North Carolina CDP mandate
North Carolina Career Development Plan (CDP): Grades 6–12 Career-Pathway Alignment
G.S. 115C-158.10, effective 2024–2025, mandates that every student in grades 6–12 develop a Career Development Plan that documents self-assessment, career-pathway exploration, academic-course alignment, and completion within 90 days of enrollment if the student lacks a plan.
In Brief
North Carolina's Career Development Plan law (Session Law 2023-134) is among the most rigorous in the nation. It explicitly requires self-assessment (aptitudes, skills, values, personality, and interests), identification of aligned career pathways with training/certification/cost details, course inventory for grades 6–10, and a course-selection strategy for grades 11–12. The law mandates completion within 90 days if a student lacks a plan, and all plans must include formal parent notice.
The state offers a free, live platform—NCcareers.org (Career Plan Builder)—jointly governed by NCDPI, NC Commerce/NCWorks, CFNC, and the community college system. Since its launch, NCcareers.org has created 45,000+ active CDPs. JobCannon's RIASEC and Skills Audit complement the state platform by deepening career interest discovery and readiness assessment before students build their formal CDP.
What CDP actually requires
Checked against G.S. 115C-158.10, not against a category description.
Recommended assessment battery for North Carolina districts
Sequenced across the 7th-12th grade arc.
Who North Carolina districts already use for CDP
Real tools and workarounds we found in use for CDP compliance — not a hypothetical shortlist.
G.S. 115C-158.10 Career Development Plan Requirements
Related on JobCannon
This page is one of 38 verified career-plan mandate pages JobCannon tracks, each citing a primary statute or regulation — for the North Carolina CDP mandate that source is G.S. 115C-158.10 - Career development plans. For the broader rollout picture, see career assessments for school districts, or the JobCannon for Business hub.
District-tier pricing
Scale is $199/mo and covers 200 people per billing period — one person, however many assessments they take, and a class-code arrival counts the same as an emailed invite. Growth is $999/mo for 1,000. Above that, or where enrolment should not be metered at all, it is an Enterprise conversation rather than a larger self-serve plan. A district-sized enrolment runs out of the monthly tiers quickly — the Education Licence below prices your whole enrolment per student for the year, assessments uncapped, and adds the full career and skills corpus.
Free
For micro-teams trying the platform
- ▸10 candidate invites/month (resets the 1st of each month)
- ▸All 164+ assessments
- ▸Premium result for every candidate you invite
- ▸Every candidate profile fully open — nothing blurred
- ▸Share link via email or Slack
- ▸Free trial of the coordinator dashboard
Starter
For solo coaches and small HR
- ▸30 candidates/mo included; extra candidates are $2 each
- ▸All 164+ assessments
- ▸Premium report (archetype + blind spots + work-style brief)
- ▸Coach notes per candidate
- ▸PDF export (client-ready)
- ▸Session prep recommendations
- ▸Candidate progress tracking
Team
For startups, teams and HR
- ▸80 candidates/mo included; extra candidates are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Starter
- ▸Team DNA dashboard
- ▸Compatibility matrix
- ▸Conflict-pattern detection
- ▸Compare 2-3 team members
- ▸Manager prep briefings
- ▸Shared admin access (2 seats)
Scale
For agencies, L&D and scale-ups
- ▸200 candidates/mo included; extra candidates are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Team
- ▸Integrity + social-desirability scales (fake-good detection)
- ▸White-label PDFs (your logo)
- ▸Full assessment API (start, score, retrieve results)
- ▸Custom assessment builder (beta)
- ▸Admin seats not billed per seat
- ▸Priority email support
Growth
For high-volume screening without a contract
- ▸1,000 candidates/mo included; extra candidates are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Scale
- ▸Invoice / PO billing, not just card
- ▸Named support contact with a response-time target
- ▸Annual billing option
Enterprise
For 200+ person companies
- ▸Candidate volume set in your contract, all assessments
- ▸Everything in Scale
- ▸SLA (99.9% uptime)
- ▸Dedicated Customer Success
- ▸Custom integrations built against your tenant (Greenhouse and Ashby ship today)
- ▸Annual billing, invoice payments
Self-serve checkout via Stripe — major cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link. Cancel anytime; 14-day money-back on every paid plan. Enterprise via the contact form below.
