Career Bird glossary: key terms
Definitions of the terms used in Career Bird and job architecture: role descriptions, leveling frameworks, grades, job families, tracks, competency models and development plans.
Roles and job architecture
Job architecture
Job architecture is the structure that organizes an organization's roles. In Career Bird, skills are mapped to roles, and roles are mapped to job families, tracks and levels.
Job description
A job description is the document your organization already uses to describe a job. You upload job descriptions to Career Bird.
Role description
A role description is what Career Bird creates from your job description: a standardized description of the role with its responsibilities and the skills needed to succeed in it.
Responsibilities
Responsibilities are the main duties of a role. Career Bird creates them from the job description, then uses them to suggest the role's skills.
Job family
A job family is a group of related roles, such as Finance or Engineering.
Track
A track is a sequence of roles within a job family, ordered by increasing responsibility, for example Analyst, Senior Analyst and Lead Analyst.
Requirement table
A requirement table lists a role's physical demands, work conditions, travel or licenses, such as the essential functions used for ADA compliance.
"Needs Review"
"Needs Review" is the status of a role waiting for its reviewer or for an admin to approve it.
Levels
Leveling framework
A leveling framework defines how responsibility grows from one level to the next. It's made up of dimensions, levels and grades. Career Bird provides templates by organization size that you customize.
Dimensions
Dimensions are the qualities that change from level to level, such as scope, autonomy, complexity and impact.
Career Track
Usually Individual Contributor (or Professional), Management, Executive, and sometimes Support or Technical/Para-professional
Level
A level is one step in the leveling framework, for example Individual Contributor 2 or Manager 1.
Grade
A grade groups levels of comparable seniority across tracks. For example, an Individual Contributor 3 can be the same grade as a Manager 1.
Skills and competencies
Skill
A skill is an ability needed to succeed in a role. Each skill has a description, proficiency levels and demonstrated behaviors.
Skill type
A skill type groups skills by purpose. The default types are Role-based, Core and Leadership. Admins can add types, and AI Competencies and Manager Competencies are available as additional types.
Skill category
A skill category groups related skills for reporting. Admins create the categories that fit their organization, for example a category for AI skills.
Competency model
A competency model is the set of skills an organization expects across all roles or within certain job families. In Career Bird you choose the skills, and Career Bird suggests the proficiency expected at each level.
Proficiency
Proficiency describes how well someone can apply a skill. Career Bird uses four levels: Foundational, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert.
Demonstrated behaviors
Demonstrated behaviors describe what a skill looks like in practice when someone has it.
Emerging skills
Emerging skills are new skills appearing in your industry. The emerging skills agent suggests them for your skill library each month.
Surveys and development
Skill survey
The skill survey walks an employee through the skills in their role description. The employee shares their experience and comfort level with each skill, and their manager shares their view of the employee's proficiency.
Growth opportunity
A growth opportunity is a skill where developing further would help someone succeed in their role.
Development plan
A development plan is a set of cards drawn from the skills a role requires and the employee's proficiency in each.
Development card
A development card is one work project mapped to a skill, with a goal, learning resources, a mentor who already has the skill and a due date.
Group development plan
A group development plan is one plan shared by several people who are building the same skills.
Learning resources
Learning resources are courses, articles, podcasts and books, each mapped to a skill. Career Bird's library includes 50,000 resources.
Career Explorer
Career Explorer shows employees other roles in their track, job family or department, at their level and up to two levels above.
People and permissions
Org admin
An org admin manages Career Bird for the organization, including roles, settings and invitations.
Role editor
A role editor reviews roles and submits suggested changes to HR for approval.
Manager
A manager is anyone with direct reports in Career Bird.