Nowadays there is a general aim to increase the international/European dimension of careers guidance and to create strong networks between careers guidance organisations and practitioners of different countries. One of the difficulties in this process is to agree on a shared definition of careers guidance, or, should a shared definition be too difficult to achieve, to clarify the different meanings the term careers guidance can takes in different countries.
This project should help to clarify which different activities are included under the term careers guidance in each country, so to help careers guidance organisations and practitioners of different countries to better understand each other and lay people and policy makers to know what they can expect by ‘careers guidance’ activities.
The project is simple. A web page containing a questionnaire (to be translated in as many languages as possible) has to be placed on a website addressed to careers guidance practitioners. The questionnaire lists 21 different activities (few more can be added) that can be included in careers guidance or belongs to some other broad categories that are related to it: 1. education and training, 2. recruitment services, 3. life coaching, 4. human resource management. When filling the questionnaire, each practitioners should say which his/her nationality is and attribute each of the 21 activities to one of the 5 (including careers guidance) broad categories. As soon as the questionnaire has been filled, the results should be added to the results already collected, showing on the website, as in a poll, the most common answers by country.
Once the web pages and the polling system have been developed, the survey can go on and on without further effort. The results are all the time immediately available to all interested parties.
See a draft of the questionnaire below.
Should you have any idea how to fund such a project, or if your organization can be interested in funding it yourself, you can contact me (Leonardo Evangelista) at my email address contatto-att-orientamento.it
Draft of the questionnaire:
What does providing Careers Guidance mean?
As you know, the concept of what constitute careers guidance can vary between different countries or practitioners. Please help us to clarify your own concept by answering to this online questionnaire.
The country where you work: ____________________________________________
Please subdivide each of the following activities into one of the following 5 categories: 1 education and training, 2.recruitment services, 3. life coaching, 4. careers guidance, 5 human resource management
- 1. setting up education and training courses
- 2. assisting those engaged in training
- 3. promoting work experience and work based training schemes
- 4. encouraging job matching by means of special data banks
- 5. providing information on educational and vocational paths
- 6. supplying information on various aspects of life in general: health, sexual and emotional matters, growing old, bereavement, spirituality, etc.
- 7. providing advice with educational and vocational choices
- 8. providing advice with life choices
- aiding personal development and encouraging autonomous choice through activities of various kinds
- 9.a. psychotherapy/personal counselling
- 9.b. meditation,
- 9.c. religious support
- 9.d. teaching of educational and vocational subjects
- 10. encouraging autonomous choice through activities centred on educational and vocational choices (e.g: case analysis)
- 11. providing support and assistance to those seeking employment (for example: checking job advertisements for or together with them, accompanying them to interviews with prospective employers, contacting prospective employers on their behalf)
- 12. helping students overcome learning difficulties by teaching study methods
- 13. helping students overcome learning difficulties by helping break down psychological barriers
- 14. selecting employees
- 15. identifying those employees potential16. advising management on identifying which jobs are best suited to individual employees
- 17. advising management on assessing employees’ performance
- 18. advising management on how best to motivate employees and avoid conflicts
- 19. advising employees on how to overcome problems of integrating and establishing relationships with colleagues
- 20. advising company employees how to further their career within the company
- 21. giving advice to the employed on how best to develop their careers, either within or outside their place of work.
Author: Leonardo Evangelista www.leonardoevangelista.it © Leonardo Evangelista. First placed in this website on the 9th of October 2006. Version of the 9th of October 2006. This article can be reproduced quoting Author’s name and article’s URL.