Fall 2026 Update: Building and Measuring Employability Investment
Fall 2026 Update: Building and Measuring Employability Investment
Since March 2026, one question has guided our work:
How do individuals, the institutions that prepare them, and the organizations that hire them invest in employability, and how can those investments be made visible?
Across our research, programs, competitions, and partnerships, we have continued exploring this question from multiple perspectives. We have worked with students, professionals, educators, employers, and researchers to better understand how people build career capital and how organizations can recognize and support those investments.
What follows is an overview of recent developments and the initiatives that will be published in greater detail over the coming weeks.
Employability Investment Updates
Employability Investment Lab
A prototype of the Employability Investment Lab is now available for free testing through November.
The Lab explores a practical challenge facing both individuals and organizations: many investments in employability remain invisible. Professional development, consulting projects, experiential learning, mentoring relationships, competitions, and self-directed skill building all contribute to career capital, yet these contributions are rarely measured in a meaningful way.
The Lab provides a framework for identifying, documenting, and evaluating employability investments, helping participants better understand how specific experiences contribute to long-term professional growth.
Making Your Consulting Case 2026-2027
The Making Your Consulting Case 2026-2027 Competition is now underway, with manuscripts due on January 10, 2027.
The competition encourages participants to transform real-world challenges, experiences, and observations into consulting cases that can be used for learning, strategic discussion, and professional development.
Beyond case writing, the initiative helps participants strengthen analytical thinking, communication skills, problem framing, and evidence-based decision-making. These capabilities remain highly valuable across consulting, entrepreneurship, management, and leadership roles.
Research on Skilled Immigrants
A study examining the positioning strategies of skilled immigrants from Ukraine and Belarus, conducted with colleagues from the Beroc Research Center, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of East-West Business.
The research explores how skilled immigrants communicate their expertise, professional identity, and value proposition when entering new labor markets. As global talent mobility continues to increase, understanding these positioning strategies becomes increasingly important for employers, policymakers, educators, and workforce development professionals.
The study also contributes to broader discussions on employability investment by examining how individuals leverage education, experience, networks, and professional credentials to create opportunities in unfamiliar environments.
CEEMAN Annual Conference
This year, I have been invited to participate in the 34th CEEMAN Annual Conference in Bucharest as an expert contributor on graduates’ employability investment and the future of work.
The conference provides an opportunity to engage with educators, institutional leaders, and industry experts who are exploring how higher education can better prepare students for rapidly evolving labor markets.
The discussion reflects a growing interest in not only what students learn, but also how educational institutions can help students recognize, communicate, and build the value of their employability investments.
Workshop for Educators
We will also be offering a free workshop designed for educators, coaches, and career development professionals interested in helping learners create stronger consulting cases.
The workshop will introduce practical methods for identifying case topics, structuring evidence, developing recommendations, and transforming real-world experiences into educational and professional assets.
Educators play a critical role in helping students recognize the value of their experiences, and case development provides one powerful pathway for making that learning visible.
Spring 2026 Highlights
Several initiatives from the spring directly informed the work described above.
March
We celebrated the winners of the 2026 Making Your Consulting Case Competition and organized the Case Pitch National Competition for finalists. Together, these events demonstrated how participants can transform ideas into compelling recommendations and communicate their insights to diverse audiences.
April
Twenty-three participants completed Crafting Your Personal Strategy, a program consisting of two intensive Saturday retreats focused on self-assessment, professional positioning, and career development. The program reinforced the importance of helping individuals connect their experiences and capabilities to future opportunities.
May
In Greece, we facilitated a project development workshop with women aged 55 and over, using focus-group methodologies to explore opportunities for learning, contribution, and engagement. The workshop highlighted the importance of employability and career capital across all stages of life, not only among students or early-career professionals.
June
The BE-EDGE Impact Consult-a-thon brought participants together to apply consulting approaches to real-world challenges and collaborate on actionable solutions. The event represented another step in connecting learning with practical application.
Connecting the Pieces: The ConsultPro Accelerator
While these initiatives may appear distinct, they are designed as components of a larger developmental pathway.
moves participants through a progression of experiences:
- Becoming a Case Consultant
- Making Your Consulting Case
- Case Pitch Competition
- Consult-a-thon
- Employability Investment Lab
Each step helps participants build and demonstrate new forms of career capital. Participants develop analytical skills, professional confidence, communication abilities, and practical experience while creating evidence of their growth. The Employability Investment Lab extends this pathway by providing a framework for understanding what each experience contributes and how those contributions can be recognized by employers, educational institutions, and participants themselves.
Looking Ahead
As organizations increasingly seek adaptable and capable talent, employability can no longer be viewed solely as an outcome. It must also be understood as an investment process involving individuals, educators, employers, and communities. The coming months will provide opportunities to share more detailed insights from these initiatives and continue the conversation around how employability investments are made visible and valued.
If you lead a career services office, an internship program, an innovation initiative, or a talent strategy team, and would like to explore a guest talk, a pilot of the ConsultPro Accelerator, or a trial of the Employability Investment Lab, we would be pleased to connect.
Contact: info@be-edge.com
