Career Management Skills in a lifelong learning society

Career Management Skills (CMS) are defined as a set of competences (knowledge, skills, attitudes) that enable citizens at any age or stage of development to manage their learning and work life paths (ELGPN, Guidelines for Policies and Systems Development for Lifelong Guidance – A reference framework for the EU and for the Commission, Jyväskylä, 2015).
 
CMSs represent a main challenge for all education and employment systems in Europe: all people need to be able to manage own career in life and labour market transitions, with frequent and rapid changes in technology and in the organisation of work itself. Changes will require a continuous adaptation of one's roles, tasks and professional skills.
 
This concept brings a shift of the traditional paradigms, moving from the idea of choosing a career to the process of lifelong career learning and lifelong career building.
 
The concept of CMS is, in fact, foundational within the European lifelong guidance strategy and the role of CMS was presented in the Council Resolution of 21 November 2008 where they were introduced as one of the four priority areas as well as the main objective of lifelong guidance programs (Council of the European Union, Draft 2008 joint progress report of the Council and the Commission on the implementation of the Education & Training 2021 work programme "Delivering lifelong learning for knowledge, creativity and innovation", 31 January 2008, 5723/08 ).

According to the EU Resolution 2008, CMS are a crucial priority in European Policy to empower new generation for smart transitions, for social mobility and for career development in the complex and global society. The concept of CMS is also pivotal for the re-design and improvement of European Lifelong Guidance policies.
 
Despite the importance of CMS, a shared and tested framework at a European level is still missing. A CMS methodological and pedagogical framework is needed for an effective design of all interventions, at any level and for different target groups of beneficiaries.
 
A shared CMS framework is also strategic for the evaluation and benchmarking of services as it will allow the collection of comparable evidence based also on learning outcomes and career improvement indicators.
 
Considering these premises, we know there are national and international projects that have already developed and tested shared Career Management Skills frameworks and methods, aimed at supporting career services and at enabling them to respond to this growing demand of support from citizens.
 
The European project Careers Around Me co-designed a new proposal of CMS framework started from main desk research and good national practices. The framework proposed presents a set of career management skills grouped into 6 learning areas. The comprehensive list of skills refers to the skills citizens need to master to be successful and self-reliant in planning and managing their careers in a rapidly changing, knowledge-driven world of the 21st century.
 
This CMS framework presents an approach to career development which is underpinned by a learning paradigm to provide individuals with the ability to actively manage their careers.
 
Along with other existing CMS frameworks, this proposal thus represents an attempt to describe a set of learning outcomes which can be focused upon at different times during a life journey and to detail a developmental process through which these outcomes can be acquired.

The 6 career management skills areas are:
 

1. Discovering myself.
2. Developing my strengths.
3. Exploring new horizons.
4. Building relationships.
5. Monitoring and reflecting on my experience.
6. Planning my career.

Career learning areas are divided into 3 levels which describe the level of activation required by the individual. The rationale of this innovative grouping is related to the aim of helping career guidance and career education providers in setting up a learning pathway for individuals. The proposed grouping works in a hierarchical manner where, in the first level, 4 learning areas are the ground knowledge for career management. In the second and third levels, learning areas require a more active engagement of the individual in the management of their career.
 

• The first foundational level is defined as Expanding career knowledge and includes key knowledge and skills which are fundamental for expanding knowledge and awareness in relation to self, the individual's strengths, relationships, and the world with special focus on the labour market.

 

• The second level is defined as Monitoring and Reflecting and includes the development of skills to support active engagement and monitoring of the individual's career development. This level refers to continuous activation of the individual throughout the learning and career journey with a special focus on the importance of continuous monitoring and self-assessment of personal resources and achievements.

 

• The third level is defined as Planning my Career and provides the skills needed to address the main steps and changes of the individual's career. This level specifically refers to the ability to plan, design and make decision on the individual's career pathway considering the complexity and the uncertainty of the contemporary society. This level becomes particularly salient during transition windows and requires a certain profile and skills set of the career practitioner involved.

Through this framework, CMS can be improved starting since very early life stages and there are several good practices in Europe like JOBLAND and PRIME.