What are Career Catalysts?
Career Catalysts represent a set of skills, knowledge, and attitudes/attributes necessary for a broad range of job functions. These foundational competencies are linked to successful performance and are desirable regardless of an individual’s specific area of expertise or role.
Many employers have a competency framework in place for their organization for various roles. A 2015 study by Deloitte showed that 89% of ‘best-in-class organizations’ (organizations where staff and management achieve highly) had core competencies defined for all roles.
Demonstrating Sheridan Career Catalysts
Competency-based learning is an approach to education that focuses on the learner’s demonstration of desired learning outcomes as central to the learning process. Career Catalysts can be demonstrated in a variety of ways including: Certificates, letters of references, personal reflections, research, blogs, and samples of products developed (i.e. writing samples, videos, photographs). These learning artifacts provide evidence of learning and growth over time. Used thoughtfully, learning artifacts can reflect both your learning journey and your demonstration of competence. Sheridan has developed the SheridanWorks Career Catalyst Portfolio to allow Sheridan graduates to demonstrate their catalyst development throughout their time at Sheridan.
Why Reflect on Career Catalysts?
Employers often integrate competency-based questions when interviewing candidates. These competency-based and situational questions help employers understand how you may behave in a particular scenario. Some scenario-based interview questions may be asked in several parts, for example an interviewer may ask: “How are your time-management skills?”. They could go on to say: “Great, can you give me an example of a time where you needed to manage multiple projects that were running at once?”
The Career Catalyst modules have been designed to help you take the time to reflect on your abilities and to help you articulate the foundational skills, knowledge, and attitudes/attributes you need to embark upon your career. Through these modules, you will explore these competencies, identify some of your personal strengths and opportunities for growth, and develop a personal learning plan.
