Career guidance in unstable times: linking economic, social and

BRIEFING NOTE │ DECEMBER 2014 │ ISSN 1831-2411 Page

BRIEFING NOTE

Career guidance in unstable times: linking

economic, social and individual benefits

Economic crisis, social exclusion and uncertain careers: lifelong guidance

responds to a triple challenge

The economic crisis that peaked in 2009 sent

shockwaves that will be felt for years to come. It

affected businesses, increased social risk for many

and destabilised job and career prospects.

Young people, particularly, have been badly affected.

They are suffering the highest unemployment rates

and their prospects have been damaged most. But,

despite high unemployment rates in many countries,

skill shortages are reported in science, technology,

engineering and mathematics (STEM) occupations.

Europe’s working population is also getting older.

In response, European Union (EU) countries have

devised several education, training and labour market

policies. In all of them, career guidance and

counselling increasingly play a central role due to their

effectiveness in developing the right skills and

attitudes people need for successful careers.

Although centred on individuals, benefits of guidance

and counselling go much wider. Guidance and

counselling, by their nature, link individuals’ agendas,

enterprises and governments’ economic and social

goals. Being flexible, guidance and counselling can

help individuals realise their aspirations, while giving

them a better understanding of their career prospects

and learning needs. They can be used in enterprises,

local communities or schools to improve learning

outcomes, knowledge transmission, productivity and

innovation. In short, guidance and counselling help

people and organisations to adapt and be productive

under new and atypical economic and social

conditions.

Responding to the economic challenge

A European Council resolution of 2008 recommends

EU Member States provide access for all citizens to

lifelong guidance to develop career management

skills, such as professional communication, budget

management, critical thinking and project

development. Such skills help people adapt to career

contexts, including workplaces or learning

environments. Career management skills concern

how workers use key competences in enterprises to

learn, manage work, communicate and identify and

solve problems effectively and autonomously. They

also enable people to make more structured and

informed career decisions. OECD’s survey of adult

skills (PIAAC) shows that workers frequently using

key skills at work not only have better career

outcomes, but also integrate better into enterprises

and are more productive. By developing career

management skills, guidance and counselling help

improve economic outcomes for enterprises and

career outcomes for individuals.

Box 1. ‘Accords seniors’: Crédit Industriel et

Commercial (CIC) France

As Europe’s workforce ages, enterprises need to

ensure that skills of retiring workers are replaced and

their knowledge passed on to younger workers

(Box 1). Guidance can balance business strategies for

The programme informs senior employees about their

career development possibilities in the enterprise and

about retirement procedures for leaving CIC. Each year,

the human resources (HR) department offers employees

older than 45 an interview with an HR manager.

Participation is voluntary. Employees can discuss

various options, such as skills assessment, mobility, a

new position, training, serving as mentors, information

about retirement and organisation of work time. Each

activity is carefully planned and complemented by

additional counselling, advice and skill development.

BRIEFING NOTE │ DECEMBER 2014 │ ISSN 1831-2411 Page

older workers between preparing them for retirement

and transferring their knowledge in the enterprise.

Older workers’ contributions to the enterprise can be

maximised by assessing their skills, attitudes and

preferences and devising an end-of-career strategy

that adapts their functions, or provides skills they

need, such as ICT skills. This increases workers’

motivation and productivity and supports longer

working lives. Guidance can also support mentoring

and tutoring activities, enabling older more

experienced workers to act as mentors/tutors to

monitor and steer new workers’ progress.

Similarly, guidance supports social and labour

integration of migrant workers into enterprises,

allowing for quick levelling of productivity with

established workers. Several types of assessment,

advisory and counselling methods and tools are

available to assist various levels of management,

including senior management, to integrate migrant

workers better.

Guidance is not only for people in particular

circumstances. Importantly, it allows for developing

workers’ skills in a lifelong perspective, which can be

carefully planned to combine personal with enterprise

needs. Integrating this approach into human resource

management can reduce skill mismatch in enterprises

and increase productivity and work satisfaction.

