Within the Assess Plus project, further research into the findings of skills accreditation across Europe is ongoing. One such activity in this research phase is to identify best practices with regard to skills accreditation initiatives or activities – particularly from a POV of digital innovation and support.

One such National Activity for same, identified by INQS is Career Portal (), which we can share a brief description of below:

https://careersportal.ie provides an online self-assessment tool designed to help users identify relevant career paths and/ or education courses (https://careersportal.ie/members/auth/files/members_welcome.php). This process involves a 3-stage set of tasks, designed to first audit the individual according to Career Sectors, Interest Profiler, Personality, Career Skills. This allows the individual to identify broad career areas of interest (and to access information on same), to view and respond to a series of online hypothetical situations and simulations and identify preferences (e.g. “would you prefer to Build something with wood or metal or Sort out your books or music so they are easy to find?”) an online, to undertake a personality test (similar to a myers-briggs approach) and to access information about “Careers skills” When the user has completed these initial activities, they can then access a range of additional information and supports designed to help them identify opportunities for further study, to access profiles on different colleges and education institutes, to access a dynamically-populated list of jobs in demand, to get information about particular career profiles and job-paths, to access additional training resources on develop job- seeking skills, etc. Further to this, a free eight page Career Report – containing job and course matching information can be generated and printed from the website. An up-to- date range of career events such as career fairs, etc. can also be accessed.

The results of the above are used to recommend a series of potential career or education options to the user. This is identified in a section called “My Career Sector(s)” where broad categories of occupation are listed (e.g. “Biological, Chemical & Pharmaceutical Science Construction” or “Architecture & Property”). They may also access a range of additional options related to information on different career sectors, on job-seeking skills, on further education study, etc. A key advantage in the services made available within the platform also relate to the potential ability to access a full set of information on different careers sectors and job roles (within an Irish context) and to access a list of available job offerings, fully equipping the user with what they require to begin this process.

For more on the Assess Plus project, please see http://www.assess-plus.eu