Employability Skills Assessment

The NACA® Employability Skills Assessment is an assessment tool designed to help students as they prepare for their next step after graduation – their careers. It was developed in 2016 in response to a survey published annually by the National Association for Colleges and Employers (NACE) in which employers identify the skills they are seeking from recent college graduates. NACE released a new set of career readiness competencies in 2021, and a group of NACA volunteers and staff used these as a foundation for updating the assessment.

This tool allows students to evaluate themselves on the skills employers seek, and it provides them with suggestions for mastering these skills through their involvement on campus and personal reflection. As an added option, this tool also allows advisors to evaluate students on these same skills so that the advisor evaluation and self-evaluation can be compared. The evaluation results include national averages so students can also compare their scores with those of their peers from around the country. The evaluation takes between 15 and 20 minutes to complete for both students and advisors.

The skills that the tool assesses are as follows:

Communication
Critical Thinking
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility
Teamwork
Leadership
Program & Project Management
Information Management
Personal Growth & Development

Advisors - Getting Started
Resources

Advisors - Getting Started

When you select the “Create New Student Profile” tab, you will enter the student name, advisor, email, and contact information for the student you are inviting to take the assessment.
You will be prompted to create student self-assessment and/or advisor assessments.
If you have selected to create a student self-assessment, the student will automatically receive an email invitation. You will find a copy of the test questions under the Resource tab on this page.
If you have chosen to complete an assessment of the student, you will be given access to the advisor assessment, which will allow you to answer from an advisor’s perspective each of the questions from the student assessment. You may choose whether you want the student to view your evaluation. If you select this option, your student will see your evaluation on the student report. If you do not, you may select the option at a later date if you so desire, which will give your student access to your evaluation.
You and the student taking the assessment may complete the assessment multiple times. For instance, you may wish to see pre- and post-results for a given period of time (e.g., a semester, an academic year, a six-week program, etc.).
You and the student will have access to a report that will provide results from the two most recent assessments completed, as well as a comparison of the student’s results to those of peers across the country who have also taken the assessment. Under the Resource tab on this page you will find a sample report of the results that will be available to you and the student.
For ideas on how you can utilize the NACA® Employability Skills Assessment, see “NACA NEXT: Assessing Career Skills Developed through Campus Activities,” an article from the 2016 Back-to-School edition of the Campus Activities Programming® magazine.

Resources

Note: The Employability Skills Assessment used to be called NACA Next.

Employability Skills Assessment

Test Questions - Employability Skills Assessment

Example Report - Employability Skills Assessment

NACA Employability Skills Assessment Tool Webinar

"NACA Employability Skills Assessment" webinar slides

"What's NEXT? Exploring the NACA® Navigating Employability and eXperience Tool" webinar