Toolkit P5-Career Growth SCAMPER

Substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate and reverse your career path

Εκπαιδευτικό Πρόγραμμα

1 hour

Material for processing thoughts and writing, such as paper, notebooks, large sheets of paper, a whiteboard or a computer.
Markers or pens in different colours.

What is this tool and what is its purpose and benefit?

The employment market and the society are continuously evolving. Therefore, it is essential to think how to adapt to these changes and embrace learning, growth and continuous upskilling, reskilling and personal development. The Career Growth SCAMPER tool helps to discover new career paths and opportunities by viewing existing skills, knowledge, experience and career goals from seven unique perspectives. This approach supports continuous growth and helps you generate solutions to challenges in the job market.

Steps for using this tool

STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

STEP 4

Define your starting point: your current career situation and your career goal. Write this on a notebook or sheet of paper as the heading.

Look at labour market trends and general trends. If you completed the trend tools in Phase 3, you can use the results for this phase. Write down 5–10 trends that could influence your career in your notebook.

Using the SCAMPER dimensions, generate ideas for different growth and adaptation scenarios and write them down.

S – Substitute: What can you replace in your career path? Explore what elements of your current career path could be replaced. Consider substituting industries, technologies, roles, tools, or other approaches.
C – Combine: Which skills, knowledge and experience from different fields could you combine to offer something unique in the labour market?
A – Adapt: What can you borrow from other industries or sectors to make yourself stand out, reshape your career goals and enhance your employability?
M – Modify: How can you modify your professional goals, expectations and identity to facilitate ongoing development? Can you magnify or minimise the importance of certain experiences, tasks, pathways, skills, or knowledge? Adjusting the scope of your responsibilities or the pathways you take may reveal new opportunities that align with your evolving strengths.
P – Put to another use: In what ways can the skills, experience and knowledge you have gained in your previous or current profession be applied to a completely different business context?
E – Eliminate: Which job activities, skills, experiences and areas of knowledge are unnecessary and do not add value? What could be simplified? Also identify any limiting beliefs, outdated assumptions or unhelpful habits that restrict career development. Eliminating these barriers creates space for clearer thinking and new possibilities.
R – Reverse: What would happen if you reversed the order of your usual patterns, skills, experiences, and knowledge? What if you started thinking about your career in reverse? Adopting a different perspective on goals, skills, and challenges can lead to innovative solutions to obstacles in the job market.

Review your ideas and write down three brief career adaptation plans, taking into account the most likely future trends.

Tips and hints for using this tool

Use social media (for example. LinkedIn) to see how others have adapted their skills in new industries (Adaptation phase).
Use industry portals to find "other uses" for rare competencies (Put to another use phase).
Combine SCAMPER with reverse brainstorming to anticipate potential obstacles to implementing the plan.
Remember that innovation often involves modifying existing ideas rather than creating them from scratch.