The Ultimate Guide to Skills Passport By SkillsFuture Singapore – Ace Your Job Search Game

Ever been asked to submit a certificate for a qualification that you claimed you have on your resume, only to realise you have lost it? Or have you ever tried sending your certificates via email, only to find out that you had busted the email limit?

Skills Passport, a feature on MySkillsFuture, is a superb job search feature that does all of these: Store your certificates and licences digitally and securely, and share your certificates without jamming emails. Even better, it is connected to MyCareersFuture, the job search portal by Workforce Singapore, so that you can stand out amongst other job seekers.

In other words, Skills Passport is an unassuming and understated career management tool that can take our job search to greater heights if we know how to unlock its potential!

What is Skills Passport?

Skills Passport is an online repository set up by SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents to maintain the digital version of their education and training certificates, licenses, as well as keep track of their skills sets.

With Skills Passport, Singaporeans and Permanent Residents can easily look up, retrieve and share their certificates from anywhere by just logging into MySkillsFuture with their SingPass accounts.

What Certificates Are Stored In The Skills Passport?

Certificates From MOE Schools

Launched in May 2019, the Skills Passport is meant to store all the education certificates of Singaporeans and Permanent Residents that were issued by the MOE schools and SSG training providers, namely N, O and A Levels; ITE qualifications; diploma and degree qualifications from polytechnics, LASALLE College of the Arts, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Autonomous Universities and the National Institute of Early Childhood Development; as well as Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) digital certificates).

From May 2019, graduates of the MOE schools will receive their certificates in the digital form; the Singapore Examination and Assessment Board (SEAB) will upload the certificates onto the Skills Passports of Singaporeans and Permanent Residents.

SEAB is also progressively uploading the certificates of previous cohorts onto Skills Passport. At the end of the exercise, all Singaporeans and Permanent Residents will be able to find their education certificates (all the way back to PSLE) in their Skills Passports.

Certificates From SSG Approved Training Providers

Certificates issued from SSG’s approved training providers will eventually be uploaded directly onto Skills Passport. “Eventually” because various training providers need different times to upgrade their equipment and systems to meet the requirement.

Like the certificates issued by MOE schools, SSG training providers are also retroactively uploading the digital certfiicates of their past graduates onto their Skills Passports.

Editor’s Note: Do leave a comment to let fellow readers know if you have all your certificates in your Skills Passport. If you haven’t, what certificates and from which institutions are missing?

Certificates Uploaded By Users

Users can also upload their certificates onto their own Skills Passports. This will be good for certificates earned from attending school overseas or training institutions not accredited by SkillsFuture Singapore.

As mentioned, many certificates of older cohorts are still not uploaded onto Skills Passport. Therefore, this is also a useful feature for people to upload their certificates instead of waiting for SEAB or SSG’s approved training providers to upload the certificates.

Click here to skip to the section on how you can upload your certificates onto Skills Passport.

Why Is Skills Passport Important?

There are little inconveniences in life which we don’t care much about, but can creep to become a big hurdle. Yet we usually don’t want to devote time to resolve those minor inconveniences. 

Skills Passport fixes exactly that.

Most of us would have already filed our certificates and qualifications carefully, or even scanned those documents into soft copies to be sent over email conveniently. If anyone requires to see a certificate we lost, we just go and request for a certified true copy; we don’t go and get a permanent copy because, well… how many times will we be asked for those certificates? However, over time, these short times we spent can snowball into significant times that we could have used for other more important stuff.

With Skills Passport, we won’t even have to handle such situations.

Store Our Certificates digitally and Securely on Skills Passport

The digital certificates on Skills Passport are encrypted and stored on blockchain in the OpenCerts format. This makes it difficult for people to make fraudulent changes to these certificates. Employers (or licensing bodies or just organisations that require candidates submit their education certificates or professional certifications) can easily verify the authenticity of the certificates and the identity of the persons owning the certificates.

Best of all, we won’t be afraid of losing our certificates. In fact, SEAB is also uploading the certificates of older cohorts onto Skills Passport. Therefore, if you have lost your certificates, you can find them on your Skills Passport. Additionally, you no longer have to pay to obtain a certified true copy just to submit to an employer!

Share Our Digital Certificates 

There are 2 ways that we can share these digital certificates with employers conveniently:

• Send it directly from Skills Passport, or
• Download a copy of the certificate and then:
  • Send it over email; or
  • Upload to an online application portal; or
  • Print it out

As mentioned earlier, the recipients can then verify the certificates sent to them.

For the certificates uploaded onto the system by SEAB, SSG and its partners (i.e. not uploaded by ourselves), you will notice that there’s a “SSG Verified” label for each certificate.

When you send your certificates directly from Skills Passport, the recipients will also see this “SSG Verified” label in the email. More cautious employers can download the certficates to put them through further verification. If the certificates are stored in the OpenCerts format, they can verify the certificates on the verification portal. For WSQ certificates, they can log on to WSQ’s certificate verification website and enter the certificate number for verification.

Click here to skip to the section on how to share your certficates directly from Skills Passport.

Editor’s Note: If the certificates were not issued by SEAB, SSG and its partners, but are saved in the OpenCerts format, they will also work on the OpenCerts verification portal.

Sometimes, you need to upload the digital certificates into a company’s application system. You can also download the certificates from Skills Passport to do just that. This means you can apply for jobs or make registrations for things like licenses even though you do not have your laptop or hard disk drive with you!

That being said, there’s another interesting feature of Skills Passport that makes applying for jobs a breeze. Skills Passport is linked to MyCareersFuture, the online job portal by SSG.

