Digital Vocational Career Guidance

There is a lot of talk in society about middle-aged professionals' need for career transition. Description of education programs can often be comprehended abstractly – common language (nomenclature and concept recognition) in job advertisements and education curriculum is still largely missing. There are questions which arise: what does it mean to work having one or a particular occupation? Which education programs and courses do consider the individual’s competencies, acquired through work experience, and developed further? How can the individual make his skills visible to secure future employment and career growth?

By connecting datasets from education programs to job advertisements and labour market trends, these questions can be easier to answer. Increased access to skills development equips the individual with tools to meet and tackle the challenges during work life.

Background

The background of this project can be seen as a result of several ongoing assignments and pilot projects within the a joint government assignment to develop a coherent data infrastructure for skills supply and lifelong learning (N2021/01915 in Swedish). All of them are aiming at equipping the individual to tackle future challenges and strengthening his position in the fast-paced and rapidly changing labour market. Examples of these assignments include the development of a coherent data infrastructure for skills supply and lifelong learning, the Semantic projects for a common nomenclature, and the reinforcement of data infrastructure for lifelong learning through qualification databases and national databases for publicly funded education programs.

Open and Sustainable Approach, Considering Various Perspectives

The work is characterized by an open and sustainable approach. By linking labour market and education data, with the help of JobTech Development's open APIs and datasets (the Swedish Public Employment Service), the SUSA Hub (the Swedish National Agency for Education’s Database), the qualifications database (the Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education), the project aims at providing insights on how the data infrastructure within the area of skills supply and lifelong learning should evolve.

The project emphasized the importance of considering the individual's privacy and integrity and minimize personal data collection. The goal has been to develop a concept validation to verify that various datasets can be interconnected, evaluate the quality of the used data, and demonstrate how datasets and APIs within the labour and education market can be used by various stakeholders such as the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Swedish National Agency for Education, study and vocational guidance counselors, job security councils, job matching, and education providers.

The project is in line with the European Skills Agenda, especially in line with the Pact for Skills and "strengthening skills for better careers" (redeployment support). Semantic interoperability is central and linked to progressing further with the European data spaces for skills and the new Interoperable Europe Act. Furthermore, by mapping JobTech Taxonomy to the ESCO standard, the project aims for demonstrating scalability outside of Sweden.

In practice, kompetensmatchning.se will serve as a practical testbed and demonstration environment. The code will be open and published on Gitlab, and the project pursues to inspire other stakeholders to build career guidance and job-matching services.

Key Takeaways and Technical Insights

The project also delivers tangible results through a concept validation (Proof of Concept (PoC) for digital guidance. The deliverables include a clickable prototype, a public mural (digital whiteboard) covering the design work, insights derived from interviews and user tests, and recommendations for further development. On the technical side, this includes provided forum feedback to data source owners, compiled knowledge on the Swedish Public Employment Service’s Gitlab (Arbetsförmedlingen's Gitlab), and prototype implementation in React with open-source code.

During the Proof of Concept (PoC) development, the data infrastructures for guidance from various government agencies have been examined from the standpoint of a third-party developer. This involves creating value through gaining new insights. The focus is placed on establishing common models for competences, qualifications, and experiences to enhance interoperability. The project has utilized data sources aligned with EU-standardized models, while also considering the EU perspective.

In conclusion, there is remaining work related to management and development. The UX (user experience) work is considered completed and serves as a valuable resource for upcoming projects. The technical implementation has been examined as a tool for a potential third-party developer rather than being tailored for a production-ready product. The project envisions leveraging AI/language models to enhance the connection between individual evaluations and existing data sources. Key takeaways include a growing demand for digital guidance tools, the lack of a national standard for such tools, and a desire for digital initiatives to guide and assist newcomers. Technical insights highlight the necessity for enhanced information regarding competences and qualifications, along with the importance of standardized technology and good data quality.

Sustainability perspectives are taken into account in all operational parts of the project, as well as concerning the ethical usage of collected data.

The project contributes to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets: 4, 4.4, 8, 8.6, 16.10, 17.6, 17.16