Competencies
Your Future Starts Here. This is the commitment we make to students as they join us at UT Austin for a first-class education that provides innovative, hands-on learning opportunities and a strong foundation in critical thinking. The Texas Career Engagement team aims to help your students complement their education with career and professional skills, and to help them articulate these skills and strengths into a career readiness story.
Career Readiness
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conducted extensive research among employers and convened a task force of college career services and staffing professionals resulting in a nationally-recognized collection of core competencies that can be used by students to succinctly articulate their career readiness for the internship and job markets.
Likewise, career readiness provides university faculty and staff a shared language to help students directly connect their curricular work and the skills needed for future success, and to articulate these connections in resumes/CVs and interviews when competing for employment and advanced degree opportunities.
The eight competencies identified by NACE as critical components to employability across industries are: career and self-development, communication, critical thinking, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and technology. Explore these competencies on the NACE career readiness page.
Faculty Resources for Integrating Career Readiness
Promote Career Resources
Embed one or more of the following links within your syllabi or Canvas sites:
Career Readiness and Competencies Overview
Texas Career Engagement provides all UT Austin students access to career resources, programming, and services to help you make decisions about your future, including:
- Career Counseling and Coaching
- Major & Career Exploration
- Internship & Job Search Tools
- Experiential Learning & Career Experiences
- Employer Connections
Visit your college’s career center for major-specific resources and career events.
All UT Austin students and alumni have access to HireUTexas, the University’s all-inclusive job and internship board and events calendar.
Connect Coursework to Competencies
Articulate how coursework will be valuable to success after graduation.
This course is designed to equip you with skills that are necessary for understanding the types of quantitative arguments you will regularly encounter in your adult and professional life.
Add a syllabus section to highlight which career competencies will be addressed in the course.
This course is part of a career competency initiative that helps students better understand the connection between the academic work they will do for the class and professional skills valued by employers. The top career competencies this course helps to develop are:
- Communication clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization.
- Critical Thinking identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.
Incorporate classroom discussions on the relationship between academic topics and career readiness. Examples of discussion prompts include:
- How can this theory be applied in a professional work environment?
- Which industries use this method of data collection?
- Do you believe this software will have longevity in the workforce?
- What type of internships would help you further develop this skill?
Facilitate Skill Reflections
Include a skills reflection component to assignments, for example:
In group projects, ask students to write about the strengths and burdens they contributed to their team and what they could do differently in future group projects to be better team members.
For research projects, ask students how they evaluated information they collected and how their view of a topic shifted as they read more perspectives or looked at more data.
Create Career Development Assignments
Texas Career Engagement and UT Austin offer various online resources that can be incorporated into your course.
Assign one or more LinkedIn Learning videos related to course content, resilience, or career competencies. Some examples include:
- Data Science Foundations: Fundamentals
- Public Speaking Foundations
- Developing Cross-Cultural Intelligence
Require students to complete a mock interview using Big Interview, which allows faculty to customize questions for their students. Contact Texas Career Engagement to create an account and learn more.
Have students complete a career assessment to help identify personal skills, interests, and career opportunities.
Take the Work Interest Assessment found in Focus2 Career Assessments. After completing the assessment, list your top 3 results and provide a brief summary answering: Do my results match my current internship/career path? Are there other types of careers I want to explore?
Create your Focus2 Career account here by clicking the “Register” option and using the access code: longhorns.
Encourage Networking Participation
Allow students to attend career fairs and events that may occur during your class time.
Promote events, panel discussions, research symposiums, or any career-related events occurring within your department or college.
Texas Career Engagement Calendar of Events
Visit your college’s career center for major-specific resources and career events.
Provide information on student organizations or professional associations related to academic areas or career interests.
HornsLink allows you to find student organizations related to your professional and personal interests. Get involved to network with your peers and industry professionals.
To learn more about career readiness and strategies for course integration, please contact Texas Career Engagement at careerengagement@austin.utexas.edu.