Welcome to Merit’s Blog.

A question we often get asked by potential partners, investors, the media, and candidates looking to join Merit is some variation of, “How does Merit make money?” Our vision is to build a network of truth and trust so everyone can shape their future, and that’s only achievable if everyone in the ecosystem gets value from Merit. Bill Gates once said, “A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it exceeds the value of the company that creates it,” and we strongly agree with this platform mentality. Merit is in the business of value creation, not value extraction. Therefore we are very deliberate when it comes to our monetization strategy.

It's rare to meet a developer that enjoys writing and maintaining test code. Often testing is seen as an additional (tedious) step to completing a story, a hindrance to the team's velocity, or yet another time sink required by their company's "Definition of Done." In my experience, this is the case when teams try to chase a specific code coverage percentage. At Merit we don't chase code coverage and we want developers to enjoy writing tests, or at least to feel the tests they write are effective.

New initiative seeks to help veterans navigate the job search and connect to opportunities commensurate with their skills and experience

For the past few years, the construction industry has been identified as a "laggard" when it comes to digital transformation. The old-school ways prevailed for many years while technology was applied to nearly every other industry. Even agriculture and farming adopted technology faster than construction. Recently, a lot of that has changed as investors began eyeballing technology that is revolutionizing construction.

This morning we learned that Merit was named one of the Best Workplaces in the Bay Area by Great Place to Work and Fortune Magazine! We are humbled by this distinction, and are proud to be in the company of the other great organizations on this list.

Our vision at Merit is for every person to get a fulfilling way to capture and gain greater access to their life’s merits in order to have the confidence, foresight, and autonomy to qualify for relevant opportunities and shape their future.

A critical part of that vision is “gaining great access,” meaning individuals should be able to make the most of their hard-earned achievements by gaining insight into all the opportunities their merits unlock.

That requires being able to share merits, and today we’re excited to launch merit link sharing for simple verification.

Organizations of all types use Merit to send digital credentials, or merits. These can be anything from licenses to certificates, or even records of attendance, and are often manually sent to people individually, or using bulk upload by filling out a copy of the downloadable template.

Interviewing engineers is really hard. It’s hard for the interviewer, but more importantly, it’s very hard for the candidate.

Last month, Merit announced its partnership with Virginia’s Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation (DPOR) to streamline licensing and digital credentialing for thousands of professionals in the Commonwealth. More than 310,000 Virginia workers in more than 40 industries are required by law to have a license from DPOR to work. Merit’s platform will give these professionals an easier way to bring their licenses with them wherever they go and make the certification more accessible to consumers and businesses. 

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation will undoubtedly impact the future of America’s workforce by making many jobs easier, and others completely obsolete. However, these technologies will have an uneven impact across each industry. Occupations in professional services (legal, science, academics), and “deskless” industries such as architecture, construction, plumbing, childcare, medical services, social work, and more, are more likely to see an increase in the number of available jobs.

Last month I started my new job with Merit, and just four weeks prior to that, I had no intention of leaving my then-current job. I had no plans to leave where I was, and frankly was excited to see various clients, projects, and initiatives taking off after much hard work. That was, of course, before I met Merit.

This fall, Merit has had the opportunity to support three of Virginia’s premier professional organizations at various conferences and trainings: the Virginia Builders Summit and Expo, the Virginia ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture, the Virginia Association of Professional Soil Scientists' Fall Conference, and the 2019 VOWRA Conference and Trade Show. While these conferences drew professionals from different industries, there was one thing in common between all of the organizers we worked with and attendees we met: checking into the various sessions, classes, and trainings was a smooth process, thanks to the Check-in with Merits app.