Career guidance and its impact on graduate employability

Abstract The upward growing of globalization and the constant extension of active employees are increasingly requiring job seekers to adapt their skills in order to be one-step ahead of any predictable change as well as maintain a balanced position in the career path. Effective career guidance helps individuals to reach their potential, economies to become more efficient and societies to become fairer. This process highlights the importance of discerning individual talent and maximizing human potential, including mobility in their career development. An improper career orientation renders decision-making difficult, with higher personal, familiar, and social cost, often manifested in inconsistent skills and unsatisfactory employment prospects. For young people, the decisions they make about what they will study, both during and post compulsory education have become more important and more difficult. This paper intends to inspect the features of an effective career guidance practice, including the emerging necessity for schools to start introducing and encouraging student vocation at an earlier age combined with the essential role of exposure to the working realm. This small-scale research examined the effectiveness and models of seeking help for educational and career planning issues through a sample of 103 individuals; 92% of them employed and 8% master students, with previous employment experience. Although career guidance is the most common source of support regarding their future occupation, 61% consider it as a pointless process, 17% are neutral and 22% consider it helpful. The results show inefficiency in career guidance provided and a need to plan alternative applicable strategies