Given that the early recognition procedures used to date focus on trends and the scenario technique and are less concerned with the design of VET, a research-based employment research early recognition tool was developed as part of the "EarlyBird" Leonardo Project, by means of which it is possible to identify changes at shop-floor level. What was learnt from use of the instrument may be used to design future-oriented VET. The methods developed were tested in the project, and the changes identified were used to develop well-founded forecasts for the content of future European job profiles in the recycling and machine tool sectors. This article discusses this research tool in more detail. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)