How TeamSparta Uses Digital Badges to Verify Hands-On Experience

TeamSparta, an IT education platform, runs a hands-on internship program called Baro Intern.

In a digital era, simply writing “internship experience” on a resume is no longer enough. The questions are how to demonstrate real working experience and how to prove that experience is genuine. TeamSparta’s answer was to adopt digital badges.

We sat down with Seoyun Jang, Career Team Manager at TeamSparta, to hear the details.

Q. What is the background and goal of the Baro Intern program?

A.

We felt that what job seekers needed most after finishing a course was the chance to immediately gain practical work experience. In reality, many graduates struggled not only to find full-time positions but even internships, and they kept getting rejected because they lacked hands-on experience. So TeamSparta launched Baro Intern to give graduates paid internship experience at actual companies, allowing them to build resume-worthy work history and concrete examples they could use in interviews.

The goal isn’t just successful project experience either, but a real-world environment where participants can also fail, recognize their weaknesses, and grow. We also create opportunities for them to connect with company executives and working professionals to shape their career direction.

Q. What values do you consider most important for your graduates?

A.

There are three main ones. First, experiencing an actual work environment that differs from coursework projects. Second, objectively recognizing their strengths and weaknesses from a practitioner’s perspective. Finally, gaining the confidence to start a career.

After the internship ends, we conduct satisfaction surveys with the partner companies and verify each participant’s specific outcomes. In particular, we attach the company manager’s recommendation directly to the digital badge and deliver it to the participant, so that participants can clearly identify their specific strengths.

Q. What led you to adopt digital badges?

A.

In the beginning, we were so focused on matching and running internships that we didn’t even have the bandwidth to design certificates. Then we came across a case where a company participating in Baro Intern was using Kolleges digital badges to issue completion certificates and automatically syncing them to LinkedIn. When we heard about it, we thought, “It would be great if we could give every one of our graduates a digital certificate like this,” and that’s when we seriously adopted Kolleges digital badges.

Q. Compared to traditional certificates, what stood out about Kolleges digital badges?

A.

The biggest difference is how much easier they are to store and use. Paper certificates are hard to keep track of, and PDFs end up buried somewhere on a computer, making them hard to pull up when needed. Kolleges digital badges, on the other hand, are accessible online and can be linked to LinkedIn and other SNS, so you can showcase your experience right away. From an operator’s standpoint, badge issuance, editing, and reissuance are all simple and fast, which is incredibly useful. They can be issued from templates, and the ability to edit details even after issuance gave us flexible operations, which we were very satisfied with.

Q. How are graduates using the digital badges?

A.

The response has been very positive. In particular, when the company manager’s recommendation appears alongside the badge, many graduates have told us how moved they were. Graduates actually register the badges on LinkedIn and attach them to their resumes and portfolios, and they also use them as a differentiated proof of experience when applying for public internship programs like “Future Tomorrow Work Experience” (Mirae Naeil Ilgyeongheom).

Q. As an operator, what are the advantages of the Kolleges badge system?

A.

Issuance is straightforward, and bulk issuance via Excel upload or templates is especially useful. Also, with Kolleges digital badges, even if there are typos in the name or company name at the initial issuance, they can be corrected at any time later, which reduces operational stress. Another major advantage is that we can freely add company name, role, recommendations, and more to each badge, allowing us to create customized certificates for each program.

Q. How do you plan to use digital badges going forward?

A.

We still use our own certificate images alongside the badges, but when it comes to external sharing, we feel that digital badges are a far more powerful tool. There are many advantages, especially in LinkedIn integration, SNS exposure, and authenticity verification, so we see strong potential to use Kolleges more broadly.

Beyond that, we believe Kolleges digital badges could become the standard for verifying practical training completion. If we collaborate across various fields and build that standard together, the possibilities will expand even further.

Q. Any final message for your graduates?

A.

Don’t just say you “completed” the internship — use digital badges to show your valuable hands-on experience in a concrete and credible way. Registering on LinkedIn or attaching to a portfolio is easier than you’d think. TeamSparta officially certifies the effort of everyone who diligently completed Baro Intern, through your digital badge!