About the Career Management Skills Catalogue

 

The aim of this Career Management Skills Catalogue is to serve as a reference point for individuals and career guidance practitioners for the most essential career competencies which individuals will need to successfully navigate their life and careers in the turbulent era of the fourth industrial revolution.  The structure and features of the Career Skills Catalogue is informed by a research on national and EU level and by previous development projects funded by different EU programmes.

The Catalogue is jointly developed by the partners of the Career Skills Project.   

 

Career Management Skills List

 

The Council Recommendation on key competences for lifelong learning (2018) outlines the set of eight key competences necessary to ensure personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment. In this new framework personal, social and learning to learn competence is the “ability to reflect upon oneself, effectively manage time and information, work with others in a constructive way, remain resilient and manage one's own learning and career”. This includes the ability to identify one's capacities and to focus, deal with complexity, critically reflect and make decisions. The European Lifelong Guidance Policy Nework (2015) defines Career Management Skills (CMS) as “a range of competences which provide structured ways for individuals and groups to gather, analyse, synthesise and organise self, educational and occupational information, as well as the skills to make and implement decisions and transitions.”

• Self-awareness - building realistic self-image and healthy self-esteem, mindfulness, reflectivity;
• Labour market awareness - information about future job trends, future jobs and the skills they require;
• Employability - job search strategies, career networking and self-marketing skills, job skills;
• Career planning - decision making, goal setting, developing a career vision, organization skills;
• Resilience - strength to cope with uncertainty and stress; flexibility and openness to change, career transition skills (change management), work-life integration
• Problem solving - and critical thinking
• Creativity - innovation, inspiration and in career;
• Self-employment skills - sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit;
• Collaboration - teamwork, multicultural awareness, tolerance; handling job-related conflicts
• Curiosity and inquisitiveness - effective learning strategies, continuing self-development;
• Communication and customer orientation - and customer orientation
• Leadership - organization, assertiveness and negotiation skills, etc.

 

Career Skills Framework

 

The catalogue describes each skill and explains its importance for individuals’ career life, how it is developed and demonstrated. Different levels of the proficiency of each competence include a structured explanation of the knowledge, skills and attitude involved.  The frameworks follows the model of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages - Self-assessment grid, used in Europass[1] with 3 levels: A (basic), B (advanced) and C (proficient).

 

The framework refers to EQF levels, so that career guidance, education and training providers consider improving their approach in the perspective of the learning outcomes for the individuals. The catalogue serves as a guide for career professionals about the expected learning outcomes, delivered through their services. 

 

Online Assessment Tool

 

The interactive online assessment tool helps users to identify their level of proficiency of each career management competence and the need to further upgrade them. The assessment tool can be used autonomously and/or with career guidance practitioners. It consist of 12 parts, related to each skill, which can be taken one by one.

 

After applying the tool, each user receives personalized report with identified level of competence for the respective skill, as well as suggestions how to improve their CMS and will be referred to different useful national resources and on a later stage – to the career management skills MOOC, which will be ready in the second year of the project.

 

Origins of the Career Skills Catalogue

 

There is already an established evidence base on the development of Career Management Skills as a competence of its own right. The acquisition of CMS is one of the intended outcomes for the individuals within the career guidance process. In 2015, The European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN) explored the possibility of developing a common CMS framework across European countries, but given the different curricular traditions and guidance approaches amongst the Member States, the Network encouraged the member countries to develop their own national CMS frameworks through structured co-operation. The ELGPN identified a previous body of EU-funded work on the development and implementation of competency frameworks, which have acted as a catalyst in developing this Catalogue alongside with different iterations of “Blueprint” frameworks. The Career Skills Catalogue and the Assesment tool is a combination of the following national CMS frameworks or EU-funded projects:

 

 

Bacigalupo, M., Kampylis, P., Punie, Y., Van den Brande, G. (2016). EntreComp: The Entrepreneur-ship Competence Framework. Luxembourg: Publication Office of the European Union; EUR 27939 EN; doi:10.2791/593884

 

Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung. (2016) ProfilPass. https://www.profilpass-international.eu/

 

Career Development Institute. (2015). Framework for careers, employability and enterprise education 7-19. https://www.thecdi.net/write/BP385-CDI_Framework-web.pdf

 

Careers New Zealand. (2016). Secondary Career Development Benchmarks. Careers New Zealand. https://www.careers.govt.nz/assets/Benchmarks/Career-Development-Benchmarks-Secondary.pdf

 

Carretero, S.; Vuorikari, R. and Punie, Y. (2017). DigComp 2.1: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with eight proficiency levels and examples of use, EUR 28558 EN, doi:10.2760/38842

 

Council of the European Union (2018). Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. Council of the European Union. 22 May 2018. Brussels.https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018H0604(01)&rid=7

 

Department of Education. (2014) Australian Blueprint for Career Development . https://www.education.gov.au/australian-blueprint-career-development

 

ELGPN [European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network]. (2015). Designing and Implementing Policies Related to Career Management Skills (CMS). ELGPN Tools No. 4. Saarijärvi, Finland

 

Europass. (2020). Europass Digital competence. https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/resources/digital-competences

 

CREAR [Career, Resilience, Education, Agency and Readiness]. (2020). CREAR - Service and Support Need Indicator. Resilience and Future Belief (RETU) project. https://crear.fi/start

 

NCGE [National Centre for Guidance in Education]. (2017). NCGE: A Whole School Guidance Framework. National Centre for Guidance in Education. https://www.ncge.ie/school-guidance-handbook/ncge-whole-school-guidance-framework

 

Neary, S., Dodd, V. and Hooley, T. (2015). Understanding Career Management Skills: Findings From the First Phase of the CMS Leader Project. Derby: International Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby.

 

Sala, A., Punie, Y., Garkov, V. & Cabrera, M. (2020) LifeComp: The European Framework for Personal, Social and Learning to Learn Key Competence. Luxembourg: Publications of the European Union.

 

Skills Development Scotland. (2012). Career Management Skills Framework for Scotland. https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/34749/career_management_skills_framework_scotland.pdf

 

Unwind. (2020). Career Management Resource Tool-kit. https://unwind.work/en/learning-portal/career-management-resource-tool-kit/#

 

[1] https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/sites/default/files/cefr-en.pdf