At Mac we use a competencies model to audit our curriculum where we list the things we want students to be competent at when they graduate and then see if these are actually taught and reinforced in the curriculum. I just found a much more thorough list of competencies from the Cultural Human Resources Council. There is a short checklist that would be great for students to check themselves against and then there is a longer disucssion of the competencies in the Profile document. Here is the summary list of professional competencies (which the profile goes into much more detail on):
A. RESEARCH ñ EXPLORE IDEAS
B. IDENTIFY PROJECT OBJECTIVES
C. PROPOSE A PROJECT
D. DESIGN A PROJECT
E. DEVELOP A PROJECT (PRODUCE)
F. MANAGE A PROJECT
G. INTERACT WITH CLIENT
H. PROMOTE PROJECTS OR SERVICES
I. OPERATE TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT
J. SHARE KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION
The CHRC has a number of other interesting documents at their Research page. For example there is a New Media Training Gap Analysis which I think I actually contributed to, and Face of the Future which talks about HR issues, especially the low pay for high education. The Executive Summary makes the point that one of the challenges employers face in recruitment is, “Finding workers with cross-over skills, particularly a combination of artistic or technical and ‘soft’ skills (required particularly in new media).”