Employability and Career Decision Making

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines career guidance as services designed to help people make educational and vocational decisions to better manage their careers (Khamidovna, 2020). Professionals and scholars have identified three primary forms of career guidance:

• Providing the user with career information (related to courses, occupations, career opportunities, and labor market trends).
• Career counseling (individual or group).
• Training activities take place through the provision of specific courses aimed at developing career management skills.

Career guidance thus consists of assisting recipients in the process of choosing a career based on their skills, interests, and values (Watts, 2013).
Today, education and careers are increasingly intertwined and refer primarily to the needs of individuals who need to build their careers through a series of decisions related to education, training, and the opportunities offered by the labor market. Active job search is the first stage of the professional career building process and is the crucial moment when it is essential to promote and develop the employability of workers.
The term employability refers to the degree to which candidates are interested in organizations with vacancies. Of course, employability is closely related to the education and training received (Picatoste et al., 2018). Developing the employability of young people, the unemployed, and other groups potentially at risk in terms of access to the labor market is an important goal of the European Employment Strategy (Rieff & Peschner, 2020). The EU’s first mandate included employability as an essential part of its approach. Today, however, the European Commission chooses to promote more and better investment in human capital and lifelong learning techniques. This, as well as several other implementing rules of the European Commission, reflects how strong the institutional focus on employability is today (Pereira et al., 2020).
Employability measures must be taken from the earliest stages of the individual’s construction of a professional identity (education and training). In addition, action can be taken in the early stages of a career with regard to the functional definition of work choices. It is therefore incumbent on institutions and organizations, in their own interest and in the interest of working citizens, to promote a service aimed at optimal career choices for individuals. For these reasons, this project proposes a survey of decision-making and career skills to help people make optimal choices in constructing their professional careers. Starting from the analysis of the opportunities offered by the labor market, the education and training received by the users, and the career needs or desires advanced by them, with this project we aim to guide them in the process of entering the labor market to improve their employability.

References
Khamidovna, K. Z. (2020). Professional orientation of communicative competence of students. European science, 2 (51), 53-55.
Watts, A. G. (2013). Career guidance and orientation. Revisiting global trends in TVET: Reflections on theory and practice, 239.
Pereira, E. T., Vilas-Boas, M., & Rebelo, C. F. (2020). University curricula and employability: The stakeholders’ views for a future agenda. Industry and higher education, 34(5), 321-329.
Picatoste, J., Pérez-Ortiz, L., & Ruesga-Benito, S. M. (2018). A new educational pattern in response to new technologies and sustainable development. Enlightening ICT skills for youth employability in the European Union. Telematics and Informatics, 35(4), 1031-1038.
Rieff, J., & Peschner, J. (2020). Employment and Social Developments in Europe. Determinants of skills matching – The role of institutions. Brussels, European Commission.