Career Readiness
Career Readiness Competencies
In 2015, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) launched a Career Readiness Initiative in 2015 to create “a common vocabulary by which to discuss needs and expectations, and a basic set of competencies upon which a successful career is launched.” Essentially, the NACE gathered career service professionals from the business sector (think college recruiters) and college career centers to put forth eight core competencies that define career readiness for today’s workforce. These competencies were revised in 2017 and then again in 2020 to reflect the evolving job market.
Here are the Eight NACE Career Readiness Competencies:
Career & Self-Development – Proactively learning, setting career goals, and seeking mentorship.
Communication – Clearly expressing ideas in writing, speech, and digital formats.
Critical Thinking – Analyzing information, making informed decisions, and solving problems.
Equity & Inclusion – Engaging with diverse perspectives and advocating for inclusive practices.
Leadership – Motivating and inspiring others while working toward common goals.
Professionalism – Demonstrating responsibility, reliability, and ethical behavior.
Teamwork – Collaborating effectively and managing conflict constructively.
Technology – Adapting to new tools and using technology efficiently in work settings.
These competencies—such as communication, critical thinking, teamwork, and professionalism—go beyond academic knowledge. They focus on the process of learning, problem-solving, and collaborating, skills that are crucial for workplace success. While technical skills can often be learned on the job, process skills (soft skills)—the ability to think critically, work with others, and adapt—are much harder to teach later in life. That’s why they are at the heart of the NACE Career Readiness Competencies.
Prefabricated hen-houses & College Readiness
When I was in 9th grade, my English teacher completely changed how I approached critical thinking. She used to return my papers with pencil markups covering the margins, repeatedly writing “PFHH” anytime I used big words to sound fancy. PFHH references her favorite quote from George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language:”
“prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.’
One day, after receiving my third paper with a B and PFHH everywhere in the margins, I pulled her aside and asked her to sit down with me and show me what I’m doing wrong. I asked her to show me how to avoid prefabricated henhouses. She taught me to stop hiding behind big words and instead think deeply and critically abut the text I was analyzing. She showed me how to ask myself certain questions and helped me see that these questions kickstarted my critical analysis process. She also showed me how to use quotes more convincingly. She transformed my writing process by teaching me how to question, analyze, and express my ideas on paper. That’s what real learning looks like. And, it’s not lost on me that I had to initiate that process. I leaned in because I wanted to learn how to write my papers better. She didn’t ask me to meet because a B was a solid grade.
Rigor is Not Readiness
Over the past twenty years, "college readiness" has become the ultimate buzzword, a catch-all phrase for anything related to high school rigor. Schools and parents alike have bought into the misinformed belief that AP Classes, SAT/ACT prep, and Extracurriculars are what it takes to get into college. High schools have doubled down on rigorous academics and an unintended consequence has emerged: more students opt into the rigorous classes. But parents and teens still expect solid grades. Cue the grade inflation. Cue extra pressure from parents. This pressure means that more schools teach to the test, measuring success through GPAs and standardized exam scores rather than evaluating how well students actually think, write, and problem-solve.
The harder the courses, the better prepared students will be for college… right? Nope! We may have great GPAs and test scores but we also have teens who are more disengaged from learning and more stressed than ever before. When college prep is about outcomes and the motions of success, your teen is likely collecting more stress than skills. Additionally, keeping busy with rigorous courses does NOT equal college readiness.
The result? Complications in college. More and more students head into college with strong grades and poor study skills, poor time management skills, poor self-advocacy skills. And that impacts performance. This is why many colleges have begun to shift their valuing of AP courses and standardized test scores because they’ve realized that passing an AP class does not always equate to college-level academic proficiency. Many colleges accept AP credits towards elective units but not towards course exemptions. Why? Because college success requires a different skill set than cramming for an exam. (And, it’s also inherently unfair to students who do not have the financial means for expensive test prep tutors.) Scoring high on the SAT is simply not the primary measure of strong academic skills. In fact, it’s a measure of how well you’ve been taught to take the test!
Passing a test and truly understanding a subject at a deep, analytical level are related but different skill sets. Memory and recall is not the same as critical thinking. Regurgitating facts is not the same as knowing how to ask the right questions, analyze information, and apply knowledge to new situations. Writing a paper is not the same as writing a good paper. And, let’s be honest: now more than ever, in a world of fake new and old news being recycled before people take a moment to check the dates, do we need critical thinking skills!
As parents, we all want to set our teens up for success. The problem is that we assume that academic success and a packed schedule translates into deep learning and personal growth. But, it’s not because college prep is not a prefabricated hen-house - a sequence of courses that everyone should take or a list of clubs, sports, and leadership positions. Stacking extracurriculars is not meaningful personal development. Taking AP classes isn’t always as meaningful as concurrent enrollment in a community college class that your teen is excited about! It courage - and insight - and time - to pursue meaningful opportunities, to create space for real learning—the kind that prepares students not just for college, but for life.
Want to learn more with me?
Join me in my upcoming workshop - Raising a Joyful Teen: A Free, Virtual Workshop for Parents of 8th, 9th, and 10th graders who Believe that Wellness is a Fundamental Part of Success.
