QA Commons’ Essential Employability Qualities Certification

Program Description: 

The QA Commons’ Essential Employability Qualities Certification (EEQ CERT) helps academic programs become more intentional about helping students develop and articulate the Essential Employability Qualities they build through their educational experience, while honoring each program’s disciplinary identity. Through a collaborative certification process, programs recognize, strengthen, and make more visible the ways students develop the qualities employers value most across the curriculum, co-curriculum, and student experience. The certification is grounded in QA Commons’ Employability Framework and its five Standards of Care: Development of Essential Employability Qualities, Integrated Career Support Services, Employer Engagement, Student & Alumni Engagement, and Transparency of Outcomes.

Impact: 

QA Commons was founded in 2016 with an initial grant from the Lumina Foundation and became an independent nonprofit entity in 2019. Since then, QA Commons has partnered with more than 136 academic and workforce programs at 62 institutions in 28 states, impacting more than 100,000 students through its quality assurance, evaluation, and employability initiatives. To date, 61 programs have earned EEQ Certification. 

EEQ CERT helps faculty embed reflection, feedback, and authentic practice throughout the student experience, while helping students recognize, articulate, and demonstrate the Essential Employability Qualities they develop—and understand why these qualities matter after graduation. Faculty and students may also earn Credly digital badges that can be shared with prospective employers, included in job applications, and displayed across professional networks.

Population Served: 

EEQ Certified Programs include two- and four-year colleges and universities, private for-profit institutions, and career and technical education programs, such as Grambling State University, University of North Texas, University of Kansas, Blue Ridge Community & Technical College, Aspen University, and the State of Missouri.  

All examples of the certified programs can be found here along with an executive summary for each. 

Learn more here.

Page last updated in August 2026