Certified specialist directory

Certified specialists can opt in to a public directory where businesses find help with WorkBOS: setting up a workspace, moving data in, training a team, or ongoing support. A profile appears only while its holder has a valid certificate, chose to be listed, and was approved by WorkBOS. A business hires through a request the specialist answers inside WorkBOS; the money stays between the two of them, and WorkBOS is not a party to the work or the payment.

• Your profile (Academy ▸ Specialist profile): a display name, a headline, a short bio, skills, languages, country and time zone, the links you want strangers to use, up to six portfolio links, how many years you have used WorkBOS (shown as what you say it is), and your availability: taking clients, booked until a date, or paused. Listing is your choice and can be switched off at any time.
• Badges: Certified means a valid certificate. Verified Pro means Certified, hands-on verified, and rated 4.0 or better by at least three verified clients; it is the Advanced Specialist certificate worn as a badge. Top Rated means a Verified Pro who answers at least 90 percent of hire requests in time and ranks in the top tenth. Badges are recomputed every night by the system, never typed in. Hands-on verified is earned by passing the practical lab; WorkBOS can also mark it by hand when a check is wrong about a real workspace.
• Request to hire: an owner or admin of a workspace opens a specialist’s page, writes a short brief (what you need, by when, a budget range if you like, how you want to be contacted) and sends it. The specialist gets it in their Academy inbox and by email and has 72 hours to accept or decline. On accept, the two of you see each other’s contact details, the engagement is recorded as confirmed, and the workspace can invite the specialist in with one click from Academy ▸ Hired specialists. Fourteen days later the workspace is asked for a rating. No answer in 72 hours and the request expires, with a note to the requester.
• Response signals: how often a specialist answers requests in time and how quickly, measured over the last twelve months, appear on their card and page. A request that expires unanswered counts against them.
• Keeping it clean: five requests per workspace per day, one open request per workspace per specialist, and a specialist can pause their availability, block a workspace (which is simply told the specialist is not available) or report a request to WorkBOS.
• Ratings: a workspace owner or admin can rate a specialist from one to five stars with a comment and the kind of work it was. Never from the specialist’s own workspace, never for yourself, one rating per workspace that you can edit later, and no more than a handful per day. A rating shows Verified when the specialist was actually a member or guest of that workspace, or confirmed the engagement, so a reader can tell first-hand ratings from the rest.
• Ranking is a fair average: a brand-new specialist with one five-star rating does not outrank someone with fifty ratings near five, and recent ratings weigh more than old ones. Featured specialists are chosen by WorkBOS.
• Protection: a specialist can reply once to each rating; anyone can report a rating; a reported rating leaves the public page until WorkBOS has looked at it; and a rating from a workspace created in the last few days waits for review before it publishes. Every step is on the audit trail.
• Engagements: a business can say it worked with a specialist, the specialist confirms, and any rating from that workspace becomes Verified.