Changes in the nature and availability of work and the corresponding demands on workers to engage in repeated occupational and learning transitions throughout life have heralded a rise in the importance of and necessity for the provision of career services across the lifespan. Intense interest in preparing workers for the future has brought sharply into focus the differences between the skills and competencies needed by the workers of the industrial era and the workers of the future. While technical and job-specific skills have sufficed in the past, it is increasingly being accepted that the worker of the future will need a more comprehensive set of competencies, 'meta-competencies' such as learning skills, life management skills, and communication skills that are not occupation specific and are transferable across all facets of life and work. [p.3, ed]