Digital Credential Acceptance Rate: What to Expect from Your Graduates and How to Raise It

When an institution issues digital credentials to its graduates, the first question is a very practical one: how many will accept them? Almost nobody answers it with data, because almost nobody has the volume to measure it. We pulled together the results of three programs in Brazil that issued more than 30,000 credentials with POK between them, and they show what rate to expect and which levers move that number.

Direct answer: acceptance appears to depend above all on when and how the credential arrives. When it arrives inside an active relationship it reached 68%: Vitru Conecta, a teacher-training program of the Vitru Educação group, with 3,218 of 4,752 credentials issued on POK - Proof of Knowledge. For a one-off send to graduates who already left the institution, the starting point is around 20%: 19% at Centro Universitário das Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas (FMU) and 20% at Uniasselvi and UniCesumar, also of the Vitru group (885 of 4,568 and 4,256 of 21,121), and it is a starting point the institution can work on. The levers are announcing the credential before it arrives, sending it close to graduation, explaining in the email what it is for, adding a post-issuance session like UniCesumar's masterclass and measuring by program.

Key points

• The best result in this sample is 68%, with an active relationship: the Vitru Conecta teacher program reached 68% acceptance (3,218 of 4,752), with the credential arriving inside a program participants had just taken.
• The baseline for a one-off send to graduates is around 20%: FMU reached 19% (885 of 4,568 credentials issued) and Vitru Egressos 20% (4,256 of 21,121). Two different institutions, the same order of magnitude, which makes it a useful planning reference.
• The institution pulls the levers, and several already come with the platform: announce it before it arrives, send it close to graduation, explain in the email what it is for, add a post-issuance session like UniCesumar's masterclass and measure by program. The Conecta comparison is a single one with other differences in play: a teaching audience, several badges per person and a 96-day window against 34 to 44.
• What happens after acceptance varies by institution: FMU took 43% of accepted credentials to LinkedIn and Vitru Egressos 20%. Of those that reached LinkedIn, 42% of Vitru Egressos credentials were published as a post and 49% added to the profile, against 38% and 38% at FMU.
• Brand exposure is measurable: 17,671 views of the credentials and 3,896 downloads across the three programs.
• Professional changes can already be measured from the first month, as an observation, not a cause: 11 people among graduates (1.3% and 0.7% of those who took the credential to LinkedIn) and 18 in Conecta (4.7% of those who shared it). They describe what was observed after issuance, not what the credential caused.

The question every institution asks before issuing

Whoever decides to issue digital credentials to graduates usually runs the same mental math: if it reaches ten thousand people, how many will open it? Everything that follows depends on that answer. The size of the program, the budget, how much communication is worth investing in, and whether the project holds up in front of whoever has to approve it.

The trouble is that most of the available benchmarks come from small pilots, cohorts of a hundred people, or straight from sales promises. A number without a denominator is useless for planning. What follows are three real programs, with issue date, read date and observation window spelled out, so any institution can compare its own case.

Three programs, 30,441 credentials

All three programs are in Brazil and were issued with POK in the second half of 2026. The institutions approved being named. For volumes of this size, bulk issuance of digital credentials lets you send them without building each one by hand.

• FMU Egressos: graduates of 25 undergraduate programs at FMU, in São Paulo. Issued on August 18, 2026, read on October 1 (44 days).
• Vitru Egressos: graduates of 10 undergraduate programs at Uniasselvi and UniCesumar, institutions of the Vitru Educação group. Issued on September 9 and 10, read on October 14 (34-35 days).
• Vitru Conecta: the teacher-training learning path "Aprendizagem em Foco: Como Ensinamos Quando Entendemos Como se Aprende" (Conecta 2026/2). One badge for each of 8 competencies and a final certificate for those who completed it. Issued on July 10 and 11, read on October 14 (95-96 days).

The first thing to keep in mind: the windows are not equal. A program with 96 days behind it and one with 34 cannot be compared on speed, only on proportion. And the first two are graduates, people who already left the institution; the third is a training program in progress, with participants still tied to the network.

