Europass: the ultimate tool to create your CV and define your skills

How many different CV templates have you seen? Which one to use when applying for internships or jobs abroad? How to make sure the receiver understands your education and experience? Job seekers and students around Europe find it hard to come up with standard criteria when it comes to creating a Curriculum Vitae describing their qualifications and skills in an effective way, especially when applying for posts abroad.

The aim of the new Europass revision, promoted by the Culture and Employment Committees at the European Parliament, is to update and develop the existing Europass framework to achieve better transparency and comparability of qualifications acquired in formal, non-formal and informal settings across the Single Market by making them clearly understandable no matter where you are in Europe.

The new Europass includes web-based tools to document your experience as well as relevant available information on career guidance and job vacancies across Europe. With it, individuals can create an e-portfolio, and assess and document their skills, while at the same time, employers, educators, and lawmakers will be able to analyse data on the available skill of workers and job seekers to better align people’s qualifications with labour market demand. Best of all, the portal is free and available in 27 languages.

Understanding the qualifications, training results and skills of EU students, workers and job seekers is essential for cross-border mobility and employment. That is why Europass is:

• Helping citizens communicate their skills, qualifications and experience effectively when looking for a job or training and helping employers understand the skills and qualifications of the workforce through the Curriculum Vitae and Language Passport documents.
• Helping education and training authorities define and communicate the content of curricula through the Europass Mobility, Certificate Supplement and Diploma Supplement documents.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk, ALDE Shadow on Culture Committee said:

“The new common framework will make the Europass services more user friendly and will adapt them to the needs and expectations of both the users and the providers. Making the qualifications and competences of EU citizens transparent and interoperable within and between the Member States was highly important. Moreover, the accessibility of Europass for older people and persons with disabilities had to be improved in order to facilitate and encourage their participation in the labour market and in the society as a whole.”

MEP Martina Dlabajová, ALDE Shadow on Employment and Social Affairs Committee said:

“Europe’s prosperity depends on its greatest wealth — it is not mineral resources or modern technologies, but it is us, the Europeans who live and work here. In a rapidly changing global world it will be mainly skills which will become the engine of our competitiveness. The new Europass framework, adapted to new technologies and specific needs, will now help people make their skills and qualifications more visible and will support job mobility in Europe whose potential still remains untapped. Studying and working abroad boosts confidence and opens new horizons. And we need such Europeans!.”

While the framework has had some success, with more than 100 million CVs created online in the last 12 years, the update of the tools and creation of larger platform will boost its activity and attractiveness, especially among young people and address the needs of users facing changes in the education and training sectors and a rapidly shifting labour market. The renewed Europass was voted in favour yesterday in Plenary and will be available soon.

More info: david.vidal@europarl.europa.eu