Skill taxonomies signal four value-add opportunities

1/07/2025

Dr Ann Villiers is an advocate for accuracy of skills language and a Life Member of the Career Development Association Australia (CDAA). Her career roles included educator, speaker, writer, author, and career coach specialising in the public sector.

With a growing focus on skills-based recruitment, it’s worth exploring recent skills commentary. Understanding the complexities and short-falls embedded in skills discourse enables career practitioners to identify their value-add to counter DIY options.

In 2024 Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) invited submissions to explore the value of developing a National Skills Taxonomy (NST). Such a taxonomy would possibly provide a more ‘cohesive skills landscape’ and has a vision of ‘better connecting education and employment pathways’.

Given there is no agreed definition of skills and any new taxonomy is not imminent, the JSA discussion paper, consultation summary, and written submissions are worth reading to understand:

• The complexities of the current ‘skills ecosystem’.
• The range of existing taxonomies, their various purposes and language variability.
• The numerous challenges affecting the usability of these taxonomies.

The skills ecosystem metaphor

Eco-metaphors are a popular framing device in public discourse, implying that everything is connected. Pickett and Cadenasso (2002) discuss the rich connotations of the ecosystem metaphor and wonder if ‘it means anything more than a wide variety of stakeholders are involved and possibly connected’.

While the idea of a skills ecosystem has been around since 1999, the metaphor is uncontested in the JSA documents, implying perhaps that widespread collaboration and co-creation are typical and fruitful amongst the five main stakeholder groups spanning a dozen taxonomy uses. It is worth considering to what extent employers’ views on skill shortages dominate this ecosystem, while individual students and workers are left to navigate the system, acquire credentials and constantly upskill.

Four value-add opportunities

Based on these understandings of existing taxonomies I can think of four value-add opportunities for career practitioners. These value-adds are critical in the face of dubious online career advice, generic AI-generated material, and unqualified career advisers.

Skills Landscape Navigator

The relevance of any taxonomy is, in part, dependent on context, such as university, school, or industry sector. Knowing the range of taxonomies, their applications and pitfalls enables practitioners to be an informed navigator of the skills landscape.

Submissions point to several significant limitations including those of the ANZSCO categorisation of occupations and skill levels (now replaced by OSCA). Christopher Ainsworth (ID46), an emergency management professional, argues that many emergency, crisis and disaster management roles are simply considered ‘administrative’.

The Primary Industry Skills Council (ID26) questions the assumption that occupational skills can be allotted a skill level that covers the bulk of skills used. They write that: ‘… we struggle to fit various horticulture technical roles into a single technician classification… Using a catch-all title does not reflect the actual job role that may be performed.’

Career practitioners’ understanding of these limitations, plus our knowledge of the relationship between skills and education, the actual skill levels required for a role, and the interrelationships between skills, mean we can help clients make accurate, current, realistic choices and decisions.

DEI Defender

The consultation summary recognises the issue of embedded biases and assumptions that can ‘confuse, diminish or preference some skills over others’. Several submissions asked for skills linked to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) to be included in the taxonomy. Stakeholders highlighted the need for several additional principles to be incorporated into the NST, one of which was Equity and Inclusion.

Given the well-established case for the benefits of DEI, and the inclusion of Diversity and Inclusion as a core competency of our professional standards, career practitioners can add value by championing social justice and defending DEI principles and practice with clients and employers. In addition, when jobs ask for an understanding of, and/or skills related to DEI, we can provide sound, informed advice and guidance.

Skills Contextualiser

Submissions raised questions about the NST’s level of granularity and the importance of context when identifying skills, particularly communication and interpersonal skills. This is critically relevant to work in the care and service economies, as well as advising students and working with transitioning adults.

Junor and Hampson (ID55) unpack service economy skills, disputing their undifferentiated ‘generic’, low-skilled ANZSCO category, the lack of granularity, the over-emphasis on individual rather than collaborative performance, and the separation of skills from knowledge.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) (ID22) argued that: ‘Communication skills are and should be considered differently depending on job and context. A health care professional needs different communications skills from a real estate agent and a nursing lecturer or educator will need different communication skills from a nurse working in a mental health clinic. A nurse or midwife must have highly developed communication skills, but the nuances of this skill might be different depending upon their role, place of work, the people they work with, and the people to whom they provide care.’

Despite multiple submissions (mine included - ID24) explaining the inadequacies of the term ‘soft’ skills, JSA chose to include this term to represent a thematic group under social and interactional skills. Also included in this group are interpersonal, cultural competency, and human skills. Communication is mentioned in all four groupings. How these four groupings can, in real situations, be distinguished from each other needs to be challenged. While JSA states that these groupings are not a basis for grouping skills within the NST, they do reflect the state of confused thinking about critical human skills. Career practitioners can add significant value by correctly naming and contextualising human skills. Contextualising means teasing out the nuances of how relationships are analysed and skills applied in a situation, what knowledge and expertise are used, what risks are considered, what adjustments are made, and what outcomes are achieved. It also means using accurate skill language, avoiding disparaging skill terms like ‘soft’/’hard’, and teasing out the interrelatedness of diverse human skills.

Integrity Enthusiast

It is unclear whether Jobs and Skills Australia fully appreciates the complexities of career development work. Career planning is included as an end use of the NST and is placed at the lower end of a risk/complexity scale.

But career development work is more than information, skills and pathways as identified in the discussion paper. I advocated (ID24) for including career management skills and ethical decision making in the NST, neither of which is mentioned in the consultation summary.

As Integrity Enthusiasts, we uphold and demonstrate high ethical standards by adhering to our Code of Ethics and a core competency in Ethical Practice. Career practitioners also comply with guidelines and competencies concerning technology and information, with a strong focus recently on Artificial Intelligence (AI). While important, practitioners need more than skill in using generative AI. The World Economic Forum now talks about the ‘Intelligent Age’, and suggests employees at all levels may need what they call the ‘new skills triad’ - carbon intelligence, virtual intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI).

Plenty of jobs, including in the tech industry, require ethical decision making and knowledge of ethical practice. In addition to our personal practice, we can provide sound advice to clients about their own personal and professional practice, an area so far neglected in ethical frameworks.

AI ethics is broader than mere functionality (technical accuracy, efficiency, accountability etc.), requiring a more nuanced analysis of socio-technical systems. Reset Tech Australia’s thought piece on the regulation of AI risks is worth reading. The authors remind us that generative AI is not a truth machine nor a research tool, but rather a probability machine.

The IAEVG 2024 Communiqué on AI advocates the importance of digital equity and places a priority on client rights and socially just practices. They suggest practitioners need to remain vigilant in how AI operates and have access to specialised AI literacy training. We need to see our professional bodies advocating for digital equity. They also need to provide professional development that supports Integrity Enthusiasts in helping clients use AI tools strategically, and sifting information to find richer, deeper, and specifically relevant nuggets, rather than generic mush.

In conclusion, regardless of whether the National Skills Taxonomy ever sees the light of day, career practitioners’ knowledge of skills taxonomies’ limitations means we must continue to advocate for and demonstrate the value we provide to Australians across their working lives, including in these four value-add roles.