As part of the European Commission’s initiatives for people with a migrant background, recent improvements have been made to the EU Skills Profile Tool for Third Country Nationals to improve users’ experience.

The multilingual Tool is intended for use by organisations offering assistance to third country nationals. It helps to map the skills, qualifications and work experiences of the third country nationals and to give them personalised advice on further steps, e.g. a referral to recognition of diplomas, skills validation, further training or employment support services.

Based on user feedback, the following changes have been made to the Tool:

• More pictograms have been added to the questionnaire of the Tool to simplify use for the less literate. The pictograms are developed by Bertelsmann Stiftung for their competence cards. 
• The configuration feature of the Tool has been expanded with an option to hide questions. It was already possible to hide certain sections of the questionnaire that might be considered irrelevant in specific settings. With this hiding feature, users can create their own tailor-made questionnaire:

In the following weeks, the Open Source code of the tool will be updated on Joinup, reflecting all recent changes and allowing organisations to implement the tool in their services or extend it according to their needs.  

Summary of the European Commission’s initiatives for people with a migrant background

On 1 July, the European Commission presented several proposals as an important contribution to the post-COVID Recovery Plan for Europe. The potential of the skills of people with a migrant background is highlighted in some of these initiatives: 

• The Commission Communication on a European Skills Agenda calls for a more strategic approach to legal mi­gration, oriented towards better attracting and keeping talent. The EU Skills Agenda supports legally residing migrants to showcase their skills and qualifications and announces that the EU Skills Profile Tool for Third Country Nationals will be linked to the new Europass.

• The Commission has proposed a Council Recommendation on a Bridge to Jobs – reinforcing the Youth Guarantee, with the aim of reaching out to a wider target group, including young people with a migrant background, and of becoming more inclusive.

Further information about the Tool and how to use it are available on the European Commission’s website.