Career-Ready Education
The Career Center aims to equip students with the career skills that will make them competitive in the future.
Today, employers want students with adaptable skills, digital knowledge, and soft skills. Graduates with these skills, talents, and strengths attract employers.
For this reason, the National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE) has created a list of competencies every student should know.
Career Readiness Competencies
Keep learning and growing to advance in your career. Understand your strengths and weaknesses, explore job opportunities, and connect with others.
Sample Behaviors
- Show an awareness of your strengths and areas for development.
- Identify areas for continual growth while pursuing and applying feedback.
- Develop plans and goals for one’s future career.
- Display curiosity; seek out opportunities to learn.
- Leverage relationships with people who can help one professionally.
- Participate in further education, training, or other events to support one’s career.
Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals.
Sample Behaviors
- Inspire, persuade, and motivate self and others under a shared vision.
- Seek out and leverage diverse resources and feedback from others to inform direction.
- Use innovative thinking to go beyond traditional methods.
- Serve as a role model to others by approaching tasks with confidence and a positive attitude.
- Motivate and inspire others by encouraging them and by building mutual trust.
- Manage, complete, and check projects.
Communicate well with people by sharing information, ideas, facts, and perspectives.
Sample Behaviors
- Understand the importance of demonstrating verbal, written, and non-verbal/body language abilities.
- Use active listening, persuasion, and influencing skills.
- Communicate in a clear and organized manner so that others can understand.
- Frame communication to diverse learning styles, individual communication abilities, and cultural differences.
- Ask appropriate questions for specific information from supervisors, specialists, and others.
- Inform relevant others when needing guidance with assigned tasks.
To succeed in different work environments, having good work habits and being mindful of your community and workplace is essential.
Sample Behaviors
- Act with integrity and accountability to self, others, and the organization.
- Maintain a positive personal brand in alignment with organizational and individual career values.
- Demonstrate dependability (e.g., report for work or meetings).
- Complete tasks to accomplish organizational goals.
- Always meet or exceed goals and expectations.
- Have an attention to detail, resulting in few, if any, errors in their work.
Recognize and address needs by understanding the situation and analyzing relevant information.
Sample Behaviors
- Make decisions and solve problems using sound, inclusive reasoning, and judgment.
- Gather and analyze information from diverse sources and individuals to understand a situation.
- Expect needs and focus on action steps.
- Interpret data with an awareness of personal biases that may impact outcomes.
- Communicate actions and rationale, recognizing stakeholders' diverse perspectives and lived experiences.
- Multi-task well in a fast-paced environment.
Work together with others to achieve common goals by appreciating different viewpoints and shared responsibilities.
Sample Behaviors
- Listen to others, taking time to understand and ask appropriate questions without interrupting.
- Manage conflict, interact with and respect diverse personalities, and meet ambiguity with resilience.
- Be accountable for individual and team responsibilities and deliverables.
- Use personal strengths, knowledge, and talents to complement those of others.
- Collaborate with others to achieve common goals.
- Build strong, positive working relationships with supervisor and team members/coworkers.
Treat people from different cultures with the right attitude, knowledge, and skills. Be against racism by challenging racist systems, structures, and policies.
Sample Behaviors
- Request feedback from many cultural perspectives to make inclusive and equity-minded decisions.
- Advocate for inclusion, fair practices, justice, and empowerment for marginalized communities.
- Seek global cross-cultural interactions and experiences that enhance understanding of people from different demographics.
- Keep an open mind to diverse ideas and new ways of thinking.
- Prove flexibility by adapting to diverse environments.
- Address systems of privilege that limit opportunities for members of marginalized communities.
Understand and use technology to increase efficiency, accomplish tasks, and achieve goals.
Sample Behaviors
- Navigate change and be open to learning new technologies.
- Use technology to improve efficiency and productivity of their work.
- Identify appropriate technology for completing specific tasks.
- Manage technology to integrate information to support relevant, effective, and timely decision-making.
- Adapt to new or unfamiliar technologies.
- Manipulate information, construct ideas, and use technology to achieve strategic goals.