The rush to short courses and use of micro-credentials prompted by responses to the pandemic has greatly accelerated a trend already underway. However, few studies have examined the impact of short courses or micro-credentials on skills or employment outcomes, and this hasty move draws attention to major problems in the ways in which higher education credentials - macro and micro - are designed and assessed. Micro-credentials cannot be simply added into the mix. If assessment of current course units does not enable a determination that learning outcomes have been met, how will anyone know if the mixture of micro-credentials and normal course units adds up to meeting the requirement for a qualification when the learning outcomes of all parts cannot be assured? If existing course units do not assure learning outcomes then they cannot become micro-credentials because they do not meet the minimum requirements of adequacy. The increasingly common repackaging of existing units into micro-credentials must be regarded with suspicion. This article provides four suggestions on what can be done about problems posed by the use of micro-credentials.