The Bulgarian Industrial Association – Union of the Bulgarian Business (BIA) has been working since the beginning of 2018 on expanding MyCompetence, a system established in 2009-14 by the BIA – as part of a set of measures and initiatives of the Bulgarian State – in employability, human resources and VET.

It comprises sector competence models and regional competence assessment centres, content – competence profiles of job positions in 20 sectors – as well as ICT tools for developing and assessing competences. A national catalogue of more than 900 competences, distributed in 16 clusters and mapped in the Europass areas, was developed. The competence profile structure of each job was updated to match national and European standards to the fullest extent, making future integration with EURES and ESCO possible. The Employment Agency uses the system’s resources to create skills profiles for the unemployed. So far 9 000 unemployed people have benefited from related services.

Changes in the requirements of the competence profiles of jobs in each of the 20 sectors – developed and validated during 2010-15 – were analysed to assess their validity. Job competence profiles were updated using the information provided by the National Competence Assessment Centre.

The system has more than 16 000 users who have passed over 19 000 self-assessment tests and more than 5 000 e-training programmes in managerial and social skills, emotional intelligence, specific professional skills, team potential and personality characteristics.

In 2018, sectoral skills councils were created in five economic sectors: construction, energy, mining, cosmetics, and automotive, as part of the enlargement process. Experts from these sectors chose key job positions for which competence profiles will be developed using the Delphi method. MyCompetence’s interface is planned to be streamlined for mobile users.

The project is expected to finish by the end of 2019.

Read more

National competence assessment system MyCompetence