Navigating a career is like undertaking the hero’s journey in a video game. What might have started out as a seemingly straightforward mission often winds up sending players down a variety of unexpected paths with plenty of challenges, side quests, surprises, and triumphs along the way.
Consider an eager computer engineering graduate dropping their quarters into the game of professional life back in 2010. With the rise of cloud computing, AI, and more, their career likely played out very differently than they imagined when they first hit start.
So how have they managed to level up their skills and stay competitive amid nonstop cultural and technological change? Adaptability has surely been key to this player’s longevity. As the professional world evolved, they adapted too—asking questions like:
This is the opportunity for learning organizations: level up your learning strategy and offerings to support the entire learning journey, from exam preparation to continuing education (CE) and beyond. In doing so, you’ll not only better serve your learners but also build a stronger, more sustainable future for your organization through:
More long-term engagement:
An ecosystem that focuses on lifelong learning can both attract new learners and retain existing ones. As their careers advance and develop, professionals will continue to be drawn to additional learning opportunities with an organization they already know and trust.
Additional recurring revenue streams:
As learners seek out additional learning opportunities over the course of their careers, they’ll provide a steady source of ongoing revenue.
Greater learner success:
By better understanding the needs of more active and engaged learners, learning organizations can provide content that more specifically addresses those needs, resulting in greater learner success and satisfaction.
In the coming journey, we’ll explore:
The Big Picture:
Learn why the backbone of any market-leading educational offering is a continual focus on lifelong learning.
The Foundation:
Professional credentials are key opportunities for learners to grow in their careers, which is why exam prep is a foundational element of lifelong learning.
The Ongoing Quest:
Find out how to help learners level up their skills throughout their career journeys with timely, relevant, and compelling continuing education (CE) content.
The Bonus Missions:
See how microcredentials can provide learners with a manageable and affordable way to quickly upskill in today’s shifting professional landscape.
The Tech Imperative:
A great learning ecosystem deserves a convenient, intuitive platform, which is why your learning management system (LMS) stands as a critical piece of the puzzle.
Focusing on lifelong learning makes so much sense for associations and credentialing bodies. By providing educational milestones throughout a career journey, such a system gives professionals the opportunity to pursue the path that best fits their needs and goals.
Lifelong learning is an ongoing, self-motivated pursuit of knowledge and skill development that can provide learners with:
For associations and credentialing bodies, lifelong learning presents an opportunity to support this journey and play a crucial role in learners’ career-long success through a combination of:
Professional credentials such as certifications or licenses—and the rigorous exams required to attain them—are among the most significant milestones along a learner’s career journey. These are the big battles that unlock new levels of achievement, which is why learners need to be fully prepared.
Associations and credentialing bodies looking to effectively support lifelong learning can help by committing to the full spectrum of exam preparation, which includes a combination of:
Today’s learners are looking for dynamic practice that prepares them for the actual exam experience, as well as post-exam tools that help them see where they’re solid and where they need to improve.
Learning organizations can help by delivering realistic exam-day-style practice, complete with not only traditional features like timers, but with a familiar user interface that provides a true exam-day look and feel. This kind of practice exam goes well beyond the basics to help both test-takers and learning organizations by:
Improving pass rates and learner satisfaction.
Increasing program enrollment and retention.
Setting your organization’s program apart in a competitive market.
Building trust in your credential.
Champion Spotlight:
Learn how the American Bankers Association developed a comprehensive five-step framework to enhance candidates' preparation for exam day.
Player Handbook
5 Best Practices
for Revenue-Driving Exam Prep
Organizations that use advanced exam prep tools see up to 19% higher pass rates, which helps drive program credibility, learner satisfaction, and long-term ROI. Here are five ways to build the kind of winning exam prep experience that guides learners from nervous beginners to confident success stories:
pro tip
BenchPrep’s ExamSim is a great example of the kind of innovative simulator that today’s learners are looking for. ExamSim delivers sophisticated, real-life exam preparation via:
In other words, it’s a holistic preparation experience—one that empowers learners to approach their exams with confidence and competence.
Continuing education (CE) is a core part of lifelong learning—and a massive growth market, projected to reach $93 billion by 2028. But with that growth comes new challenges for associations and credentialing bodies, including:
Organizations that can overcome these challenges have the opportunity to become the go-to source for. It starts with building and delivering a compelling CE offering, one that fosters learner development and reinforces the value of the organization by highlighting its value for both upskilling and re-skilling.
The key is to level up by moving beyond the notion of CE as a routine checkbox exercise. When viewed through the lens of lifelong learning, CE can stand as a strategic opportunity to engage and empower your learners, rather than simply a compliance task to complete.
