Integrating Competency Identification Digital Tools in Employment Counselling to Help Identify Competencies and Build a Relevant Career Plan for People With Disabilities

BACKGROUND: People with disabilities face persistent employment difficulties, mainly because of a lack of recognition of their competencies, especially people with intellectual disabilities. As employment counsellors need to identify the competencies of beneficiaries, a public competencies identification service has been developed and funded by the French Ministry of Labour, Diagoriente. METHOD: We compared the impact of a competencies identification session using Diagoriente (N = 48) to a more classic session using a text document (N = 47), with a sample composed mainly of people with intellectual disabilities (75.5%). RESULTS: Participants who used Diagoriente felt better able to identify and explain their competencies and to create a relevant career plan than those who had followed a classic session. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that Diagoriente, and as we suggest, employment support digital tools, when adapted to the specific needs of people with intellectual disabilities, can provide additional keys to help them build their career plans.