This last October, 62 representatives from EU countries including Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden attended a highly successful EU invitational Symposium held at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London. Susan Park, Work Services Director & Head of Operational Delivery Profession, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), UK delivered an opening address outlining progress made in developing an in-house MOOC for PES work coaches to inform and support their practice. Wolfgang Müller, Bundesagentur für Arbeit, PES Network, gave a European PES perspective on emerging themes within PES organisations such as ‘bench-learning’, meeting the needs of changing customer groups, use of labour market intelligence/information and EU employer engagement strategies – visit: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1100&langId=en. This was followed by a global perspective from Margareta Olsson Dahlgren, Consultant, from the Worldwide Association of Public Employment Services (WAPES) - visit: http://wapes.org. Margherta highlighted one of the challenges facing the PES is to provide effective long-term employment for people aged over 50, including transitions from one employment to another. She also gave examples of how representatives from PES in differing international settings are meeting for peer reviews, for example, Canada, Korea, Japan and Germany recently met in Bonn 13-14 October for the kick-off of a global peer review in the frame of WAPES. In a volatile labour market, Public Employment Services (PES) across Europe constantly need to adapt, become more resilient and innovative in their work. Dr Suzanne Kraatz who has longstanding experience of working within both the PES Network and European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN) shared some insights on practitioner competences and the support needed by PES managers and practitioners to develop skill sets, knowledge and competences that address the need for integration and activation of job seekers in fast changing labour markets