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Overview

Careers in SkillsDB are the organizational templates that define what skills matter for a given job role. Each career represents a position or role — such as “Software Engineer” or “Operations Manager” — and contains a curated set of skills that employees in that role are expected to develop and demonstrate. Careers serve as the foundation for SkillsDB’s skills tracking, assessment, and analytics features. When a person is assigned to a career, they receive a skills profile aligned to that role. Their proficiency grades are tracked against the career’s benchmarks, and their training completion is measured against the career’s training requirements. All of this data flows into the Skills Matrix, assessments, and team analytics. A career is more than a flat list of skills. It has a three-level hierarchy: the career itself contains sections that group related skills together, and levels that represent progression stages within the role (for example, Level 1 through Level 5). Skills can be assigned individual benchmarks at each level, so the expected proficiency for a given skill shifts as employees advance. Administrators have full access to create, edit, configure, and delete careers. Managers can view careers and assign their team members to them. Standard employees can view the career they are assigned to and track their own progress against its requirements. The Careers library requires the Library Roles setting to be enabled in your organization settings. If the Careers section is not visible in your sidebar, contact your SkillsDB administrator to confirm the setting is active.

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Prerequisites

Before working with careers, you need:

• Permission level: Administrator role to create, edit, configure, or delete careers; Manager role to assign people to careers
• Setup requirement: Library Roles enabled in your organization settings
• Optional: Skills created in the Skills library before building out a career (you can also create new skills directly within a career)

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Understanding Career Structure

Every career in SkillsDB follows a consistent three-level hierarchy: Levels are an optional fourth dimension that sit across the entire career. A career can have multiple levels representing seniority tiers (for example, Level 1 through Level 5, or Junior through Principal). When levels are configured, each skill can have a different benchmark grade required at each level — so a Level 1 engineer may need a grade of 2 in Python while a Level 4 engineer is expected to reach a grade of 4. People are assigned to a career and, optionally, to a specific level within it. Their assigned level determines which benchmark grades apply to them, enabling accurate skills gap analysis.

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Navigating the Careers Library

To access the Careers library, select Library > Careers from the left sidebar.

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Group By

The library supports three grouping modes via the toggle at the top of the page:

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Columns

Select Display on the right side of the toolbar to show or hide columns. An additional Letter column is available but hidden by default.

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Filters

Select Filter in the toolbar to open the filter menu. Available filters: Career, Type, Labels, People Assigned.

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Creating a Career

Administrators can create new careers from the Careers library. Each career requires a title and a type.

1. Navigate to Library > Careers
2. Select + Add Career in the top-right navigation area
3. In the Create Career dialog, enter the following:
   • Career title (required) — Enter a unique, descriptive name for the career
   • Add career description (optional) — Provide context about the role
   • Add Type (required) — Select a type to categorize this career (see Managing career types below)
   • + Add label (optional) — Apply one or more labels for organization
4. Optionally toggle Create More to keep the dialog open after creating, allowing you to add multiple careers in sequence
5. Select Create

The new career is created and appears in the careers table. Select the career row to open its detail page and begin building out its structure.

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Building out a Career

After creating a career, you structure it by adding levels, sections, and skills. Open a career’s detail page by selecting it from the Library > Careers table. The detail page title displays as Manage / [Career Name]. The detail page shows the career’s sections, the skills within each section, and any associated learning resources.

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Managing levels

Levels define the seniority or progression tiers within a career. Add levels before assigning benchmarks to skills, as benchmarks are tied to specific levels. To manage levels on a career detail page:

1. Select the Levels control within the career structure panel
2. Select + Add Level to create a new level, then enter a Level Title
3. Select Save

To reorder levels, drag a level row using its drag handle. The sort order updates automatically. To edit a level title, select the edit icon on the level row, update the title, and select Save. To delete a level, select the delete icon on the level row. If skills have benchmarks assigned at that level, a warning displays with the number of affected skills. Confirm to proceed.

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Managing sections

Sections organize skills within a career into logical groupings. A career with no sections treats all skills as a single flat list. To add a section:

1. On the career detail page, select + Add Section
2. Enter a Section Name
3. Select Save

The first section added groups any skills already in the career. Additional sections start empty. To edit a section name, select the edit icon next to the section heading. To delete a section, select the delete icon. A confirmation prompt displays listing the skills currently in that section — deleting the section detaches those skills from the section but does not remove them from the career.

