Here’s where you get started: choose an academic or professional certification or both. Note: bachelor’s degrees and below are not accepted for the time being.
Professional Certification
Related industry information. For example, a journalist in a media malaysia number industry, or a paralegal in the service industry. Note: some industries are not allowed.
Full name of the company or organisation
Name of the certification (that will appear in your account): e.g. ‘Paralegal’
Certification:
Academic degree and vocational qualification certificates cannot be used as valid documents for work certification.
Choose one of the following options: work contracts, on-the-job certificates, work cards, business cards, screenshots of publicly available and official personal- information pages or screenshots of news media reports; whichever you choose, it needs to include key information that can support identity authentication, such as name, department, position, and title information.
Identity authentication: just as mentioned in the ‘Step One: Identity Authentication’ above, submit your full name, a number of your valid ID, a clear picture of the ID (name page with expiration date).
Academic Certification
To apply for academic certification, you’ll need to submit:
Academic degree: (four options to choose from) Master’s Degree, PhD degree, a Master’s student, or a PhD student.
Name of your major subject.
Full name of your school (mainland Chinese and foreign both accepted).
Name of the certification (that will appear in your account): e.g. ‘PhD in Economics’.
Certification: users who have graduated need to provide ‘proof of academic qualifications’; current students need to provide ‘proof of on-going studies’.
Accepted mainland Chinese certification includes student ID, certificate of enrollment, degree certificate, graduation certificate, an entry from China Credential Verification System (CHESICC), etc.
Accepted overseas certification includes visa, student ID, certificate of enrollment, transcript of records, degree certification, etc.
The document needs to include your name, the school’s name, major/department, year and month of admission or graduation, academic background/degree, and other key information related to the identity being used for authentication.
Identity authentication: just as mentioned in the ‘Step One: Identity Authentication’ above, submit your full name, a number of your valid ID, a clear picture of the ID (name page with expiration date).
Note that for ‘Name of certification’ you should avoid ambiguity and keep a simple format, for example:
Company + position.
Product/brand/service + position,
Research institution + academic title.
Name of school + name of college/department/laboratory or major + title.
Your verification will be reviewed within three working days, and you will be notified of the result in a private message. Remember that one certification can be used to verify only one account; you cannot verify multiple accounts with one certificate.
STEP THREE: YOUR VERIFICATION IS NOT PERMANENT
Some certifications have a validity period, and as soon as it expires, so will your shiny blue badge. A week before that happens, Zhihu Support will send you a reminder to update the document and you can submit this directly to them.
If anything related to your certification changes, remember to update the information by editing your existing application or creating a new one.
Your verification can also get cancelled if you repeatedly violate the policies of the Zhihu community and if the documentation you used is discovered to be forged or exaggerated.
Check related FAQs directly on Zhihu (in Chinese).
Zhihu Business Account Verification