Published: Nov 23, 2025 | Last Verified Against State Boards: Nov 23, 2025
After more than 15 years in this field, I’ve learned that a professional engineer’s most important career skill isn’t just design or analysis. It’s judgment. And a huge part of that judgment is knowing exactly who you’re working with. When I put my PE stamp on a set of drawings, I’m not just vouching for my own work; I’m vouching for the work of every single person on my team. My license, my liability, and my reputation are on the line.
That’s why I’ve gotten ruthless about how to evaluate professional credentials. It’s not a “nice-to-have” HR task; it’s a core risk-management function for any practicing professional.
In our line of work, a credential isn’t just a piece of paper. It’s a promise. It’s a promise of a baseline of competence, a standard of education, and an adherence to an ethical code. But here’s the hard truth: not all credentials are created equal. Far from it.
I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen resumes with “degrees” from diploma mills. I’ve had people claim “PE” status when they’re really just an EIT planning to take the exam. I’ve had to evaluate foreign education documents that are completely mystifying. This article is my practical, no-nonsense guide—from one professional to another—on how to cut through the noise and find out what’s real.
Why Evaluating Credentials is a Core Professional Responsibility
This isn’t just a manager’s problem. This is a task for any PE who is in responsible charge. The public’s trust in our entire profession is built on the simple fact that our credentials mean something. Our PE license is a legal, regulated credential. It’s backed by state boards, rigorous exams, and a formal code of ethics.
We have a duty to apply that same level of rigor to the credentials of the people we hire, partner with, and manage. Failing to do a proper evaluation isn’t just sloppy; it’s negligent.
Think about the risk:
- Team Competence: You hire someone with a shaky academic background. Their flawed calculations make it into the final design. You are the one stamping it.
- Legal Liability: You partner with a sub-consultant. You assume their lead engineer is licensed in your state. A problem occurs, and you find out their credential Your client’s lawyer is going to have a field day.
- Integrity: The person who lies about a small credential will lie about a big one. It’s a character issue. If I can’t trust your resume, I’m not waiting to find out what else I can’t trust.
A proper credential evaluation is your first line of defense. It’s the “trust but verify” policy that protects you, your firm, and, ultimately, the public.
The Two Tiers: Differentiating Licenses, Certifications, and Education
The first mistake I see people make is lumping all credentials together. When you get a resume, you need to mentally sort every credential into one of two buckets: “The Regulated” and “The Acquired.”
Tier 1: The Regulated (Licenses)
This is the top tier. These are the credentials that matter most because they are legally controlled by a government body (like a state board) for the express purpose of protecting the public.
- Examples: PE License, MD (Medical Doctor), JD (Attorney), RN (Registered Nurse).
- What it means: To get this credential, a person had to meet a specific, high-level standard of education, pass a high-stakes exam (or two), and demonstrate documented experience.
- How to Evaluate: You never take their word for it. You always go to the primary source. For a PE, I check the state board’s online lookup. It takes 30 seconds. If I see a credential like “PE, California,” and they’re not on the BPELSG Connect lookup, it’s a “no.”
Tier 2: The Acquired (Certifications & Education)
This bucket is everything else. This includes their university degree, industry certifications, and training certificates.
- Examples: PMP (Project Management Professional), LEED AP, a software certification, and, most importantly, their B.S. or M.S. degree.
- What it means: These credentials show initiative, specialization, and a baseline of knowledge. They are valuable, but they are not licenses. They are (usually) issued by private organizations, not a government board.
- How to Evaluate: This is where the real assessment and evaluation work comes in. Is a PMP from PMI (a highly respected credential) the same as a “Certified Project Manager” from a random website? No. Is a B.S. in Engineering from an ABET-accredited university the same as a “B.S. in Engineering Technology” from an unaccredited online college? Absolutely not.
Your job is to know the difference. The first tier is about verification. The second tier is about assessment and judging relevance.
A 3-Step Framework for Accurate Credential Evaluation
I don’t care what the credential is—from a Ph.D. to a simple training certificate—it goes through my 3-step evaluation process.
Step 1: Verification (Is it real?) As I said, “trust but verify.”
- Licenses: Check the state board registry. Period.
- Certifications: Check the issuing body’s registry. PMI, GBCI (for LEED), and most other reputable organizations have a public directory. If they don’t, that’s a red flag.
