How Fostering a More Diverse Candidate Base Benefits Professions and Their Programs

I.C.E. Exchange Program Description: As assessment sponsors, our primary focus is ensuring the validity and defensibility of the knowledge we test across all candidates. It stands to reason that understanding, recognizing, and promoting DEI efforts are essential for any credentialing organization. Such efforts ensure fair representation for all those seeking a credential. By embracing a diverse candidate pool, programs can gain different perspectives and ideas, which can lead to innovation. This diversity also creates an environment where everyone is represented fairly and feels welcome, respected, and valued—all of which add value to a profession.

Growing and fostering a diverse candidate population continues to drive professions forward. This is important for several reasons: It ensures each profession is a reflection of the population it serves, increases innovation and creative problem-solving from diverse perspectives, broadens the talent pool, and enhances the perception of the profession.

A diverse candidate pool can translate to a more varied membership base. This can positively impact the program by enriching the SME pool, increasing fairness and equity, reflecting real-world practices more accurately, fostering innovation, and better adapting to the changing candidate population.



In this panel, attendees will hear from several credentialing programs about the importance of having DEI built into their program and what approaches they took or are currently taking to diversify their candidate population.