8.3 – Communicate Non-verbally
Purpose & Context
Career Development Professionals (CDPs) use non-verbal communication to build and maintain rapport, reinforce verbal messages, and promote increased understanding.CDPs need to understand how non-verbal cues are read or understood by others and must become adept at reading the cues in others, recognizing differences across various cultures and abilities.
Effective Performance
Competent career development professionals must be able to:
- P1. Identify primary forms of non-verbal communication, such as:
- Gestures
- Intonation
- Rate of speech
- Use of eye contact
- Physical distance between speaker and receiver
- Posture
- P2. Use non-verbal communication to:
- Establish rapport
- Reinforce verbal message
- Show interest
- Clarify meaning
- Demonstrate openness and acceptance
- P3. Ensure non-verbal messages do not detract from, or contradict, verbal message
- P4. Observe others’ non-verbal communication and respond appropriately
- P5. Respect personal space, i.e. maintain an appropriate distance from others
Knowledge & Understanding
Competent career development professionals must know and understand:
- K1. Barriers to effective non-verbal communication, e.g. distractions, mismatch between verbal and non-verbal cues
- K2. Impact of differences between sender and receiver, e.g. attitudes, language skills, values, cultures
- K3. Essentials of cross-cultural communication
Contextual Variables
Competent career development professionals must be able to perform this competency in the following range of contexts:
Clients may interpret non-verbal cues very differently than the CDP intended them, based on their background and lived experiences.
Glossary & Key References
Terms
Industry-specific terms contained in the standard defined here, where applicable.
Information Sources and Resources for Consideration
Context Rating Scales
Criticality
Q: What is the consequence of a professional being unable to perform this skill according to the standard?
Frequency
Q: How frequent and under what conditions is this skill performed?
Level of Difficulty
Q: Under routine circumstances, how would you rate the level of difficulty in performing this skill?
Time Required to Gain Proficiency
Q: What is the average length of time or number of repeated events that are minimally necessary for an individual to become proficient in performing the skill to the standard?
To ensure effective practice, a career development professional would be expected to proficiently perform this competency upon entering practice.
Autonomy
Practitioners typically perform this competency without supervision, and alone and/or as part of a team.
Automation
It is unlikely that this competency will automate.