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Adding skills

Skills can be added to a career either by searching for existing skills in your skills library or by creating new custom skills directly within the career. To add an existing skill:

1. On the career detail page, select + Add Skill within the section you want to add to (or at the career level if no sections exist)
2. In the search dialog, type the skill name to search the skills library
3. Select the skill from the results to attach it to the career
4. Optionally, set a benchmark (the expected proficiency grade for this skill in this career)
5. Select Save

To create a new skill directly in a career:

1. Select + Add Skill and select the Create New Skill option in the dialog
2. Enter a Skill Name (required) and optionally a Skill Description
3. Set a Benchmark if applicable
4. Select Save

The new skill is added to the skills library and attached to the career simultaneously. To reorder skills within a section, drag skill rows using their drag handles. To configure training-specific settings for an individual skill (such as whether training is required, evidence type, or expiration timeline), select the skill’s settings icon. These options are only available when Training Dates is enabled in Career Settings.

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Assigning People to a Career

Administrators can assign people to a career directly from the detail page. When assigning someone, you can optionally specify which level of the career they are at.

1. Navigate to Library > Careers and open the career
2. Select Assign in the top-right navigation area
3. In the Assign Career drawer, search for people by name or email
4. Select one or more people to assign
5. Optionally select a Career Level to assign them to
6. Confirm the assignment

Assigned people appear in the career’s people count and are included in Skills Matrix analytics for that career. To reassign a person to a different level within the same career, open the Assign Career drawer, locate the person in the assigned list, and select a new level from the level dropdown. To remove a person from a career, select the unassign option next to their name in the assigned people list.

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Configuring Career Settings

Each career has four configurable settings that control which features are active for that career. Access Career Settings from the detail page by selecting the Settings icon in the top-right navigation area. The Career Settings modal displays four toggle settings:

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Proficiency Grading

Default: On Enables skill proficiency grading and grade columns for this career. When Proficiency Grading is on, employees and managers can record skill grades, and grades appear in the Skills Matrix, assessments, and analytics. When Proficiency Grading is turned off, all grade columns are hidden and grading data is excluded from search results and analytics. Turning off Proficiency Grading also automatically disables the Assessments setting.

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Training Dates

Default: Off Enables training approvals and makes this career’s skills visible in Team > Training > Training Matrix. When Training Dates is on, employees can request training approval for skills in this career, and managers can track training completion. Enabling Training Dates reveals two additional configuration options: Training Timeline — Set the expected time for employees to complete training approval for all skills in this career. Enter values in Days, Months, and/or Years. Bulk Update Skill Training Settings — Select Configure Skills to open a bulk configuration modal where you can apply training settings (required status, evidence type, and expiration timeline) across multiple skills in one action.

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Assessments

Default: On (requires Proficiency Grading to be enabled) Includes this career’s skills in manager and self-assessments. When Assessments is off, skills from this career are excluded from all assessment cycles. Assessments cannot be enabled if Proficiency Grading is disabled. If Proficiency Grading is turned off, Assessments is automatically disabled and grayed out until Proficiency Grading is re-enabled.

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User Dashboard

Default: Off Enables a career-specific dashboard for employees, accessible at Profile > Career > Overview. The dashboard gives employees a summary view of their career progress. Enabling User Dashboard reveals Dashboard Components checkboxes to control which sections appear on the dashboard: Uncheck any component to hide it from the employee dashboard for this career. Select Save Settings to apply changes, or Cancel to discard them.

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Editing, Deleting, and Managing Types

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Editing a career

Career names and descriptions are edited inline directly on the career detail page:

1. Navigate to Library > Careers and select the career row to open its detail page
2. Select the career title or description text on the detail page to edit it inline
3. Changes save automatically

Career settings (proficiency, training, assessments, dashboard) are managed separately via the Settings icon in the detail page top navigation bar.

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Managing career types

Career types are optional labels that categorize careers in your organization (for example, “Job Role”, “Specialty Path”, or “Leadership Track”). The default type is “Job Role”. To manage career types:

1. Navigate to Library > Careers
2. Select Manage Types in the top-right navigation area
3. In the Manage Career Types drawer:
   • Select + Add Type to create a new type and enter a name
   • Select the edit icon on any existing type to rename it
   • Select the delete icon to remove a type

Career types appear as a column in the careers table and as a badge on each career’s detail page. Types help admins filter and organize large career libraries.

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Viewing Career Analytics

Every career has two analytics views accessible from its detail page: the Skills Matrix and the Flag Matrix.

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Skills Matrix

The Skills Matrix displays skill proficiency data for everyone assigned to the career. It shows each person’s grade for every skill in the career, color-coded by performance against the benchmark. To access the Skills Matrix, open the career detail page and use the analytics navigation in the top bar. The Skills Matrix page supports six display views — Skills Matrix (default), Training Matrix, Skills Flag, Nightingale chart, Bar Chart, and Learning — and includes filters for organizational structure and performance. See Analytics & Reporting for full details.

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Flag Matrix

The Flag Matrix shows which skill flags (Mentor, Expert, Focus, Interest) are applied to people in this career. To access the Flag Matrix, select Flag Matrix in the top-right navigation area on the career detail page.

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Common Questions

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