Player Handbook
10 Tactics for Smarter CE
An engaging and high-impact CE program doesn’t happen by accident. It takes hard work and thoughtful consideration to deliver career-changing value, build learner loyalty, and power growth. Here are ten ways to take CE to the next level:
pro tip
A great CE program is built on data, meaning decisions are based on engagement analytics and learner feedback, not guesswork. To get there, learning organizations need a tech stack that brings all learning activities together in one system, making it easier to track learner progress, identify trends, and optimize their offerings.
Seventy percent of U.S. firms report talent or skills shortages, and are increasingly expecting their employees to upskill more quickly and efficiently to close those gaps. Enter microcredentials, which give learners the opportunity to quickly and cost-efficiently upskill in order to demonstrate additional competencies and therefore present themselves as more marketable, a particularly attractive option in a tightening employment environment.
Microcredentials offer lifelong learning opportunities for:
Why are microcredentials such an attractive option for these groups? Because they stand as a more digestible and affordable pathway to further career opportunities.
Player Handbook
8 Power-Ups for Your Microcredential Strategy
Wondering if your microcredential offering will meet the needs of today’s professionals? Here are eight things to keep in mind to build a program that delivers:
pro tip
Data-driven insights, such as engagement metrics and at-risk warnings, can help you better understand your learners as they take their microcredential journey.
A learning program today is measured as much by its delivery as its content. You can have the most compelling exam prep, CE, and microcredential materials available. But if your learning management system (LMS) doesn’t match the digital ease and convenience that learners have grown accustomed to in other areas of their lives, they probably won’t stick around (or come back). And just like that, your lifelong learning goals will be very short-lived.
Modern learners want a connected, intuitive experience that’s multimodal, personalized, and engaging—delivered across multiple channels. Key features include:
Personalized, adaptive learning pathways that meet individual goals and pace
AI-powered support and recommendations to keep learners progressing
Interactive content formats like video, simulations, and hands-on practice
Opportunities for social learning through peer discussion and collaboration
Gamification elements such as progress tracking, achievements, and badges
Delivering this kind of functionality may sound daunting, and it certainly can be for organizations that aren’t prepared.
That’s why an all-in-one LMS—one that supports a variety of use cases like exam prep, continuing education, and microcredentialing—is a smart choice for associations and credentialing bodies. It streamlines both the learner and admin experience, connects data across the learning journey, and makes it easier to deliver personalized, seamless support from first credential to ongoing growth.
Player Handbook
7 Essential Features to Level Up
Your LMS
A modern LMS should do more than deliver content. It should enable smarter learning, simplify administration, and support the full lifelong learning journey. Here are seven essential features your LMS should offer:
Level Up with the Lifelong Learning Strategy Framework
The Lifelong Learning Strategy Framework (LLSF) is a tool that associations and credentialing bodies can use to determine where they should invest to grow their programs. The LLSF offers a structured, actionable approach to designing, delivering, and optimizing learning programs in order to better:
Looking to get started with the LLSF?
Here’s a worksheet that will walk you through the five steps to help decide where to invest resources:
Champion Spotlight:
What does the lifelong learning strategy framework look like in practice? The Project Management Institute provides a great example of a learning organization that developed and launched their successful digital exam prep program through the lens of BenchPrep’s Lifelong Learning Strategy Framework.
That young computer engineering grad didn’t know exactly what skills they’d need as their career progressed—but they knew they’d need to keep leveling up.
And they’re not alone. Today’s professionals are navigating constant change. To stay relevant, they’re seeking learning experiences that are flexible, accessible, and built to grow with them over time.
Associations and credentialing bodies are uniquely positioned to deliver that kind of support, but only if their own strategy reflects a commitment to lifelong learning. By offering connected, learner-centered programs across exam prep, continuing education, and microcredentials, learning organizations can help professionals stay sharp, adapt with confidence, and reach their next level—again and again.
The opportunity is clear. The question is: Will your organization be the one to guide them forward?
BenchPrep is an award-winning learning management system (LMS) with a mission to transform traditional learning. Specializing in certification training, exam preparation, microcredentialing, and continuing education, we offer an interactive and personalized learning experience. We enable associations and credentialing bodies to grow their education programs and better support their learners throughout the lifelong learning journey.
BenchPrep is more than just a technology provider; we collaborate closely with organizations, helping to design and implement interactive online courses, and providing comprehensive project support alongside a versatile self-service admin portal for streamlined course management.
Many of the world’s leading learning organizations trust BenchPrep to power their learning programs, and more than 12 million learners have used BenchPrep to attain academic and professional success.
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