The full funnel, program by program

	FMU Egressos	Vitru Egressos (Uniasselvi + UniCesumar)	Vitru Conecta
Credentials issued	4,568	21,121	4,752
Accepted	885 (19% of issued)	4,256 (20%)	3,218 (68%)
Taken to LinkedIn	380 (43% of accepted)	842 (20% of accepted)	1,182 (37% of accepted)
Published as a feed post	145 (38% of those on LinkedIn)	357 (42%)	414 (35%)
Added to profile	144 (38%)	410 (49%)	1,175 (99%)
Credential views	2,632	9,777	5,262
Downloads	374 (42% of accepted)	1,678 (39%)	1,844 (57%)

In total that is 30,441 credentials issued, 8,359 accepted (27%), 2,404 taken to LinkedIn and 916 published as posts. Looking only at graduates, FMU plus Vitru add up to 25,689 issued, 5,141 accepted (20%) and 1,222 taken to LinkedIn. A note on units: Conecta counts one credential per badge (a recipient can hold up to 8 competency badges plus the final certificate), so the overall 27% mixes graduates' credentials with badges, and the comparable figure is the graduate-only one (20%). Each percentage in the table has its own base, so read it stage by stage, left to right, not top to bottom against the total issued.

How to raise the acceptance rate

With this data, the reasonable expectation for a one-off send to graduates who have already left the institution is about 20% acceptance as a baseline, and up to 68% was observed when the credential arrives inside a program with an active relationship. These are recommendations, not measured effects: the programs in the study did not compare communication variants against each other.

1. Announce it before it arrives. A prior email or message saying "a credential is coming, and this is what it is" reduces rejection from unfamiliarity. The graduate who does not recognize the sender is the one who does not open.
2. Send it close to graduation. The bond with the institution is strongest on the day of the ceremony or degree delivery, and cools with every month.
3. Explain what it is for, in the email itself. What it is, where it is verified, what to do with it on a resume and on LinkedIn. One concrete line does more than an institutional paragraph.
4. Add a session after issuance. UniCesumar's masterclass is the model: teach people how to use the credential once they have it.
5. Design the credential name around skills. A credential that names competencies and skills gives the person something to put on the profile; one that only repeats the degree title gives less.
6. Measure per program and per cohort. As Administração, Enfermagem and Farmácia showed, programs behave differently. A global percentage hides where there is room to improve.

Several of these levers do not require building anything separate in POK - Proof of Knowledge: the acceptance reminder goes out on its own for every credential issued, emails can be sent from the institution's own domain so the graduate recognizes the sender, and email campaigns let you follow up with those who have not accepted yet, or ask for a LinkedIn share only from those who have not shared yet.

The baseline: about 20% for a one-off send to graduates

The most stable figure in the whole set is that FMU and Vitru, two different institutions and groups, with students and programs of different profiles, ended up one point apart: 19% and 20%. That consistency makes it a useful planning reference: for a one-off send to graduates who already left the institution, around 20% is a reasonable baseline, and timing, communication and follow-up are what the institution can work on from there.

It is worth saying what "accepting" means. The recipient gets an email with a link, opens the credential and claims it in their digital wallet. Whoever skips that step stays issued but not accepted. A credential that is not accepted cannot be shared, adds no views and never enters any later stage of the funnel.

The best result in this sample: 68% when the credential arrives inside an active relationship

Vitru Conecta reached 68% acceptance, more than three times the graduates' rate. It is tempting to put that down to the format (badges per competency instead of a degree) or to the channel, but the explanation that best fits the data is a different one: the context of the relationship.

A graduate gets an email from an institution that is no longer part of their daily life. They may be in another job, have changed email address, not understand why that message arrived. A Conecta participant, on the other hand, is inside a program they just took, with teachers and peers around, and expects something at the end. The credential is the natural continuation of what is already happening, not a message out of nowhere.

