Professional certification in the context of "HEC Paris"

Professional development, also known as professional education, is learning that leads to or emphasizes education in a specific professional career field or builds practical job applicable skills emphasizing praxis in addition to the transferable skills and theoretical academic knowledge found in traditional liberal arts and pure sciences education. It is used to earn or maintain professional credentials such as professional certifications or academic degrees through formal coursework at institutions known as professional schools, or attending conferences and informal learning opportunities to strengthen or gain new skills.

Professional education has been described as intensive and collaborative, ideally incorporating an evaluative stage. There is a variety of approaches to professional development or professional education, including consultation, coaching, communities of practice, lesson study, case study, capstone project, mentoring, reflective supervision and technical assistance.

Professionalization or professionalisation is a social process by which any trade or occupation transforms itself into a true "profession of the highest integrity and competence." The definition of what constitutes a profession is often contested. Professionalization tends to result in establishing acceptable qualifications, one or more professional associations to recommend best practice and to oversee the conduct of members of the profession, and some degree of demarcation of the qualified from unqualified amateurs (that is, professional certification). It is also likely to create "occupational closure", closing the profession and activities it encompasses to entry from outsiders, amateurs and the unqualified.

Occupations not fully professionalized are sometimes called semiprofessions. Critique of professionalization views overzealous versions driven by perverse incentives (essentially, a modern analogue of the negative aspects of guilds) as a form of credentialism.

In English, a curriculum vitae (English: / ... ˈviːtaɪ, -ˈwiːtaɪ, -ˈvaɪtiː/, Latin for 'course of life', often shortened to CV) is a short written summary of a person's career, qualifications, and education. This is the most common usage in British English. In North America, the term résumé (also spelled resume) is used, referring to a short career summary.

The term curriculum vitae and its abbreviation, CV, are also used especially in academia to refer to extensive or even complete summaries of a person's career, qualifications, and education, including publications and other information. This has caused the widespread misconception that it is incorrect to refer to short CVs as CVs in American English and that short CVs should be called résumés, but this is not supported by the usage recorded in American dictionaries. For example, the University of California, Davis notes that "[i]n the United States and Canada, CV and resume are sometimes used interchangeably" while describing the common distinction made in North-American academia between the use of these terms to refer to documents with different contents and lengths.

In sociology, an occupational closure (or professional demarcation) is the process whereby a trade or occupation (vocation) transforms itself, or tries to transform itself, into a true profession by closing off entry to the profession to all but those people who are suitably qualified, as defined by the practitioners already practicing the occupation in any given jurisdiction. This can be achieved by licensure (occupational licensing) and professional certification, barring entry to all except those who have passed certain entrance examinations and grades of training, or by allowing entry only to those who have gained membership of a specific professional body (a professional association, such as a particular medical society). It can also be achieved by trade unionism, and most especially craft unionism as contrasted with industrial unionism, in countries where sufficient union membership (as a percentage of workers in an occupation) can be achieved despite the prevailing gradient of union busting.

What this means in practical terms, is that an architect or physician, for example, will firstly be a university graduate in their main subject, second, will have passed entrance examinations to join a recognised professional body and thirdly, will also be licensed to practise medicine or architecture, usually also obtained through sitting examinations. Therefore, such professions are open only to those who satisfy these requirements and are closed to everyone else. It is thus illegal for any other person to practice medicine or to pose as an architect.

A credential is a piece of any document that details a qualification, competence, or authority issued to an individual by a third party with a relevant or de facto authority or assumed competence to do so.

Examples of credentials include academic diplomas, academic degrees, certifications, security clearances, identification documents, badges, passwords, user names, keys, powers of attorney, and so on. Sometimes publications, such as scientific papers or books, may be viewed as similar to credentials by some people, especially if the publication was peer reviewed or made in a well-known journal or reputable publisher.

A butcher is a skilled tradesperson who specialises in meatcutting, breaking down animal carcasses into primal cuts, preparation and retailing of meat, and sometimes slaughtering animals, or participates within any combination of these tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments. A butcher may be employed by supermarkets, grocery stores, butcher shops and fish markets, slaughter houses, or may be self-employed.

Butchery is an ancient trade, whose duties may date back to the domestication of livestock; its practitioners formed guilds in England as far back as 1272. Since the 20th century, many countries and local jurisdictions offer trade certifications for butchers in order to ensure quality, safety, and health standards but not all butchers have formal certification or training. Trade qualification in English-speaking countries is often earned through an apprenticeship although some training organisations also certify their students. In Canada, once a butcher is trade qualified, they can learn to become a master butcher (Fleishmaster).

Professional titles are used to signify a person's professional role or to designate membership in a professional society. Professional titles in the anglophone world are usually used as a suffix following the person's name, such as John Smith, Esq., and are thus termed post-nominal letters. However, many European countries use prenominal letters such as Eur Ing. In the UK, many professional titles are 'chartered' such as Chartered Engineer or Chartered Physicist.

Under the European professional qualification directives, holders of professional titles in one member state are entitled to recognition of their title in all other member states.Once a person achieves professional certification in a given area of study, they have undergone examination by some form of governing body or professional association that is willing to assure the candidates competence in the given field of knowledge. In most cases, a certificate is issued for a set duration of time, at which the candidate must recertify with the same governing body.