Many West Virginia employers are familiar with the ACT WorkKeys®, the National Career Readiness Certificate® (NCRC), and WorkReady Communities®. You might wonder how Excel Together West Virginia and CSM are different.
This page outlines the differences between WorkKeys and CSM, highlighting how WorkKeys is primarily sorting people for hiring (and mainly for frontline positions), while CSM is developing skills and transforming the workforce.
WorkKeys / CSM Comparison
WorkKeys focuses on just math and literacy
WorkKeys and the National Career Readiness Certificate comprise 3 academic assessments:
- math
- workplace documents
- graphic literacy
CSM includes a broad range of High Performance skills
CSM's High Performance skills include:
- Quantitative literacy at the baccalaureate level
- Applied literacy
- Problem-solving mindsets and strategies
- Learning agility (with emphasis on independent learning)
- An intention to excel supported by attention-to-detail, persistence, and self-reliance
- Self-efficacy -- the belief in your ability to succeed at what you put your mind to. There is a significant consensus in organizational development that self-efficacy is the most important factor in work performance.
WorkKeys is assessment-oriented
Very few people who take the WorkKeys assessment take ANY coursework -- for almost all people, it simply assesses their current skills. Its purpose is mainly sorting people according to their skills, rather than improving their skills.
There are WorkKeys instructional modules -- however, these are based on dated linear “kill-and-drill” instructional methods that focus on test prep, rather than deep development of skills.
CSM is instruction-oriented
Everyone who takes CSM must go through its next-generation personalized learning system that works simultaneously in not only academic skills, but also how you learn, act and feel (that is, across the High Performance skills). In a national evaluation, CSM had the largest math and literacy gains.
CSM’s advanced learning system means that the CSM Certificate is attainable by students in low-performing schools, high school dropouts, low-literacy adults, while also being useful for people with post-graduate degrees.
West Virginia doesn't need people simply to be sorted through assessment -- its future depends on building workforce skills.
WorkKeys is multiple-choice with a low passing score
WorkKeys is a multiple choice assessment with only 4 choices (3 distractors and one correct answer), leading to 4 levels of proficiency: BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD and PLATINUM.
A BRONZE WorkKeys certificate signifies "career readiness", yet when all high school juniors in Illinois took WorkKeys, 85% earned BRONZE or better -- this is NOT a signifier of special skills.
CSM is fill-in-the-blanks with a passing score of 100%
Problems in CSM are primarily fill-in-the-blank, where the only passing score is 100% for each skill.
There is only one level of CSM certification, which translates in math and literacy roughly to WorkKeys GOLD -- this corresponds to the skill level of the top 20% of the workforce.
WorkKeys doesn't earn college credit
WorkKeys does not gain college credit in West Virginia.
The CSM Certificate earns key college math credit
CSM gains college math credit at all WV community and technical colleges as well as at WVU, and satisfies the general education math requirements for an associate or bachelor's degree.
WorkKeys is "manager-unfriendly"
Because of the multiple levels of scoring (BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD, and PLATINUM), few managers will allow themselves to be WorkKeys tested for fear that their scores will be below those of the people that work for them. Thus, WorkKeys functions mainly for hiring from outside of companies.
CSM is "manager-friendly"
There is only one level of CSM Certificate, and almost all people in the workforce can earn the certificate given its advanced training technology. This opens CSM to use inside of companies for employee upskilling, and managers are then willing to join in -- that is, it's not just for frontline workers.
CSM is transforming West Virginia
The future of West Virginia depends on its ability to improve the skills of its youth and adults. Period.
WorkKeys and the associated Work-Ready Communities provide employers with the ability to sort people in the community into skills "buckets": BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD and PLATINUM. This is useful for employers in their hiring process, but does nothing to improve a community's workforce.
Moreover, WorkKeys does little to improve the skills of an employer's current workforce. And WorkKeys and Work-Ready Communities do not affect the economic development prospects of communities -- retaining employers and attracting new ones is determined by the overall skills of the workforce, not by assessing skills.
CSM is designed to lift a person's -- any person's -- skills and develop general High Performance skills so that they are resilient to challenges and able to grasp for ambitious opportunities. You cannot get a CSM Certificate without going through hours of training with world-class personalized learning technology. Furthermore, CSM is not just about math and literacy skills, but develops key personal characteristics -- learning agility, persistence, problem solving mindsets, attention to detail, and more -- that are more important to employers.
CSM can be used across schools, colleges, adult education and workforce development. And CSM is offered through Excel Together West Virginia, an initiative that is bringing in CSM in scale across the state so that it transforms entire communities.
