Acing a professional role nowadays requires extensive knowledge, skills, and expertise, which certified professionals showcase. Unlocking a dream job is now made easier with certified professional education that industry experts acquire. In this competitive professional world, certified educational institutions craft leaders who are ruling industries. Career Certified emerged as a leading educational brand for talented individuals aspiring to penetrate industries as professionals. Aiming to make a meaningful impact in the lives of people across the nation, Career Certified’s vision clearly states – “to make your purpose attainable for as many careers as possible.”
As The CEO Views celebrates the company’s tremendous success as one of the “Most Innovative Companies to Watch 2025,” CEO Gary Weiss proudly shares their incredible journey.
An Inspired Genesis
Career Certified’s journey started in 2005, was first founded by its flagship real estate education brand, The CE Shop. At the time, it was inspired by the then-founder’s experience witnessing during his youth that his single mother was looking for a better way to succeed. Over time, the premier learning platform, incredible leadership, knowledgeable staff, and passion for doing the right thing set the first stone of Career Certified’s foundation. While shedding light on its journey over time, Gary shares,“Once we perfected the real estate industry education, we began expanding into new professional verticals.”
In late 2022, the company acquired Amber Book, an ARE® exam preparation and career lifecycle tools offering firm for aspiring architects, and A.D. Banker, an education provider specializing in insurance and securities careers, from pre-licensing to continuing education and professional development.
Career Certified continued to grow throughout 2024 by first acquiring AnalystPrep, an exam prep team proven to prepare candidates from around the globe for the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®), Financial Risk Manager (FRM®), actuarial, and MBA admission exams inclusive of the GMAT®, Executive Assessment®, and GRE®. Towards the end of the year, the company welcomed My Contractor’s License to the fold, a team committed to offering online learning with tailored courses for aspiring general and electrical contractors. “Our future is aimed at being the best multi-vertical career education company on the planet,” proudly shares Gary.
Acing Competitiveness
The institutions’ value lies in knowing what their students need to succeed, having close ties with the regulatory bodies to ensure updated content, and a path to accelerated growth for partners, individuals, and communities. It engages with students and partners through ongoing research, post-course surveys, trade events, and social media chat rooms to listen to feedback intently for product improvement and development.
Career Certified follows a technology-driven mindset that sets it apart from other professional education providers. It relies on technology to create and deliver content in all formats for students to engage, study, and succeed at a breakneck speed.
The organization uses robust and scalable technology platforms to cross-reference content from one industry to another in a pertinent way (for instance, in the case of home inspection and architecture that have some cross-over points). Career Certified also relies on technology to access new audiences and provide them their dream careers that were once unattainable.
Serving Spheres
Career Certified offers the most comprehensive, up-to-date, courses for both regulated careers as well as exam prep and professional development relevant to today’s learners both in format and real-world use. At present, it serves professions in:
- real estate
- home inspection
- property appraisal
- mortgage loan origination
- architecture
- insurance
- securities
- finance
- general contracting
- electrical contracting
Staying Relevant
The institution designs programs that are up-to-date and industry-relevant.“We have curriculum and compliance teams, as well as subject matter experts, who have been deeply embedded in their respective markets and in close communication with the various regulatory bodies for decades,” adds Gary. The intensive regulatory reviews coupled with the need for a passion to deliver course content engagingly and accurately is what helps seasoned and emerging professionals crack their pre-licensing exams smoothly with Career Certified.
An Interactive Learning Experience
Being at the forefront of digital education, Career Certified has been delivering education on the go for busy people. With an online learning experience, this institution remains asynchronous alongside offering add-ons that are sometimes available online as downloadable study materials for additional self-paced learning.
Catering to Diverse Needs
As a part of its product development process, Career Certified understands the learning needs of students and the audience of a particular industry or market. It tailors its content to address different learning styles with flexible options. The institution understands that what works for aspiring architects is different from what works for other industries and, hence, crafts its content accordingly.
Turning Challenges into Opportunities
Career Certified sees challenges as opportunities to solve for technology to serve an ever-broadening audience with the same eye for detail and passion for doing what’s right as any of its other verticals.
The organization realized the need for a Centers of Excellence model to remove the silos of knowledge and apply best practices from centralized teams to share information, people, technology, and processes across all verticals two years ago. This holistically strengthened its stature over time.
Plans in the Bucket
Career Certified is always evaluating the need for new products for its existing audiences, depending on the industry and market conditions. It is continually in a cycle of innovation on new products. It has a robust development team evaluating new industries to conquer organically or via acquisitions.
As it continues to empower students with its courses, the institution has its heartbeat centered around impacting individuals and communities in profound and lasting ways. The dedicated team of the company continually evaluates the future state through research and focus groups.
They also stay informed by B2B partners about changing operations, market needs, and more to constantly synthesize information on market reports and use them to guide strategy. Gary advises future entrepreneurs and innovators to stay close to the customer while evaluating the need for that profession’s longevity or purpose.
Gary Weiss, CEO
“In five years, I suspect we’ll have some added ways to learn that align with global technology trends, and hopefully we will have added, possibly 20-30 more careers to our education options. This type of growth is the collective vision we share internally.”
