Putting CLEP, DANTES, and Other College Level Exams on a Resume

During my last year in the Army, I played catch-up with many of the education benefits available to active duty soldiers. Looking back, these were benefits that I should have been utilizing throughout my time in service. One of these was the college level exams offered at the base education center. Luckily, at that time, I had a pretty cool platoon sergeant who excused me from duty for a couple hours nearly every Tuesday and Thursday to go complete a couple college level exams at our base education center. Some of these I passed, while others I did not. But, with each passing exam, I knocked off a course that could fulfill the general education or degree focus requirement I may need to fulfill if I went on to college or university. All told, I passed 14 exams for a total of 42 credit hours (as recommended by ACE).

Within two years of leaving the Army I had earned a Bachelors degree. This degree was obtained so quickly in part to completing these exams, in addition to my military education and experience transfer credits.

I now consider, what would I have done with these tests scores had I not pursued a degree? Would these have been helpful in pursuing a career or were they just a waste of the test facilitator's and my time? I came to the conclusion that they were not wasted of time. Each test I passed proved a basic understanding of a particular skill or knowledge area. So, even if I did not transferred these to college credit, the verified knowledge is still there.

The question then becomes, does a person add this on a resume? I could find few references to this question online. Thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that there may be a couple of ways to highlight these skills on a resume.

The first way is to just list the exam subjects under ''Relevant Skills''. As an example, directly below I provide a list of the exams as they would appear on the military Joint Service Transcript (JST).

Now, lets imagine one is applying for a managerial position at a business. Their resume could read as follows:

RELEVANT SKILLS

Supervision, Organizational Behavior, Business, Human Resource Management,

Counseling, Business Ethics, Education, Cultural Awareness

Note that I only list the skills that may be relevant to the job and in the order of their relevance. You may need to explain or justify these skills to a prospective employer, so do not embellish.

Another way one may consider listing these on a resume (and my preferred method) is under the ''Professional Development'' section. Clearly note that these are exams, not certificates or courses. Below I provide an example of this format in a segment from a resume for a person seeking a job in security/law enforcement.

Employers may request proof of your claims, as they may with any other form of schooling or certification. Be ready to provide transcripts of your exam results to such employers upon request. Transcripts are available from the testing organizations' websites or on your JST (if these were completed during service and the results were provided to one's unit for record).

College level exams or knowledge tests are great ways to showcase and gauge a person's knowledge and skills learned through education and experiences. Listing these may help to make a person stand out from the other applicants, especially when there is a narrow difference between applicants' professional attributes and qualifications.