Responding to challenges of social

exclusion

The economic crisis increased social risk for young

people and mid-career workers in sectors particularly

affected.

Despite more highly-qualified young people having

better labour market outcomes and sustained demand

in certain occupations, many young people are

disengaging early from education. Shares of young

people not in education, employment or training

(NEET) are near or above 20% in a third of EU

Member States (see Graph). NEETs have a higher

risk of long-term unemployment, irregular career

pathways, poverty and social exclusion. Economic

inactivity at a young age can have deep and

persistent consequences, damaging career outcomes

and identities, the so called ’scarring effect’. Migrant

young people are particularly affected by early leaving

from education and tend to have worse learning and

labour market outcomes.

Member States have responded to this challenge

through the youth guarantee to ensure employability

for people under 25 years old. The youth guarantee

attributes an important role to career guidance. It is

seen as a tool to prevent young people leaving school

early, help reintegrate disengaged young people into

the labour market and support their transition from

training to work. Being flexible and embedded in

public services and local communities, guidance

reaches groups at risk of exclusion, such as young

people disengaged from education, migrants and

unemployed people. By doing so, it also supports

social integration objectives, such as reducing

unemployment and poverty and increasing

qualification levels.

Guidance and counselling can help prevent young

people from becoming NEETs by assessing students’

level of risk of educational disengagement and by

clarifying their career options, all in close cooperation

with family and teachers. For young migrant workers

Source: Eurostat

BRIEFING NOTE │ DECEMBER 2014 │ ISSN 1831-2411 Page

Box 2. Project Kumulus, Germany

and severe social exclusion, career guidance is

frequently provided in close cooperation between local

communities, employment services, schools and

training providers (Box 2).

This type of public service outreach can also bring

young people back into the labour market. Young

people who left education and training early can be

identified, contacted and reengaged through training

with help of community leaders and families. Mentoring

involving local community members with successful

careers is effective in both prevention and recovery

strategies. Other effective ways to reengage young

people in training and education include providing

comprehensive information about all qualifications and

occupation choices the system offers. Guidance and

counselling can highlight flexible pathways to

qualifications, including validation of non-formal

learning, which is especially important for young

people outside education for a prolonged period.

Career guidance also reaches cases where people

feel excluded from participation in learning and the

labour market. A combination of targeted information,

careful assessment and validation of skills and

support for career planning can bring positive change

for individuals and communities.

Responding to individual needs

Frequent periods of unemployment and irregular

careers are increasing across Europe, particularly for

individuals in mid-career. Cedefop’s 2014 study

Navigating difficult waters (

) analysed careers and

(

) http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications-and-

resources/publications/navigating-difficult-waters-learning-

career-and-labour

stories of middle-aged individuals. It identified many

cases of instability and difficulty in establishing

coherent career paths that often arise due to lack of

access to quality career information and career

management skills (Box 3).

Best practices in career guidance report positive results

with tailored approaches, where skills, attitudes and

Box 3. Mid-career: individual stories

The programme provides young people from migrant

backgrounds with guidance support to increase their

skills through on-the-job training and internships.

Activities include: counselling in schools with high

percentage of immigrants, professional orientation

events, events for parents, and individual counselling in

the main office of the project. Cooperation with

employers is undertaken in schools authorised to

develop recovery training and search for internships.

The programme also attempts to include companies

owned by individuals from migrant backgrounds.

Counsellors have multicultural training.

Project website: www.aub-berlin.de

Mette: in search of career counselling

Mette, from Denmark, is single and in her 40s. She

started her own business as a massage therapist, but

only after a long journey of moving around and many

different types of job. Mette worked several times as a

legal secretary, a job for which she is qualified and

experienced. She finds the job easy, but also boring,

lacking any challenge. ‘It’s the wrong life for me; I should

not be working in a law firm. But that is what I can do

[…] and you get a good wage.’

