature I didn’t know it could do, or a different feature or process to obtain a result.

I like to work from the SolidProfessor Task Pane Add In when accessing the lessons.   A nice feature with that, is the progress bar which highlight how far through the course you are.  Considering for the Surfacing content there are 63 lessons which takes 2hours & 57minutes to view.  There is a good change you might not get through them all in a single sitting.

There are also encouraging motivational words to keep you going and focused!

Almost There  …… You’re so close.

Once you have completed all the lessons you are ready to take the test.

Despite my years of experience with SOLIDWORKS there was a slight feeling of apprehension when I selected “Start Exam”    The exams are multiply choice with a time limit.  The tests for most of the subject are around 25 questions within a 25 minutes time period.  There are a few shorter subjects like PhotoView360 with have reduced exams.  In the case of PhotoView 360 it is only 14 questions in 14 minutes.

It appears I had little to be apprehensive about 🙂

On completion of the exam you receive immediate feedback.  Results are shown with the number of correct & incorrect answers.  Along with the time taken.    My initial reaction was to think that it would be nice to know what questions that I got incorrect!   I soon noticed that an email had been sent to the registered address.  There is an option to have the emails send to additional addresses.  The email shows all of the questions with your answers which are shown as correct or incorrect.  It appears I should have paid more attention in Ruled Surface!

There is not much point in having success if you can’t tell the world about your achievements.

You can access your Technical Certificates by navigating to your Account on the SolidProfessor website.   There you will find the Achievements Tab.

Expanding your certificate allows access to the LinkedIn – Add to Profile button. This takes you to the LinkedIn Log on and opens an Achievement form.   Add the details of the lesson and SolidProfessor as the certified authority along with the URL link.  You now have documented evidence displayed in your LinkedIn accomplishments

SolidProfessor Technical Certificates are not just limited to the SOLIDWORKS course.  They are available across the entire continuing expanding range, of available courses, that SolidProfessor provide.   When they first made access available to all of their courses in July of last year (2016) there were thirteen (13) different courses available.  Now, just nine months later there are twenty (20)

While SolidProfessor Technical Certificates may not provide the same evidence of proficiency as provided by the SOLIDWORKS Certification Program they do provide a quantifiable level of ability and achievement.  Just another reason to use this exceptional learning resource.