How to Get Started with Competence Development

Use this simple step-by-step guide for career guidance practitioners from all countries to get started with competance development using My Competence and The Guidance Room.

Get started with My Competence and The Guidance Room

A simple step-by-step guide for international career guidance practitioners to reflect on your practice and support your professional growth as a career practitioner.

Career guidance practitioners work in many different systems, sectors and contexts. Even so, many professional questions are shared: What am I already good at? Where do I want to grow? How can I reflect on my own practice in a structured way? The Quality Lab for Career Guidance was developed in Norway to support exactly this kind of professional reflection and competence development. 

This short guide will help you get started with two resources in the Quality Lab: My Competence and The Guidance Room. Used together, they can support both individual reflection and professional learning with colleagues. 

Get to know the resources

My Competence

My Competence is a self-assessment tool for career guidance practitioners. It is designed to help you reflect on your own competence, identify strengths and areas for development, and gain inspiration for continuous professional development. The tool is based on the seven competence areas in the Norwegian competence standards for career guidance. 

The Guidance Room

The Guidance Room is a practice-based learning resource built around short case films and reflection questions. It helps practitioners reflect on real-life inspired guidance situations and explore how different competence areas are used in practice. The international edition includes English subtitles, background information and reflection questions adapted for use across countries. 


Why start here?

The Quality Lab was developed to help practitioners work systematically with quality, reflection and professional growth. In the international edition, the aim is also to make these resources useful beyond Norway, so that practitioners in different countries can explore, adapt and apply them in their own context. 

You do not need to understand the Norwegian system in detail to benefit from these resources. What matters is your willingness to reflect on practice, explore competence, and engage in professional dialogue. 

A simple way to get started

1

Step 1: Start with My Competence

2

Step 2: Reflect on your results

3

Step 3: Go from self-assessment to practice

4

Step 4: Explore with colleagues

1

Step 1: Start with My Competence

 Start with My Competence

Begin by opening My Competence and exploring the seven competence areas. These include guidance, ethics, career-related theories and methods, career learning, education and work, target groups and context, and development/networking/system-level work. 

Choose one competence area to start with. Do not try to do everything at once. The goal is not to “score highly”, but to reflect honestly on your current practice and identify where you want to grow. 

Ask yourself:

  • Which parts of this competence area feel most familiar to me? 
  • Which statements or descriptions challenge me or make me curious? 
  • What do I want to understand better or develop further? 

My Competence

My Competence is a self-assessment tool for career guidance practitioners.

2

Step 2: Reflect on your results

Step 2: Reflect on your results

When you have completed one area, take time to reflect on what you noticed. The purpose of the tool is to create a basis for reflection and professional development, either on your own or together with others. The tool can be used individually, with colleagues, in networks, or as a starting point for conversations about competence development. 

Useful reflection prompts:

  • What do I already do well in this area? 
  • Where do I see room for development? 
  • What kind of support, learning activity or discussion could help me move forward? 
3

Step 3: Go from self-assessment to practice

Step 3: Go from self-assessment to practice

After reflecting on one competence area in My Competence, use The Guidance Room to see how professional judgement, methods and competence come alive in practice. 

The cases in The Guidance Room are not presented as “best practice”, but as a starting point for interpretation, reflection and discussion. 

This is a useful next step because self-assessment becomes stronger when it is connected to concrete practice situations. 

A simple sequence:

  1. Choose one competence area in My Competence. 
  2. Reflect on your own strengths and learning needs. 
  3. Watch one case in The Guidance Room that interests you.
  4. Ask: How is this competence area visible in the case?
  5. Compare the practitioner’s approach with your own way of working. 

The Guidance Room

Watch one case in The Guidance Room.
4

Step 4: Explore with colleagues

Explore with colleagues

Both My Competence and The Guidance Room can be used on your own, but they may become even more valuable when used together with colleagues, in teams, in networks or in training settings. 

If you are using the resources with colleagues, you might:

  • choose one competence area together and compare reflections from My Competence
  • watch one case in The Guidance Room and discuss different interpretations
  • identify one concrete change or learning point to test in practice

Want to explore a different topic?

Learn more about how the the four models in the theme Ethics together describe what ethical practice in career guidance is, what it requires, and how it can be developed in practice.

Expore