At various points Mette could have benefited from

career guidance tailored to her needs to explore career

and learning opportunities. Having so many jobs was ‘a

search for what I wanted to do’. She enjoys working with

her hands and with people. She wanted to change her

line of work, but for Mette the public employment service

are not taking time to really listen to people, but ‘[…] are

so busy trying to fit us back into the […] job […] we are

trying to escape […]’.

Mercuzio: a mercurial talent

Mercuzio, from Italy is in his forties and currently works

part-time as a janitor in a city hotel.

He started work at 16, helping in his brother’s snack bar.

He has worked as a barman and waiter; in a factory

repairing coffee-making machines; owned a coffee bar

and managed a wine bar; an assistant chef; a partner in

a shoe-designing and -making business; and in a

restoration and renovation business. Plans to become a

professional pianist did not work out. He is now thinking

of becoming a writer.

Mercuzio’s learning path is fragmented; high school,

courses in repairing coffee machines and shoemaking

and, after many years working, a university degree in

humanities, majoring in art history. But through these

learning and development options, Mercuzio has

developed strong practical and social skills. He can

interact with all types of people and integrate into

different environments. Mercuzio has shown adaptability

in a challenging labour market, but lacks the skills and

knowledge to plan his career decisions better.

For more personal stories, see Navigating difficult

waters – Background material: methodology.

BRIEFING NOTE │ DECEMBER 2014 │ ISSN 1831-2411 Page

preferences of people are assessed and discussed

(Box 4). A thorough initial assessment followed by a

structured discussion of next steps in learning and

searching for work also have lasting effects on

people’s careers. Preferably this approach is supported

Box 4. Bilan de compétences (competence

portfolio)

by networks that include enterprise managers and

professional associations and by systematic follow-up

of individuals.

Two fundamental advantages of these approaches

are their adaptability to highly irregular career paths

and a favourable long-term cost-benefit relationship.

For example, people who receive this type of career

development support provided by public employment

services are less likely to return to the service under

social benefit regimes.

Lighter approaches to career information and advice

can be implemented with greater tailoring of provision

to individual needs, as long as initial profiling of clients

is sufficiently detailed. In these cases, information

about the labour market, education, training and

validation must be reliable and competently delivered

by counsellors who can adapt it to a client’s profile.

Conclusions

Lifelong guidance activities provide an effective

response to issues affecting individuals, groups and

enterprises.

They improve success of learning activities at all stages

and are among the most effective labour market

provisions for ensuring long-term career outcomes.

They support policy strategies in lifelong learning and

employment while translating them into direct support to

citizens. A well-coordinated lifelong guidance system

generates coherence of education, training and

employability support, and, most importantly, clarifies

available options for citizens.

Guidance is a positive response to social and economic

instability: science and practice of adaptability.

Briefing note – 9094 EN

Cat. No: TI-BB-14-007-EN-N

ISBN 978-92-896-1547-1, doi: 10.2801/68123

(Cedefop), 2015

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This approach comprises detailed assessment of compe-

tences, based on month-long series of research interviews,

group work in workshops and individual research work,

supported by a counsellor. Besides being a stocktaking

exercise, the portfolio also helps individuals wanting to

make realistic, informed career choices.

The bilan is a basis for planning learning and validation

for individuals and organisations. Enterprises can also

propose that employees use portfolios to plan promotions,

skill development and redeployment. Being flexible,

portfolios can support social integration for at-risk groups,

mid-career changes or innovation in enterprises. They

can also be combined with training under benefit systems,

apprenticeships, internships and be used to follow up

transitions to work.

Bilans and the centres developing them are generally

supported by networks of local stakeholders, which may

include public administration, trade unions and employers,

professional and civic associations.

Bilan de compétence centres are controlled by the employ-

ment ministry, but managed locally by representatives

from the employment and national education ministries,

trade unions, employers’ associations, chambers of

trade industry and commerce, and representatives of

organisations from economic, employment, work and

training environments.

Project website: http://www.cibc.net/