Welcome to the Career Planning & Training Tool! (in Beta)

As a Federal Employee, identifying the knowledge and experiences you need to advance your career can be challenging. Technological innovations continue to have a significant impact on career planning, roles and functions are automated or replaced, and new functions and jobs emerge. As we adjust to this new dynamic, a "knowledge economy" is creating a high demand for evolved skills and knowledge.

The CFO Council seeks to empower the Federal Financial Management workforce by launching this governmentwide Career Planning and Training Tool (CPTT). The CPTT is designed to simplify and enhance career planning while providing a conduit to vital training so that the workforce can develop the knowledge and skills to keep pace with evolving demands.

The CPTT is a proof of concept, leveraging a unique public/private framework to make centralized federal career planning, training, and development more nimble. As a prototype, its initial functionality is, by design, relatively basic. Greater federal employee interest, demand, and use today will likely precipitate the availability of additional funding to enhance CPTT features, functionality, and use in the future, including expanding availability to other sectors of the federal workforce.

Your participation in this pilot enables you to be part of the critical effort to enhance federal career planning and development. If you think this type of resource is needed and helpful, and want to see more services like this, demonstrate your support for this initiative by: (1) using the CPTT to purchase courses from partner vendors, (2) spreading the word among your colleagues and management, and 3) providing feedback on user experience and prospects for improvement. Please provide any feedback about the CPTT, including your thoughts about accessibility, use, functionality, and outreach, to: CFOC.Support@gsa.gov.

The purpose of this initial version of the CPTT is to provide an easy-to-use tool for basic career planning and facilitate access to relevant, timely, cost-effective training.

As a proof of concept, the tool is initially focused on the four most common job series in the financial management community. You can start using the tool by "Clicking" on the Job Series and GS Level filters. Career guidance in the form of virtual "cards" will display in the center of the screen and below.

Each virtual card will include information about a specifically relevant "competency", including a general description, relevant behaviors, and proficiency levels. The information provided on these cards reflects CFO Council consensus as to the necessary knowledge and skills relative to each GS-Level stage for each job series. The cards will also contain embedded pointers (links) to vendor courses, that will help you master aspects of each competency. Our partner vendors offer a wide array of course types and learning modalities, including on-line, on-site, hybrid, micro-learning, cohort style, and many more. These courses will be available for purchase via government purchase card (note - purchases on government purchase cards are limited to $10,000; most courses are significantly less than that). By "clicking" on the links to the vendor web pages, you will be able to explore their relevant and varied training offerings.

Overall, as many as 54 variations of competencies (cards) may be applicable to each job series. Within the CPTT, virtual card information "adjusts" automatically based on the filters selected. The GS-Level selected will influence the proficiency and behavioral career planning and training guidance information displayed on the cards. For example, the cards will show basic, fundamental information for those at or near the beginning of the career spectrum (e.g., selecting GS Levels 7-9), and more advanced, specialized information for more senior personnel (e.g., GS 14-15).

Federal employees can use the career planning tool in a variety of ways. After selecting the appropriate filters for their current job series and GS-level, employees can use the information shown on the cards as a checklist to evaluate their current knowledge needs. Employees can also use the tool to research recommended knowledge and skills to be proficient in other job series or GS levels (i.e., to support a lateral career shift or advancement). Supervisors can use the tool to help identify critical experience and training needs for subordinate development.

Once the user has identified a knowledge gap, they can use the embedded web links to view available external training options. When selecting a course to pursue, users should follow their respective agency's policy for purchasing training.

Click here to access for additional information about this initiative.

The initial version of the CPTT is modest in scope and budget, intended to demonstrate its value and relevance to federal leadership and the broader federal community. It is explicitly referenced in the current President's Management Agenda (PMA), and the CFOC Workforce Modernization Committee continues to work with the PMA Team to develop this critical initiative. In the coming year, we hope to evolve many of the CPTT's features, including updating competency cards and broadening the scope to include additional job series relevant to the Federal Financial Assistance workforce.

Please contact us at CFOC.Support@gsa.gov with any feedback, questions, or concerns.