Use Skills Passport to Apply For Jobs Conveniently on MyCareersFuture

MyCareersFuture is a job portal developed by Workforce Singapore, in partnership with Government Technology Agency. Targeted for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents, it aims to match jobs to users based on their skills and competencies.

How do they do that?

As mentioned earlier, the Skills Passport is linked to MyCareersFuture. On your first log in to MyCareersFuture (using your SingPass), you would have noticed that most of your education history would have been filled up. This is thanks to the connection between MyCareersFuture and MySkillsFuture.

With this feature, employers looking for suitable candidates will be able to view your education history conveniently and with assurance. When you apply for a job on MyCareersFuture, your education history stored on your Skills Passport would be shared with the employer. This means that there’s no need to fill in online forms, or attach your certificates during the job application process.

Therefore, it is all the more important for us to maintain our Skills Passport!

How Do I Access Skills Passport?

Skills Passport is actually one of the many features found on the MySkillsFuture website, also maintained by SkillsFuture Singapore.

Accessing Skills Passport may be confusing at first. After the first visit, however, usage becomes intuitive.

Log In To MySkillsFuture

1. Go to MySkillsFuture website.

2. Log in using your SingPass (the icon is at the top right hand corner).

Skills Passport is only available to those who have a SingPass account. Go to this website to register for a SingPass account if you don’t have one.

Navigate To Skills Passport

After login, click on your profile name (located at the upper right hand corner) for a drop-down menu and select Skills Passport

Find Your Certificates/Licenses In Skills Passport

In Skills Passport, click on ‘Qualifications and Certifications’ to view your personalised records.

This section is split into “Qualifications and Certifications” and “Professional Qualifications”. The former is for the MOE-related education, while the latter is where you can find your SSG and WSQ course certificates / Statements of Attainment.

To view details of your certificates and to download them, click on the tab of the respective digital certificate.   

To download the OpenCert format file of your digital certificate, click on the OpenCert icon. 

You can do the same for your licences and skills, by clicking on the respective tabs.

Upload Your Certificates/Licenses/Skills Onto Skills Passport

Attended schools overseas? Or taken a professional course that is not under SkillsFuture Singapore? You can still upload these certificates onto your Skills Passport. You will be able to share these certificates or showcase them in your MyCareersFuture profile 

You can do this by accessing the ‘Qualifications and Certifications’ tab in your Skills Passport. Scroll down to the end of “Education Qualifications” or Professional Certifications” and click on the “Add Qualification” (or “Add Certificate”) button to start uploading your own certificates to the respective section.

Fill up the fields, attach your digital certificates, and the qualifications will be stored in your Skills Passport and viewable on MyCareersFuture. If your certificate is already in an OpenCert format, the fields will be auto-populated once you upload the certificate. When ready, click on the tick button on the lower right hand corner to save the entry.

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Share Your Digital Certificates/Licenses Directly From Skills Passport

While Skills Passport is accessible on both desktops and mobile, the above function of uploading certficates are much easier to be completed using the desktop. However, sharing of certificates can be done easily on both desktops and mobile.

For desktop users:

1. Click on the “Share Skills Passport” icon at the top right hand corner of the Skills Passport page to start the sharing process.

2. Select the certifications / licenses / skills that you want to share.

3. Click on the “Share Skills Passport” icon at the top right hand corner of the window and enter the recipient’s email address to send the verified documents directly to your interviewer / employer.

For mobile app users:

1. Select the certifications / licenses / skills that you want to share.

2. Tap on the “Send Email” button at the top right hand corner of the Skills Passport page to start the sharing process.

3. Enter the recipient’s email address to send the verified documents directly to your interviewer / employer.

Parting Words

The Skills Passport, found under the portal for MySkillsFuture, is a one-stop place to find all our qualifications, certificates and licenses that were obtained in Singapore.

Other than finding digital and secure versions of certificates we might have lost a long time ago, we can also upload certificates from institutions outside of Singapore or not under SkillsFuture Singapore.

Other than sharing the documents directly from Skills Passport, we can also download them to print them out or to send them via email.

Most important of all, our Skills Passport is linked to our MyCareersFuture profile. This makes it easier for potential employers to find us based on our qualifications. Our education history, mapped from our Skills Passport, would automatically be shared when we apply for jobs via the jobs portal.

As unassuming and low key as it was, the Skills Passport is a very useful and essential part of our job search process. It’s all the more important for us to log in now and update our Skills Passport!

If you find this post useful, do Like and Share it with your family and friends. If you’re actively looking for a job, check out my other post on finding the best SGUnited Skills and SGUnited Mid-Career Pathway (Company Training) programmes. You can also find out the top industries that would be looking to fill job positions in 2021.

Till then, stay hopeful!

Special Tips

Congratulations if you finished reading this post! As a reward, here are some tips on how to fully unlock the potential of your Skills Passport for your job search process!

Make Your WSQ Qualification Show Up On Your MyCareersFuture’s Education History

Full WSQ qualifications are found under “Professional Certifications”, but they don’t appear in your MyCareersFuture as an education acquired. Therefore, download the OpenCert version of your WSQ qualification and upload them under the “Education Qualifications” and these will show up in your MyCareersFuture profile and job application!

Foreigners Who Studied In Singapore

Starting 2019, foreign alumni/trainees who graduated from local ITEs, polytechnics and universities can also retrieve their qualification and certificates from MySkillsFuture by following these steps:

1. Go to ‘Digital Services’.
2. Under ‘Individuals’, click ‘Download Certificates’.
3. Login with the Portal ID issued to you. If you do not have a Portal ID, click ‘No Portal ID’.
4. Enter the relevant information to retrieve your certificates.