- Education: This is the big one. How do you verify a degree? For U.S. institutions, you can use a service like the National Student Clearinghouse. It’s what most firms use for background checks. For foreign education, this is a much bigger problem, which I’ll cover in its own section.
Step 2: Assessment (Is it relevant?) A credential can be 100% real and 100% irrelevant. I once saw a resume for a transportation engineer that proudly listed a certification in “Advanced Scuba Diving.” Great for him, but it does nothing for his career as a PE.
This is where your professional judgment comes in.
- Does this PMP certification actually help a highly technical structural designer? Maybe, but I’d rather see an SE license.
- Is this online “Master’s in Engineering Management” from a for-profit college as valuable as an M.S. in Civil Engineering from a state university? No. I’m not saying it’s worthless, but I’m not weighting them equally.
- The key is to ask: “Does this credential make this person better at the specific job I need them to do?”
Step 3: Investigation (What’s the story?) This is the interview. The documents and credentials only tell you part of the story.
- “I see you got your LEED AP credential. Walk me through a project where you were the one who actually managed the certification”
- “Your B.S. isn’t from an ABET-accredited program. Tell me about the curriculum. Did you have a senior capstone design? Did you take the FE exam?”
- “I see you listed ‘PE.’ I checked the board, and you’re listed as an EIT. Can you explain that discrepancy?” (This is a real one I’ve had to do. The answer tells you everything you need to know about their integrity).
The Red Flags I’ve Learned to Spot in My Career
After reviewing thousands of resumes, you start to see the patterns. Here are the red flags that make me pause.
- Vague Wording: “PE (In Progress),” “PMP (Pending Exam),” “Degree Candidate.” This is just noise. It’s an aspiration, not a credential. I ignore it. If you’re going to list it, list the date you’re sitting for the exam.
- Lapsed Credentials: “PMP (2015-2019).” Why did you let it lapse? Maybe it was a cost issue, or maybe it wasn’t relevant to their career. But if it’s a credential central to the job, it’s a problem. It shows a lack of commitment.
- The “Diploma Mill” Degree: I see a degree from an “university” I’ve never heard of. I do a 10-second Google search. It’s an unaccredited, 100% online This education credential is effectively worthless to me, especially for a technical role. ABET accreditation is the standard for a reason.
- No Foreign Credential Evaluation: This is the biggest red flag of all. If I get a candidate with a degree from a university outside the U.S. and there is no evaluation report from a U.S. evaluation service… I stop. I’m not qualified to evaluate their education.
The Gold Standard: How to Handle Foreign Education Credentials
This is, by far, the highest-risk part of credential evaluation, and it deserves its own section. As PEs, we know that our ABET-accredited education is a critical part of our credentialing path. We can’t just assume a foreign degree is equivalent.
Let’s be clear: I’m not an expert in the Indian university system, the German Diplom-Ingenieur program, or the 3-year “Bologna Process” degree from Europe. I am not qualified to make that evaluation… and neither are you.
This is why I have one, simple, non-negotiable rule: If your education is from outside the U.S., you must provide a course-by-course credential evaluation report from a NACES-member organization.
Let’s break that down.
- NACES: This is the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services. It’s the gold standard. They are the “accreditors” for the credential evaluators. If an evaluation service is a NACES member, I can trust their work.
- “Course-by-Course” Evaluation: This is critical. I don’t want a “document-by-document” evaluation that just says, “This person has a degree.” I need a “course-by-course” evaluation report. This report will:
- List every class they took.
- Convert their grades to a U.S. GPA.
- State the degree equivalency (e.g., “Equivalent to a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from a regionally accredited U.S. institution.”).
This evaluation report is the only way to compare apples to apples. It’s not about being unfair to foreign candidates; it’s the only way to be fair. It allows us to evaluate their educational credential against the same standards we all had to meet.
If a candidate doesn’t have one, I tell them where to get one. This isn’t just about hiring. State licensing boards require this exact credential evaluation before they’ll even let a foreign-educated engineer sit for the FE or PE exam.
Ultimately, how to evaluate professional credentials isn’t a dark art. It’s a process. It requires rigor, skepticism, and a commitment to upholding the professional standards we all depend on. Verify everything. Trust the primary source. And never, ever, stake your own license on an unverified credential.
