SkillSurvey Announces New Career Readiness Report and Enhancements to Improve the Evaluation Process for College Student Work Experiences

BERWYN, Pa., Aug. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- SkillSurvey, the leading provider of cloud-based reference checking, career readiness and healthcare credentialing solutions announced its new Career Readiness Report. A first of its kind report, the Career Readiness Report provides academic programs, career services centers and student employment coordinators with career development tools and comprehensive data on their student's "career-ready" competency levels as compared to thousands of students and entry-level employees.

SkillSurvey launched The Career Readiness Project in Fall of 2018, the program's initial phases captured and analyzed student ratings from over 11,000 evaluators (supervisors/coworkers) at 2,700 companies on 28-30 work behaviors following an internship or student employment. Each of the participating institutions, called Founding Members, have leveraged SkillSurvey Career Readiness to consistently measure students' proficiency in the eight NACE competencies. The project was recently awarded the Best Competency-based Education Solution in the 2019 EdTech Breakthrough Awards for its work with the NACE Center for Career Development and Talent Acquisition and more than 100 participating institutions.

"SkillSurvey leveraged the science and research that is the foundation of our patented reference checking solution to develop an online student evaluation and report that aligns with the eight NACE competencies," said Randy Bitting, VP, Higher Education and Career Readiness Project Leader. "The newly developed Career Readiness Report is a personalized and visually engaging assessment that not only provides direct employer feedback on the competencies that employers are looking for, but also data that can be used to provide coaching recommendations and identify gaps in the student's self-awareness."

The SkillSurvey team of I/O Psychologists mapped behavioral items to the eight competencies defined by NACE member organizations to develop more than a dozen program-specific evaluations that are completed by students' supervisors and coworkers. These behavioral items have been proven to predict work outcomes for job candidates who were rated by job references, and later hired.

Additionally, students complete a self-assessment to rate the same behaviors as their evaluators and can see in the report how their own self-perception compares in each competency area. These in-depth insights are available in just a day or two and can include custom questions developed by the institution.

"As an original Founding Member of the Career Readiness Project, I witnessed how SkillSurvey adapted its HR solution over the last year to deliver an evaluation process that is now a core component of our immersive internship programs in Washington D.C." said Sherrod Williams Managing Director of Experiential Learning and Career Readiness at The Washington Center. "With the release of SkillSurvey's new Career Readiness Report, we're able to provide our interns feedback on their proficiency in the eight NACE competencies and share overall readiness data with our hundreds of academic partner institutions. This data will help guide our academic partners in conversations with students about areas of needed improvement and where they have obtained the skills necessary for success in the workplace when they return to campus."

Components of the Career Readiness Report include:

• The Career Readiness Level is indicated by one of five categories from Basic to Accomplished.
• The Career Readiness Index (CRI) is a data-based measure. Components of the CRI include ratings from evaluator(s) as well as correlating data from large samples of job candidates and newly hired employees. The CRI can range from 100-999, with higher values indicating a greater degree of career readiness.
• Individual feedback ratings from evaluators on individual behaviors and an overall rating for each of the eight NACE competency areas:
• Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
• Oral/Written Communications
• Teamwork/Collaboration
• Digital Technology
• Leadership
• Professionalism/Work Ethic
• Career Management
• Global/Intercultural Fluency
• Qualitative comments from evaluators – their own words on competencies students continue or start demonstrating.
• "How Do I Compare" section shows students the competencies deemed most essential to employers, how evaluators rated each area, and how the student rated themselves.
• Recommendations section - A great way to provide guidance to Students regarding potential courses or seminars they can take to improve their career readiness skills.

About SkillSurvey®

SkillSurvey applies the science of human behavior and smart technology to create a fuller picture of the people our customers engage. SkillSurvey solutions help employers save time and money, grow revenues, and bring the right employees onboard faster; and help students and higher education institutions gain insight about individual skills and career readiness. SkillSurvey Reference® is proven to reduce first-year turnover for cause and uncovers behavioral competence; SkillSurvey Source® offers new ways to build a pipeline of talent; SkillSurvey Credential OnDemand® helps healthcare organizations onboard skilled practitioners faster with digital peer referencing. We serve more than 2,000 companies, institutions & organizations. Our 11,000 users are connecting with hundreds of thousands of job candidates, references, students, evaluators and peers each month. Visit SkillSurvey at http://www.skillsurvey.com, and on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

SkillSurvey® is a registered trademark of SkillSurvey Inc. or its affiliates and registered in the U.S. and other countries.

© 2019 SkillSurvey Inc. and its affiliates.

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