Could non-career-focused online credentials make you more employable?

Online courses issuing certificates have gotten substantially more popular over recent years. However, the market value of online credentials remains ambiguous, especially regarding non-career-focused credentials such as wine tasting, personal branding, or relationship building. This study explores how non-career-focused credentials added to Social Networking (SNW) profiles impact recruiters’ perceptions of job candidates. We designed a factorial survey experiment where we randomly generated fictitious SNW profiles with varying components. We recruited people with prior working experience to share their opinion based on applicants’ profiles for Data Scientist, Software Engineer, and Financial Analyst roles. Results indicate that personal-development credentials affect recruiters’ preferences even when they are entirely unrelated to the hard skills needed for the job.