Acceptance seems to depend less on what the credential looks like than on when in the person's life it arrives, although with a single comparison that factor cannot be separated from the others. Two questions every institution should ask before sending: does the person know it is coming? And do they have any reason to open it today?

Acceptance is the first cut; what comes next varies by institution

Once the credential gets past the acceptance filter, what happens next differs a lot from one institution to another. Of the Vitru Egressos credentials that reached LinkedIn, 42% were published as a feed post and 49% were added to the profile. In Conecta, 99% of those that reached LinkedIn were added to the profile. At FMU the path is different: it took to LinkedIn a share of its accepted credentials twice that of Vitru Egressos (43%, against 20%), and of those, 38% became a post and 38% were added to the profile.

That difference between institutions in the step to LinkedIn suggests that what happens after acceptance can be worked on too, and it is exactly what UniCesumar's masterclass for graduates shows: teaching people what to do with the credential, with the profile vocabulary and the concrete steps, is a lever the institution holds, not something left to the recipient's luck.

Which programs carry the brand to LinkedIn

Administração leads in volume in both graduate cases: 27 credentials taken to LinkedIn at FMU and 219 at Uniasselvi and UniCesumar. That is expected in high-enrollment programs, but it also shows where most of the exposure sits.

Conversion to a post tells a different story. At FMU, 13 programs converted 100% of their credentials on LinkedIn into a feed post, and the largest base was Enfermagem, with 12 of 12. At Uniasselvi and UniCesumar, Farmácia converted 100%: 12 of 12. These are small bases, so they should not be read as a rule about the program. What they do show is that in some programs, once the person reaches LinkedIn, posting is the natural step, and spotting them lets an institution communicate differently by audience.

In Conecta, where each competency has its own badge, the ones that most reached LinkedIn were Palestra de Abertura (217), Novo Enade (199) and Avaliações Discursivas (164). The last one is the one that most turns into a post: 47% of its credentials on LinkedIn. These counts are per credential: a recipient with several badges counts once per badge.

Brand exposure: 17,671 views and 3,896 downloads

Every accepted credential is also a public page carrying the institution's name. Across the three programs there were 17,671 views of the credentials (2,632 at FMU, 9,777 at Vitru Egressos and 5,262 at Conecta) and 3,896 downloads. Downloads represent 42% of accepted credentials at FMU, 39% at Vitru Egressos and 57% at Conecta.

For an institution this is a result that normally goes unmeasured: each time someone opens that page, the brand appears tied to a specific person and a specific competency, with no media spend. It is not a monetary value and we do not present it as one, but it is exposure that did not exist before.

Alumni outcomes: professional changes observed after issuance

This is the part that needs the most care, so the caveats come first. What follows are professional changes observed after issuance. They are not causal: we are not saying the credential landed a job, a promotion or a change of field. The windows are short (34 to 96 days) and the numbers are small.

In the graduate programs the change was observed in 11 people: 5 at FMU (1.3% of the 380 credentials taken to LinkedIn) and 6 at Uniasselvi and UniCesumar (0.7% of 842). Every change was registered within the first month after issuance. In Conecta, 18 people with a change out of the 382 recipients who shared the credential (4.7%) in 96 days, many toward teaching roles and inside the Vitru network itself, at Uniasselvi, UniCesumar and Vitru Educação.

A few trajectories, roles only:

• FMU, Biomedicina: from intern to laboratory analyst (new job).
• FMU, Direito: from junior lawyer to mid-level lawyer at another firm.
• FMU, Engenharia Elétrica: from substation maintenance technician to resident engineer.
• Uniasselvi, Radiologia: from production assistant to radiography assistant (a move toward the field of study).
• UniCesumar, Nutrição: from clinical nutritionist to manager.
• Vitru Conecta: from pedagogical coordinator to pedagogical manager (promotion).

All graduate changes were registered in the first month, and they may already have been in motion before issuance. Someone who has just changed jobs also has every reason to update their profile and post the credential they just received. The value of watching this indicator is not in a single reading but in the series over time: per cohort and per program, with more windows and more volume. A single snapshot proves nothing; several begin to show a pattern.

