As fellow members of the Canadian Association for Career Educators and Employers, I think it’s fair to say that most of us spend a fair amount of time supporting the professional development of others. When it comes to our own professional development, however, it can be difficult to know where to focus. As 2019 comes to an end, CACEE is inviting you to pause, take a step back, and reflect on your own development goals.

The CACEE Competency Framework Benchmarking Activity is now live on the CACEE website to support members in assessing and growing your professional competencies.

There are several competency frameworks you can use to support your professional growth. So why use this one? The CACEE Competency Framework is quickly becoming a go-to resource for our members and we are working to align all of CACEE’s professional development offerings to this framework. This means that the CACEE certificate modules and our regional and national conference programs will soon all be closely tied to this framework. We think it makes sense that your professional development be guided by the framework too!

Benchmarking

Get started by taking some time to get familiar with the Framework. The competencies are divided into three levels: Building, Enhancing and Mastering. Read through the levels and take a quick stab at assessing your level. It’s entirely possible that you can be building one competency and mastering several others (or vice versa!)

Evaluating 

Now that you’ve gained some knowledge of the competencies and thought about your level, think about how you might validate your competency level:

• How do you know you know?
• Do you have a professional story you can tell that evidences your competency level?
• How might you evidence this competency on your resume?
• Can you develop accomplishment statements to evidence your level?

If you can answer the above questions, you’ve done a great job in your assessment! You now know where your strengths lie and, using the framework, can identify ways to take your professional growth to the next level.

Action Planning

Use the framework to help you to focus your professional development activities. Think about what skills, knowledge or attitudes you can develop to take your competency to the next level and develop a professional development action plan to help you get there.

Not sure where to focus? Link your action plan to your job description or sit down with your team members to talk about areas of focus and strategies for increasing competency. Your manager may have some time to support this process as well.

Next Steps? Put your knowledge into action and get started! Seek out activities, projects and educational opportunities to help you build your CACEE Competencies.

HINT: Enrolling in the Career Educator Certificate program and attending the 2020 National Conference in Ottawa are both excellent ways to support your continued professional development!

To learn more visit the CACEE Website.