A young life lived on-line does not automatically ensure the job-skills graduates need.
Past evaluations of digital literacy appear to have failed to define whether graduates have online competencies necessary to the world of work.
Margarietha de Villiers Scheepers and colleagues at University of the Sunshine Coast have developed measures of the self-management skills that graduates will need for a lifetime of work. The result are early-stage ways to assess Digital Career Competencies
What they did: Using measures created with alumni and tested with 202 students, their results demonstrate DCC are assessable on three dimensions, “social connectedness,” career management and “crowdworking,” (generating work via open platforms).
Why this matters: Despite the shift to hybrid work environments, workplace competencies are still assessed.
What they found: Developing professional networks while studying is key to digital career competencies and is done by:
- using digital platforms to network and build a professional identity
- in-person networking
- career management (CVs and interview prep)
- crowdworking; “unprompted actions to gather resources.”
The takeout: “These measures provide a parsimonious base for assessing DCC and facilitating the development of these competencies in higher education.”
“As universities are facing increasing scrutiny globally to demonstrate employability, further understanding of dynamic constructs like DCC could help institutions design initiatives to better support and enhance overarching employability outcomes.”
