Employability

The world changes – and so do careers.

25 years In 25 years’ time, it’s thought that half of today’s professions will have disappeared. This means that we’re all travelling into the unknown. But it will be an adventure of discovery, full of unexpected, stimulating and exciting challenges. Of course, technology will be the key to this transformation, but it will still be a secondary player. The real protagonists will be people and they will need the right skills to act effectively.

What is the skills gap?

The skills gap is all about the difference between the skills possessed by those who are looking for employment and the skills that employers actually require. This gap is getting bigger as the technological progress gathers pace. It’s a challenge which is present right across the world and it has direct effects on the economy: it can increase unemployment and reduce business productivity.

How can we close this gap?

As an educational institution, CEU UCH is part of the solution. This University has pioneered the targeted development and certification of specific transferable skills and competences, and we can ensure these skills are easily recognizable by employers.

Employers are looking for people with the skills you possess – we can bring you together.

We can certify your competencies using Open Badge technology

When selecting potential employees, business associates or investment partners, decision-makers need to know whether the people under consideration have the right skills and competencies. Having a degree is the first filter, but after that, the specific competencies that you possess can make you stand out and even make you the ideal candidate.

To streamline the selection process, recruitment portals like LinkedIn enable employers to search for candidates by competencies.

Discover the microcredentials >>

CEU Microcredentials: skills that stand out

Students at the CEU Cardenal Herrera University know that, for us, their education is about more than just the classroom. Our undergraduates and postgraduates can develop, certify and showcase key in-demand competencies, including 21st-century skills, making their skills profile highly attractive to employers.

This is possible because we have created a microcredential ecosystem, using verifiable digital badges to certify student skills. The microcredentials awarded can be easily shared on professional networks such as LinkedIn.

These microcredentials help our students stand out in today’s competitive job market and position themselves better to employers, as the skills that they possess are more visibly and credibly presented.

What is a microcredential?

A microcredential certifies the acquisition of a specific competency demonstrated during a learning activity or experience.

Each microcredential details:

the competency acquired
the evidence for the competency
the issuing institution

At CEU UCH, our microcredentials are issued in the form of verifiable digital badges, which can be shared securely online.

For companies, these microcredentials are a reliable and transparent source of information: in a single click, employers can easily view the corresponding competency and the evidence for its possession.

Benefits for students

Personalized learning
Higher motivation
Step-by-step, measurable progress

Encouragement of self-directed learning (SDL)
A more competitive and comprehensive CV

How can I get CEU microcredentials?

By participating in learning experiences offered by the University.

The evolution of the CEU Microcredential Ecosystem

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- Certificate of Competencies in PDF format

Types of CEU Microcredentials

Our microcredentials form part of an ecosystem that aims to encompass all the skills and competencies that can be acquired during undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

1. 21st Century Skills

Organized into six broad areas of transferable skills:

Ethical commitment
Research
Instrumental competencies
Internationalization
Soft skills
Being Professional (Employability)

2. Learning pathways

Some complex competencies are recognized after the completion of learning pathways, which integrate several microcredentials. These learning pathways are structured to reflect progressive skill development.

For example: Oral Communication learning pathway for Law and Political Science students at the Alfara Campus.

More information about the types of Microcredentials >>

Technology for issuing microcredentials

At the CEU Cardenal Herrera University, we issue microcredentials in the form of verifiable digital badges, using an internationally recognized standard. This allows students to demonstrate their skills clearly, securely and easily on professional social networks.

We issue badges using the Open Badges 3.0 technological standard via the Parchment Digital Badges platform. In this way, each badge includes information on the competency acquired and the evidence for this, and its authenticity and international validity is guaranteed. Most of our microcredentials are issued simultaneously in Spanish, English, and French to reflect their use in international professional environments.

These badges are also aligned with competencies from the ESCO (European Skills, Competencies, Qualifications and Occupations) system, allowing them to be linked to real job offers that require those same skills. In this way, our microcredentials facilitate student integration into the job market from the very beginning of their studies.

