ACT National Career Readiness Certificate/WorkKeys Tests
The ACT National Career Readiness Certificate is an industry-recognized, portable, research-based credential that certifies essential skills needed for workplace success.
This credential is used across all sectors of the economy and documents the following cognitive skills:
- Problem-solving.
- Critical thinking.
- Reading and using work-related text.
- Applying information from workplace documents to solve problems.
- Applying mathematical reasoning to work-related problems.
- Setting up and performing work-related mathematical calculations.
- Locating, synthesizing, and applying information that is presented graphically.
- Comparing, summarizing, and analyzing information presented in multiple related graphics
WorkKeys assessments measure real-world skills that employers believe are critical to job success. Test questions are based on situations in the everyday work world.
To find out more about specific careers and their skills requirements, check out the ACT job profiles database.
Certificate Levels
Individuals can earn four levels of certifications by taking the three WorkKeys® assessments.
- Bronze Level – Signifies an individual has scored at least a Level 3 on each of the three assessments and has the necessary skills for 16% of the jobs in the WorkKeys Job Pro database.
- Silver Level – Signifies an individual has scored at least a Level 4 on each of the three assessments and has the necessary skills for 67% of the jobs on the WorkKeys Job Pro database.
- Gold Level – Signifies an individual has scored at least a Level 5 on each of the three assessments and has the necessary skills for 93% of the jobs on the WorkKeys Job Pro database.
- Platinum Level – Signifies an individual has scored at least a Level 6 on each of the three assessments and has the necessary skills for 99% of the jobs on the WorkKeys Job Pro database.
Virtual Job Shadow
VirtualJobShadow.com offers engaging career exploration resources and tools all on one user-friendly website. Assessments Interest assessments provide the user with more insight into themselves and help to guide the career exploration process. Obtain these results first and then explore the possibilities! Once logged in on VirtualJobShadow.com, users can access Assessments under the Tools heading, found in the black navigation bar at the top right side of the screen. The Assessments section features four assessments designed to help guide career exploration. The three assessment used in Career Center are:
- Career Clusters Interest Survey (CCIS) matches users’ interests to their top career clusters, based on activities they most enjoy.
- O*Net Interest Profiler (O*Net IP) helps users discover their interests and learn how they relate to future career choices.
- O*Net Work Importance Locator (O*Net WIL) helps users identify their work values and decide what is important to them in a job.
Each assessment has detailed instructions and offers the ability to save the user’s progress if they do not finish in one sitting. Once an assessment has been completed and submitted, clicking on the results hyperlink in blue will take the user to the matching careers in Career Central. Career Central Start exploring specific careers by choosing from a range of industries and fields, using the filter tabs or search box to narrow down your career search. Career Central allows users to find an extensive collection of careers and job shadowing videos, which include closed captioning and transcripts in both English and Spanish. Users can begin exploring career profiles, including the Q&A segments that accompany the main video. After watching each video, they may also read through the Career Description, Required Education, Earnings, and Future Outlook information on the left-hand side of the profile screen. Users may take Pop Quizzes and write Career Journals, which are located just above the video.
Login Instructions
Staff and students of the Northwest Tech Campus – Alva may access their user accounts at https://www.virtualjobshadow.com/login/AC5760/users/?. Students will use the same username and password as used for WorkKeys assessments. Usernames (except for a few students) will be your FirstnameLastname. Your password will be a six digit number representing your birthdate such as 020503 if you were born on February 5, 2003. If you need assistance with your username and password, please let Mrs. Frascht know. Usernames and passwords should be recorded in the Passwords Google Sheet I have provided in the Google Drive folder I have Shared with you for the Career Center.
Assignment
Complete the Getting Started with Virtual Job Shadow (2021) lesson with includes each of the three assessments listed below. Notice you will NOT complete the Career Clusters Interest Survey EZ version.
- Career Clusters Interest Survey (CCIS) matches users’ interests to their top career clusters, based on activities they most enjoy.
- O*Net Interest Profiler (O*Net IP) helps users discover their interests and learn how they relate to future career choices.
- O*Net Work Importance Locator (O*Net WIL) helps users identify their work values and decide what is important to them in a job.
Download the results of the assessments and the completed assignment. Save each of the results in a folder with your name in the CC2021 folder on the desktop of your computer. After saving the assessment results on the hard drive, upload the results to the Shared Google Folder I created for you.