‘Innovative Career Guidance’ is an EU commissioned KA22 project with six partners from Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium and Finland. This project was designed in response to the increased need for Career Guidance in post-covid Europe. Many Europeans suffered job looses, uncertainty in their jobs and careers and in some cases, a lack of direction and purpose in their lives due to isolation and anxiety which resulted from Covid lockdowns and working remotely for extenuated periods of time.

This Career Guidance project aimed to support Europeans in their career journey to reskill, upskill and engage in lifelong learning so that they could engage in successful career and work transitions through identifying their specific career values, needs, wants, aptitudes and strengths. Interestingly, many of these aforementioned countries shared similar problems and challenges with regards to Career Guidance. Although many people often face barriers in their careers, they are not always equipped with the tools and knowledge to overcome these barriers at an individual level and be their own agency for change. Sometimes these barriers an only be overcome through societal, economical, educational policy changes. These challenges include a lack of access to good quality career guidance and labour market information, a lack of user friendly information pertaining to apprenticeships, university courses, career pathways and skill acquisition and in some cases a lock of employment opportunities specific to the geographical location.

When people experience challenges, whether they are made redundant, laid off or simply want to change their career for a variety of reasons, It is essential that the person is equipped with the necessary skills to transition into a new career easily and readily on their own time as opposed to when they are forced to through an employer. This Erasmus project examined different methodologies such as a brand new original methodology known as the ‘ constructivist patchwork’ method which was created by David Bourne, a  French occupational Psychologist, one of the French partners and also Lego series play which was introduced to project by Peppino Franco, the Italian partner. The Agencia para el empleo (the Spanish Employment agency) also explored in the concept of Anti-Fragility and how modern society must adapt if people are to overcome the current challenges of today and secure the right job and career for them.

Social injustices such as educational attainment, access to education and family income coupled with the lack of qualified Career Guidance Counsellors has prevented Career Guidance from becoming socially transformative for many Europeans as many do not have the same access to education, work opportunities such as placements, internships or access to educational providers. While the EU has done a lot to address these issues such as funding projects like this, more needs to be done. While the Covid Pandemic and subsequent shutdowns caused many problems, one of the advantages of these lockdowns was that a  lot of information was transferred online almost overnight which means technically more Europeans should be able to access career guidance Information than ever before. Many educational providers also started to offer online courses which made some of these courses accessible to those who are unable to physically attend universities or training colleges. Online education does however have limitations and may not suit every learner.

This Innovative career guidance project contains 5 parts, the four main parts most relevant to the reader and Career Guidance Practitioners are:

• The first part details national Career Guidance polices and systems which govern how Career guidance is delivered in each partner country. I found this particularly interesting as some agencies provide very specific career guidance initiatives to very specific groups of people e.g. women, refugees. While some of these polices are antiquated, they help any career guidance practitioner to better understand the provision of career guidance and what needs to change to allow everyone to access Career guidance.
• The second part of the project is a handbook which helps equip career guidance professionals with some information on how to develop employability through skills data, personal branding, empathy and leaderships skills which will help guide career advisers when providing advice to those are trying to navigate the labour market where some jobs are becoming obsolete. There are also some interesting facts about which industries are finding it hard to employ staff and which industries are set to become major employers in the future for example the clean energy sector is forecast to create millions of jobs all over Europe in the future.
• The training module which each partner designed according to their experience and expertise are designed to train current and potential Guidance Counsellors to equip them with some career advising concepts which can be adapted and practically applied in many different settings. These concepts include Antifragility, Ikagi and the module also provides career guidance counselling tops and pedagogical approaches which many practitioners use in their daily practice. These methodologies include ‘Lego play’ and the ‘patchwork constructivist’.
• The fourth part of the project is the digital toolkit which is more focused on practical resources which can be used to ensure diversity and inclusion in career guidance practices. This section features information on providing career guidance to those with disabilities and to those who do not have English as their first language and how educational systems can adapt to the dynamic world of work and ensure that generations are well educated and well equipped to successful navigate the fluctuating labour markets for years to come.

This project contains a lot of practical and useful information for anyone who has just started their journey as a Career Guidance practitioner and for those who are more experienced practitioners wishing to update their knowledge on more modern career guidance themes such as personal branding. There is information on the Europass, which is like a universal type CV document that is used for applying for jobs in many European countries. There is a lot of data on skills intelligence, predicting what skills will be in demand and what skills may not be as useful or in demand anymore. This skills data may be very useful for policymakers at regional, national and European level when designing courses and for recruitment purposes. There is also information on vocational training and psychological traits such as empathy which help build resilience and also leadership skills. No matter what stage of your career practitioner journey you are on, there really is something for everyone so have a look at the project website and feel free to give your opinion in the comments section below.

Claire Murphy, Career Guidance Counsellor, Psychmed Analytics, Irish Partner.

I have worked in second level and third level Guidance for over 15 years. I also have a post-primary teaching qualification and a masters in Career Guidance. My expertise in Career Development theories coupled with my practical experience in providing career guidance to people of many ages, levels and educational attainment empowered me to contribute to this project and provide an overview on Career Development theories, career guidance for people with Disabilities and mind-set building to help anyone hoping to enhance and improve their career development and prospects. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this project further, please feel free to contact me on galwayguidance@gmail.com

I would like you to invite to take a look at the project here so that you can read about our research and evidence based approaches to providing better career guidance: https://ieucg.eu/  or simply scan the barcode below: