Competency and learning development for Job Brokers in the EU

This project aims to develop, design and validate the newly-emerging occupational profile of the ‘Job Broker’ in Europe.The project identifies the new contexts (both in terms of current European labour market conditions and in the administration and management of Public Employment Services) that are impacting upon, and therefore changing, the traditional roles of employment counsellor or job matching services – with corresponding challenges for how this occupational profile is to be developed, trained for and accredited across Europe.The project therefore sets out a work programme and a series of deliverables (‘intellectual outputs’) that will meet this challenge.It builds on a previous Leonardo ‘small scale partnership’ which undertook some initial research and exchange of information, to explore the extent to which this new role is emerging in the countries that took part in the project. Some of those partners are continuing into this full Erasmus+ proposal, given the relevance of the project – but we are also seeking new partners with specific stakeholding in the field of public employment services.The project will look at the emerging role of the Job Broker – in particular in the context of the new ‘payment by results’ agenda which is becoming increasingly common in the world of learning and skills and particularly employability training. Following a base line study into the existence of the Job Broker role across a number of EU partners, this project will seek to indentify a set of key competencies which will then be tracked across to the EQF and NQF standards to identify if there is any scope for the development of a competency based framework. The project will also aim to develop a number of needs analysis ‘models’ and ‘tools’ which the successful Job Broker can incorporate into their work with employers and employees to ensure successful sustained employment outcomes.