Education Licence — priced per student, per year
One rate per enrolled student for the academic year, sized for North Carolina district or school-level CDP rollouts. Assessments uncapped, career and skills corpus included — multiply your own enrolment by the band and you have the most this can cost before you talk to us.
$1.25 down to $0.80 per student, per year — assessments uncapped
That multiplication is a ceiling, not a bill. If our self-serve plans would cover the same number of students for less, you are quoted the lower figure — we do not sell an institution its own students back at a higher price than anyone can buy them for on the pricing page.
District
A large school, multi-school district or trust
per year
- ▸Every assessment in the catalogue, retakes included, no per-assessment charge
- ▸Cohort dashboard with cross-school and year-over-year comparison
- ▸Full career and skills corpus — 2,521 careers, 1,863 skills
- ▸Read the corpus live over the API, or take a versioned snapshot
- ▸Named contact, quote letter formatted for procurement
College or university
A university, college or college group
per year
- ▸Every assessment in the catalogue, retakes included, no per-assessment charge
- ▸Cohort dashboard with cross-school and year-over-year comparison
- ▸Full career and skills corpus — 2,521 careers, 1,863 skills
- ▸Read the corpus live over the API, or take a versioned snapshot
- ▸Named contact, quote letter formatted for procurement
State system
A statewide or national programme
per year
- ▸Every assessment in the catalogue, retakes included, no per-assessment charge
- ▸Cohort dashboard with cross-school and year-over-year comparison
- ▸Full career and skills corpus — 2,521 careers, 1,863 skills
- ▸Read the corpus live over the API, or take a versioned snapshot
- ▸Named contact, quote letter formatted for procurement
£350 per school, per year — a flat whole-school licence rather than a per-student rate, because that is the unit UK schools budget in. Same uncapped assessments and same corpus. Excludes VAT.
The ladder starts at 1,301 students. Below that a self-serve plan already covers your whole roll for less than a licence would, so that is what we will point you at — and UK schools have the flat whole-school licence above at any size. Bands are by enrolment, and the rate applies to your whole roll rather than to a seat count you have to predict. Invoiced annually against a purchase order; no per-assessment charge and nothing to top up mid-year. Assessing an institution's enrolled students is covered by the Education Licence, not by a hiring plan. What is in the corpus.
Request a North Carolina district pilot
Tell us how many students you expect to assess in a term and what your review process asks for. If something on your requirements list is not in the product, we will say so in the reply rather than in the pilot.
JobCannon and NCcareers.org serve complementary roles. NCcareers.org is the state-mandated CDP documentation platform where students formally build and store their plan. JobCannon's RIASEC and Career Match assessments provide the deep, research-backed career interest and skills discovery that feeds *into* NCcareers.org—students complete JobCannon's assessment, then use those results when building their CDP in the state platform.
The statute requires a 'self-assessment of aptitudes, skills, values, personality, and career interests,' which means a formalized discovery process, not just self-reported guesses. JobCannon's RIASEC (grades 9–12) or Career Match (grades 6–8) provides that structured self-assessment; students then bring those results to their CDP planning session with their counselor.
The law requires completion within 90 days of enrollment for students without a plan. If a transfer student arrives mid-year without a prior CDP, the school must initiate the assessment and planning process within 90 days. JobCannon's quick-setup flow (RIASEC, ~15 min; Career Match, ~2 min) gets a new student's career profile on file fast, so counselors can meet the deadline.
G.S. 115C-158.10 doesn't mandate a specific tool—the requirement is that the CDP exists and contains the required elements (self-assessment, pathways, course alignment, etc.). However, NCcareers.org is specifically designed for this and is free to all NC districts, so the state strongly encourages its use. JobCannon pairs with either—we provide the assessment data; your chosen platform (NCcareers or another system) stores the formal plan.
The statute makes the CDP a legal graduation requirement, not optional. Schools are responsible for ensuring every student completes the self-assessment and plan by deadline. JobCannon's COPPA-safe interface and brief assessments (Career Match, ~2 min) make participation accessible, and bulk-invite workflows help counselors reach students who might otherwise slip through cracks.
G.S. 115C-158.10 does not require districts to purchase a third-party platform or assessment tool—NCcareers.org is a free state-funded platform, and the self-assessment requirement can theoretically be satisfied through counselor interviews (though a structured assessment like JobCannon's RIASEC is far more reliable and scalable).