Career and Vocational Skills
Definition: All students develop employment and occupational skills, including paid work experience, through direct instruction and/or added support as necessary.
Employability skills are general skills necessary for success in the workplace at all levels and in all types of jobs. These skills go by different names — soft skills, workforce readiness skills, career readiness skills — but they all refer to the same set of core skills employers want.
Career & technical education
- Infographic about how participation in CTE can help improve readiness and success in college and careers for students with disabilities. (PDF, 1 page, 2018)
- Making Good on the Promise: Improving Equity and Access to Quality CTE Programs for Students with Disabilities (PDF, 9 pages, 2020), developed by the National Center for Learning Disabilities and Advance CTE, outlines five actions state CTE leaders can take to ensure that secondary and postsecondary students with disabilities have access to the supports needed to thrive in high-quality CTE programs
- Considering CTE? is a guidebook for students considering applying for admission to a NH Career and Technical (CTE) program. It provides good talking points about prerequisite skills, outcomes, and next steps to prepare for postsecondary for each content area. (PDF, 44 pages, 2015)
- NH Career Academy is a program for students entering their senior year of high school. They can get their high school diploma and complete an associate’s degree or certificate program in two years.
- New Hampshire Career and Technical Education website
- CTE Programs in New Hampshire
Work-based learning
- Work-based learning in NH, a page on this site.
- How to Keep a Job: The Young Adult’s Guide (PDF, 2 pages, 2013) from the Northeast Massachusetts Community of Practice, UMass Medical School.
- Job Shadowing Training is an entertaining 5-minute student-produced video of tips for a successful job shadow.
- Volunteering: Youth in Action! – Getting Involved in Volunteering, is a tip sheet for youth from the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability (NCWD).
Employability and soft skills
- Habits of Work: an Employment Soft Skills Curriculum was developed in New Hampshire. See especially the Keeping A Job units.
- WorkReady NH is is a practical, tuition-free program to meet the needs of job seekers and career builders by providing training in specific skills that employers are looking for in their current and future employees. Available online to anyone age 16 and up through the Community College System of NH.
- Skills to Pay the Bills — Mastering Soft Skills for Workplace Success is a curriculum developed by the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). It focuses on teaching workforce readiness skills to youth ages 14 to 21 in both in-school and out-of-school environments. The program is modular, with hands-on activities that focus on six skill areas: communication, enthusiasm and attitude, teamwork, networking, problem solving and critical thinking, and professionalism.
- Getting Started: Executive Function Skills at Work (PDF, 8 pages, 2016) is a step-by-step guide to tools and strategies for executive function skills used in the work place such as time management, motivation, and focus and attention. From the Center on Technology and Disability.
- Soft skill articles, lists and graphics
- A big list of soft skills in alphabetical order
- Toolkit for workplace soft skills, from MindTools. Three hundred of the 1000+ tools are free.
- Northcentral Technical College in Wisconsin has an engaging series of soft skill overviews in infographic form.
- Examples of rubrics and and evaluation forms for evaluating soft skills. Level of detail varies a lot:
- Employability and Soft Skills Manual (PDF, 29 pages, 2018) from the Pennsylvania Academic and Career/Technical Training Alliance (PACCT). It identifies 27 key competencies under five domains as a minimum set of skills to be attained by every student in preparation for successful employment.
- Soft Skills Assessment Rubric and Tools from Feather River College in California. Includes supervisor and student sections (PDF, 5 pages)
- The Employability Skills Framework is an interactive site to explore and support teaching nine key skills, organized in three broad categories: applied knowledge, effective relationships, and workplace skills. It was developed as part of the Support for States Employability Standards in CTE and Adult Education project, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education. There’s a professional learning module to introduce the framework and show how to integrate employability skills into lesson plans.
Job-seeking skills
- What are my needs, rights, and responsibilities at work?, from Transition Tennesee, is a series of online lessons to learn about specific ways your needs, rights, and responsibilities change as you leave high school and enter the workplace. Covers disclosure and communication as well. Includes nifty vocabulary flip decks.
- Top 20 Job Interview Questions and Best Answers: suggestions for how to approach questions, and sample answers
- Good graphic showing business casual dress, from thebalancecareers.com
- The Balance Careers has lots of short articles, images and infographics about job hunting and job keeping, suitable for high school and college students.
- My Next Move career exploration site
- Apprenticeships explained, a page on this site
- Novoresume offers free resume-building templates. Check out their Elon Musk sample!
- Teaching Networking Skills: Paving a Way to Jobs and Careers is an 11-unit curriculum covering skills such as identifying your own network, approaching people, talking about your skills and interests, learning about what employers look for, exploring careers and job options, and exhibiting good business etiquette. From the New England Rehabilitation Continuing Education Program (NERCEP). PDF, 236 pages, 2008
Updated 2/28/22
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