Peer-issued badges: student-to-student recognition

Our ecosystem also includes peer-issued badges: these are microcredentials that students themselves can award to their peers for activity within university clubs.

Benefits of peer-issued badges

They recognise initiatives, projects and achievements within university life.
They encourage active participation and teamwork.
They highlight skills that are highly valued by companies, such as leadership, communication, and teamwork.

How are they awarded?

They are awarded via the Campus Life Clubs, which establish the earning criteria each academic year.
Our microcredentials are machine-readable and can be easily verified online.

Postgraduate microcredentials

The CEU Cardenal Herrera University offers a wide range of well-established postgraduate programmes geared towards professional development and lifelong learning. These programmes are both academically rigorous and career-focused, promoting the development of advanced skills to meet the needs of the 21st-century job market.

In line with the latest trends in higher education, the University has developed microcredentials that facilitate the acquisition and digital certification of key skills. CEU microcredentials are structured within an ecosystem that ensures quality and compliance with the principles of transparency, authenticity, portability and recognition.

Postgraduate microcredentials:

Microcredentials applicable to all postgraduate programmes.
These microcredentials concern transferable skills and are available to all students on master's degrees, diplomas and specialization programmes: global citizenship, transformative skills, etc.
Microcredentials specific to certain
We currently offer microcredentials for the Clinical Trials, Secondary Education, Bilingual Education, and Architecture postgraduate programmes.

If you are a current student, go to the Intranet to find out more or ask GPT CEU.

Work Academy: PwC and CEU are re-writing the rules for in-service training

Imagine you've been successful in a recruitment process at one of the biggest professional services companies in the world. New job – it's time to celebrate. Maybe you go out with a few friends, or you take your family out to dinner. But does this mean your learning journey is over? Absolutely not! In fact, the learning process has only just begun – in fact, it’s about to get even more intense.

What is Work Academy?

How can you learn a profession? How do you learn to become a consultant, an auditor, or a tax expert? You have a degree, sure, but how can you keep on learning in the workplace and develop your career?

Work Academy aims to provide the answer. This pioneering project in Europe is the product of a collaboration between the leading professional services company PwC and CEU. This innovative scheme enables professionals to certify what they learn while doing their everyday jobs: PwC's teams of professionals can now obtain postgraduate qualifications from the CEU Cardenal Herrera University while working. This forward-looking initiative is a new way of doing things and a recognition of the fact that when we work, we also learn. This is why PwC has teamed up with CEU to offer its professionals a structured framework within which to develop and improve their skills. Right now, PwC is the only company doing this, and CEU is essential to its strategy.

The skills and competencies the professionals develop are certified with microcredentials, the qualifications of tomorrow, using cutting-edge Open Badges technology. In this way, the company's employees can receive badges to certify the training, experience and skills they acquire. These badges can be stacked into two university diplomas and ultimately a lifelong learning master's degree awarded by the CEU Cardenal Herrera University.

The Work Academy initiative will see round 4500 PwC staff gain university qualifications in this way over the next four years, enhancing their career prospects.

How does it work?

Hard work and outstanding professionalism is essential, of course, but PwC’s professionals also benefit from the fact that a certification structure has been put in place and time is set aside during the working day for training. They can gain a master's degree in 18 different specialist areas, such as financial and non-financial auditing, governance, risk, sustainability and compliance, business consulting, and strategic consulting.

Key characteristics

At PwC and CEU, what does it mean to lead the way?

At PwC, leading the way means doing things that others have not done yet.
At CEU, leading the way means daring to do what others dare not.

The desire to lead the way is what has brought PwC and CEU together. We share a vision of how professionals can develop their skills today to become tomorrow's leaders. Change is inevitable, yet many people are scared of it. Not us.

The vision we share means that PwC can now call on the first staff development system using stackable microcredentials which can lead to more traditional university qualifications. The desire to innovate in this way shows how highly PwC values the professionals who deliver its services.

The vision we share means that CEU is now the first university to certify professional staff training at a leading multinational company such as PwC.

More information Press release