The limit of this measurement

Only what the recipient publishes on their professional profile can be seen. A recipient who does not publish the credential does not enter the count. So these percentages are a floor of what happens, not a complete measure of graduates' trajectories. The series over time is what POK's employability feature builds: it filters by credential design, by year and by title, and states the same limit.

Frequently asked questions

What is a normal acceptance rate for digital credentials?

In credentials that Brazilian institutions issued with POK - Proof of Knowledge, the rate runs from about 20% to 68% depending on how the credential arrives. In a one-off send to graduates who had already left the institution it was around 20%: Centro Universitário das Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas (FMU), in São Paulo, recorded 19% (885 of 4,568 issued) and the Vitru Educação group, with Uniasselvi and UniCesumar, recorded 20% (4,256 of 21,121). With an active relationship, Vitru Conecta reached 68% (3,218 of 4,752). The institution can move that number through the timing and the way it delivers the credential.

How many recipients share their credential on LinkedIn?

In the FMU and Vitru programs issued with POK - Proof of Knowledge, it depends on the base used. Among accepted credentials, FMU had 43% taken to LinkedIn (380 of 885) and Uniasselvi and UniCesumar had 20% (842 of 4,256). Of those that reached LinkedIn, 42% of Vitru Egressos credentials were published as a post and 49% added to the profile, against 38% and 38% at FMU, so what happens after acceptance varies by institution.

Why does a teacher-training program have higher acceptance than a graduate program?

Because the explanation that best fits the data is the context of the relationship, although it is a single comparison with other differences in play: a teaching audience, several badges per person and a 96-day window against 34 to 44. The Vitru Conecta program reached 68% acceptance (3,218 of 4,752) with participants who had just taken a trail and expected something at the end, while FMU and Vitru graduates, who had already left the institution, came in around 20%. This is a reading of the data, not an effect measured in an experiment with control groups.

Which programs share their credential the most?

In the graduate cases of FMU and of Uniasselvi and UniCesumar, Administração leads in volume of credentials taken to LinkedIn: 27 at FMU and 219 at Uniasselvi and UniCesumar. In conversion to a feed post, Enfermagem at FMU (12 of 12) and Farmácia at Uniasselvi and UniCesumar (12 of 12) stand out, although these are small bases that do not allow generalizing about the program.

Does a digital credential help you get a job?

POK - Proof of Knowledge measures the professional changes that follow issuance, but its data does not allow attributing them to the credential, and we don't. What was observed are professional changes after issuance in a small fraction of recipients: 11 people among FMU and Vitru graduates (about 0.9% of those who took the credential to LinkedIn) and 18 in Vitru Conecta (4.7% of those who shared it). The windows are short, 34 to 96 days, and the graduate changes were registered in the first month, so they may already have been under way.

How do you measure graduate employability with digital credentials?

POK - Proof of Knowledge records professional changes observed after a credential is issued and recommends reading them as a series per cohort and per program, not as a single figure. The limit is that only what the recipient publishes on their professional profile can be seen: someone who does not publish the credential does not enter the count, so the percentages are a floor of reality.

How can you increase the acceptance rate of digital credentials?

For an institution using POK - Proof of Knowledge, the rate starts around 20% in a one-off send to graduates and reached 68% with an active relationship, and the recommendations that come out of the FMU and Vitru data to move it are to tell the recipient before the credential arrives, send it close to graduation, explain in the email itself what it is for, offer a post-issuance session like UniCesumar's masterclass, and measure per program and per cohort. These are recommendations and not measured effects, because the three programs did not compare communication variants.

Related reading

• How to add your credential to LinkedIn using the keywords recruiters search for: the UniCesumar case
• How employers verify digital credentials
• AI-written resumes: why a verifiable credential is the one proof nobody can fabricate
• The real value of digital credentials: from commodity to trust infrastructure

To see how POK works with institutions across Latin America, take a look at plans and pricing or book a demo.

Last updated: October 20, 2026.