Best Practice Self-Assessments for Job Search & Reemployment Planning

Job seekers have more skills than they may realize. A new online tool from the U.S. Department of Labor lets job hunters rate themselves on 40 workplace skills and then learn their best-fit career options.

Called the “Skills Matcher,” the tool gives individuals immediate results to 

• Increase their skills awareness and skills language.
• Find careers that interest them and suit their skills.
• Explore careers they hadn’t considered.
• Plan their career and training paths.
• Learn the wages, education, and outlook for careers that match their skills.
• Target a job search.
• Explain to employers how their skills match a job.
• Enhance a cover letter, resume, and online profile with skills language.

In the Skills Matcher, job seekers rate their level of each skill as beginner, basic, skilled, advanced, and expert. It includes examples of each skill to help with the ranking.

The Skills Matcher compares a person’s skill rating to the knowledge, skills, and abilities of more than 900 O*NET occupations. Try out the Skills Matcher, available on the CareerOneStop site.

Help your American Job Centers work collaboratively across programs with “Customer Flow Scenarios” published by the U.S. Department of Labor. The scenarios describe five stories of diverse customers--and the guidance AJC staff can offer them under WIOA. The scenarios depict an integrated, personalized intake process. 

This process assists each customer based on his or her needs and shows staff making knowledgeable referrals to partner programs. Customers shown in the scenarios include an individual with a work-related injury, an employer, a farmworker, a person who has been incarcerated, and a single mother transitioning from public assistance to employment. 

Learn more and see the Customer Flow Scenarios.

Need more tools to deliver customized job-search guidance? Request samples of best-practice Layoff-to-Employment Action Planner (LEAP) and Your Employment Search (YES) from Career Action Resources.

Just as each individual needs certain skills to hold a job, he or she also needs effective skills to find a suitable job. In addition, each person has different job-search strengths and weaknesses, so learning how to effectively job search requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach.. Also, each job seeker different goals, so it is important for him or her to create a unique job-hunt game plan. Sound like an overwhelming process, especially when you serve so many people who are unemployed and looking for work?

That’s where Your Employment Search (YES), a concise and proven guide by Career Action Resources, can help.

YES fills the need for a concise, effective tool that

• Gauges job seekers’ job-hunting skills
• Covers productive job-hunting techniques and behaviors
• Helps job seekers create a customized, proactive strategy to optimize their job search

By using a combination of self-assessment and proven job-search guidance, YES opens job seekers’ eyes to the best methods for getting hired, plus fortifies job hunters to expect rejection, resist demoralization, and keep going. 

YES distills effective job-search techniques into a quick, easy-to-understand, and actionable format that personally engages each job seeker. YES features a six-panel foldout design, plus a micro-perforated panel (marked by red dots) for job seekers to summarize their customized employment search strategy for handy reference.

If individuals are just beginning the job hunt, YES improves job-search readiness by putting them on a path of effective action. If they have been job searching for a period of time, feel their search is stalled, are nearing the end of unemployment insurance benefits, or are among the long-term unemployed, YES helps individuals look at their employment search in a fresh, more active way. Individuals also gain insights into identifying jobs that suit who they are and what they need and want from work.

It is important to note that YES is not a test but rather a tool to help job seekers assess their job-search methods and create a strategy. Although YES is self-guiding and self-scoring and is easy for job seekers to interpret, it can help workforce development specialists, career counselors, job coaches, and other employment professionals to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a job seeker and to determine the areas in which a job seeker needs the most help. YES can provide insight into why individuals are not getting interviews or are not getting hired.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) recognizes that job seekers are individuals who may require tailored help that fits their situation and goals. YES guides individuals in assessing themselves and in determining the areas in which they require the most assistance and guidance. Armed with this information, a staff member and job seeker can more easily develop a plan tailored to the participant’s needs, concerns, barriers, and goals. 

Career and workforce development staff can request a complimentary YES review sample from Career Action Resources, LLC.