Conservative institutions, in ordaining men, women and LGBT people as rabbis and cantors, provide an "integrated program" of academic learning and professional development, spanning five or six years.
In addition to knowledge and mastery of the study of Talmud and halakhah, Conservative semikhah also requires that its rabbinical students receive intensive training in Tanakh, classical biblical commentaries, biblical criticism, Midrash, Kabbalah and Hasidut, the historical development of Judaism from antiquity to modernity, Jewish ethics, the halakhic methodology of Conservative responsa, and classical and modern works of Jewish theology and philosophy.
Conservative programs include also synagogue administration, pastoral care, chaplaincy, non-profit management, and navigating the modern world in a Jewish context, and incorporate professional placement.
These programs build students' ability to "pasken", i.e. decide cases in Halacha, extending and relying on the textual and analytical skills built over the several prior years of Talmud study; this, in parallel, includes preparation of the specific sections of Shulchan Aruch required for certification-testing (always kashrut; often shabbat, niddah; sometimes avelut, marriage laws).
Institutions well known for their Rabbinic training include: Outside of these, it is common also for a student to prepare material independently, so as to be tested by a well known Rosh Yeshiva or posek, so called "private semicha"[6] (many from the late R. Zalman Nechemia Goldberg).