Each year, thousands of students step onto the SkillsUSA Championships floor, tools in hand and nerves in check, to put their talents to the test. The National Leadership & Skills Conference (NLSC) has become the ultimate proving ground for career-readiness. It’s where classroom learning meets real-world pressure, and industry leaders and potential employers watch closely. But competitions are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the impact of SkillsUSA.
As the nation’s leading workforce development organization for students, SkillsUSA represents over 444,000 career and technical education (CTE) students and educators. The organization empowers the future workforce through its educational framework, which emphasizes personal, workplace, and technical skills grounded in academics. Students gain hands-on experience aligned with current industry standards across more than 100 occupational areas.
With such a far-reaching program, SkillsUSA needed a unified way to showcase the advanced skill level and career-readiness of its students. Through their partnership with NOCTI, they benefited from a trusted national leader in technical skill assessment, leveraging NOCTI’s secure testing platform and validated processes to ensure consistency and integrity in results.
Secure Skills Testing Throughout Program Growth
At this year’s NLSC, SkillsUSA expanded the opportunities for students to earn valuable non-degree credentials through leading industry-recognized partners like NOCTI, FANUC, NC3 and more. These credentials don’t just recognize achievement, they elevate student’s career prospects, boost their employability, and open doors to future success.
The NLSC competitions often require both a skills demonstration and a written assessment. Using consistent, nationally provided exams ensure all students across the country are preparing with the same standards and materials. This consistency reduces confusion and better prepares competitors for success at the national level.
While NOCTI is one of several credentialing partners for the NLSC written assessments, the NOCTI team stepped up when they learned SkillsUSA needed a dedicated testing platform. An unexpected but highly effective solution emerged when NOCTI offered the use of its testing platform to deliver state association tests. This provided a secure and efficient way to manage assessments, ensuring the project was both feasible and accessible. The approach not only addressed immediate logistical challenges but also strengthened collaboration and consistency for state support.
“They were willing to step up, and not only step up, but go way beyond,” Tracy Whitehead, Senior Program Manager for SkillsUSA, says about the NOCTI team. “They’re thoughtful about it, they have amazing processes, and they’re very reliable. I needed it to be a reliable, dependable product at the end, and that’s what we got. We were more than happy with the result.”
NOCTI’s Trusted Platform Provides Secure, Reliable Testing
For students, being career-ready means learning the latest skills and most up-to-date technical knowledge in their chosen field. Arriving at a competition or state-level testing event unprepared can carry far more serious consequences than simply not placing. These competitions serve as an endurance test for job applicants—the students are under pressure to display the depth of the skills and abilities in front of competition judges as well as potential employers who can offer them a lucrative career.
“No matter which stage they’re at, what they’re doing has a return on investment for that student. It’s way bigger than a gold medal.” Whitehead explains. “We want to see that all students—no matter where they’re at and where they land at the end—they’re walking away with something, right? So, one of them walks away with a gold medal, but what do the other 50 that earned their way to NLSC walk away with? We want to see them walking away with a life-changing experience that sets them on the path toward their dream career.”
A dedicated testing platform ensures that students are working with the most current version of the test while providing a smooth user experience—and the added assurance of accurate scoring and secure data.
Whitehead explained how important it is that the students have confidence in knowing their test scores are fair, reliable, and accurate. She added, “Two things I would highlight in this partnership with NOCTI: the user experience and the data fidelity. We now can deliver a solid solution with a curated test, that we can maintain and keep updated from a central hub.”
The NOCTI testing site is user-friendly, secure, and provides immediate results. Its inclusive design supports accommodations like text-to-speech and extended time for students with IEPs. The results are intuitive and deliver actionable data to strengthen curriculum and classroom instruction.
SkillsUSA Provides a Conduit to Fill Skilled Labor Shortages with Career-Ready Graduates
NOCTI credentials are widely recognized and valued by employers, and through continued partnership with SkillsUSA we seek to expand non-degree credentials offered for student members.
Technical education programs prepare students to meet labor shortages across a wide range of high-demand, skilled careers including automotive, cosmetology, mobile robotics, culinary and baking, cybersecurity, criminal justice, healthcare, carpentry and more. The name recognition that comes with earning industry credentials gives students an added advantage, as employers see them as ready-to-perform employees from day one.
As CTE programs continue to expand throughout the country, Whitehead hopes to see them embraced as a respected and attainable career path, on par with the way college has long been promoted. In the past, school counselors were often evaluated based on how many of their students pursued higher education. Today, however, strong CTE programs provide an equally valuable pathway to lucrative careers. In fact, CTE offers an edge, with shorter training timelines to develop industry-relevant skills and without the burden of student loan debt faced by many college graduates.
“I just wish every student can become a smart consumer of higher education. Students deserve to have all career paths elevated, give them the real scope, show them what they’re going to make, show them what it’s going to cost them to gain skills.” says Whitehead. “I want them to get a NOCTI credential that’s going to give them that job, and they’re going to become a welder, and they’re going to change the world, and they’re going to make insane money doing it, and they do not have to go into debt to do so.”
This is especially critical in rural areas, where access to postsecondary education may be limited, and local employment opportunities more closely align with CTE skill sets. Thousands of employers view these credentials as trusted indicators of workplace readiness and rely on them to guide hiring decisions. Students who participate in SkillsUSA programs and competitions position themselves for long-term success while simultaneously helping industries meet their urgent need for skilled talent.
Partner with NOCTI for Industry-Relevant Credentials
NOCTI offers a wide range of skills credentials designed to elevate any CTE program. With NOCTI’s rigorous development process, driven by extensive input from industry subject matter experts, educators can be confident that the content is relevant, current, and highly valued by employers and industry leaders.
NOCTI credentials give students a powerful way to demonstrate their workforce readiness while also signaling to potential employers their dedication and strong work ethic.
Have Your Own Assessment? Need Secure and Reliable Delivery? NOCTI Can Help.
With proven expertise in test administration, scoring, and reporting, NOCTI ensures your assessments are delivered with integrity, accuracy, and results you can trust. NOCTI will ensure the process runs seamlessly, allowing you to concentrate on your priorities.
If you’d like to learn more about how NOCTI credentials can strengthen your CTE program, or how we can assist with delivery options, please contact NOCTI here. Together, we can help build the pipeline of career-ready students to address today’s skilled labor shortages.