Real skills assessment

A real skills assessment is a tool to assess experience

Those who have extensive experience in the labour market, but have not completed formal education, can benefit greatly from taking a real skills assessment. There is a great tradition for measuring the value of employees according to what studies they have completed but not as great a tradition for evaluating experience. Experience is very valuable, and a method of assessing it in a formal and credible way has been developed.

Ask yourself, for example, what your tasks at work are? What did you have to learn in order to be able to handle them? For most jobs, it’s a lot.

Real skills assessment focuses on an individual telling and demonstrating what they know in order to complete the tasks in their work. The evaluation is carried out with an education and career counsellor, in collaboration with specialists in the relevant profession. This is a process that begins with the individual completing a self-assessment, where the person answers a questionnaire and assesses how well they know and can handle the tasks of the job.

In order to be able to carry out a real skills assessment, there must be a curriculum or an approved skills analysis for that job. Lifelong learning centres such as Mímir, Austurbrú, Fræðslunet Suðurlands, Viska, MSS og Símenntunarmiðstöð Vesturlands perform real skills assessments.