IDA Recertification – Don’t Wait!

By Alex Hazard, IDA Certification & Education Coordinator

The dreaded recertification process that everybody knows about, but nobody wants to talk about, is much simpler than most people anticipate.  This article is coming from a lot of recent inquiries from IDA Certified Detailers who have reached their two-year mark, and it is now time to re-certify.  Unfortunately, in most of these cases, we have run into issues of trying to cram in  eight hours of continuing education credits in order to re-certify before the prices goes up.  If you are taking the time to read this article, thank you.  Please take the information in this article and apply it to your life so that you can avoid any headaches when it comes time to re-certify.

The most popular issue with recertification in the IDA is that people do not plan ahead to get their 8-hours of continuing education credits taken care of.  The benefit to IDA Certified Detailers is that you have two full years to complete your eight hours of education.  These education sessions can be podcasts, IDA webinars, MTE Education Sessions, or any of the very common detailer training sessions that are happening all over the world.  We try to make it as easy as possible for you to continue learning, without having to take too much of your personal time to do it.  The reason we push so hard for this continuing education is because the IDA believes that we are never done learning.  Even the well-established detailers that have been in the industry for 40+ years have new things to learn, and if IDA members and Certified Detailers are going to continue setting the standard for the detailing industry, there needs to be continued education.

I urge all of you reading this to start looking into earning your continuing education credit hours now, rather than waiting until your recertification date is coming up.  If you do not know when your recertification date is, you can look on your online profile on the IDA website, or simply reach out to our office and we would be happy to let you know.  If you do not know if something would count as continuing education, the best thing you can do is reach out to our office and ask.  If push comes to shove, go ahead and submit whatever event you attended, and if we are unable to count it as continuing education, we will let you know so that you can continue working on earning your credits. 

If you earn all eight of your continuing education credits prior to your recertification date, there is no stress, no scrambling, and all you have to do is pay the recertification fee.  It really is that simple – submitting eight hours of education in two years and paying the recertification fee.  We process your recertification and send out a new certificate to you, which essentially gets you all set and ready for the next two years.  Don’t make a simple and easy situation harder than it needs to be.

We understand that you are extremely busy, and if you have any questions about the process, take a moment to call or email our office, and we will be more than happy to get you headed in the right direction, without any headaches or wasted time.