Career Lifebelt

The career counsellors of the MySelf-development Centre provide help to young people during the difficult but exciting period of career choice. Their goal is to help students in making decisions confidently and consciously about their future based on their strengths.

Students facing the decision to continue their education often visit counsellors in the fall of their last high school year. This online program consisting of six sessions aims to help these students, focused on career counselling, tailored to individual needs and opportunities. One of the key elements of the program's success is its brevity, which makes the process easy to plan and does not imply long-term commitment.

During the 6 sessions, two major areas - self-knowledge and field knowledge - are developed. The purpose of the self-awareness development process is to create a realistic picture for students, as well as to learn about the qualities, abilities and motivations necessary to fill the chosen career. During the development of career knowledge, participants acquire realistic, broad knowledge about the professions they can choose from and the current labor market environment. Through these sessions, students can acquire competences that make more effective the decision-making process related to career choice, and at the same time, develop their general decision-making skills, which they can apply in other areas as well.

The flexibility of the program allows students who struggle with difficulties, such as lack of self-confidence and demotivation, to receive additional support through the self-awareness mentoring program. This is an intensive helping process in which the mentor supports the individual in order to achieve a specific goal and accompanies him/her along the way.

An important topic of the self-awareness development phase is reducing the anxiety arising from the idea of a 'lifelong decision', getting to know student’s interests and hobbies, making a personal inventory of his/her qualities and abilities, mapping strengths, and evaluating the feedback they receive from others.

In the second half of the program, during the career identification process, the information obtained in the self-knowledge block (motivation, interests, favourite activities, best abilities) is used as a compass to explore the imagined career and the further education and employment path leading to it. During this programme element, students become familiar with websites leading to practical information related to admission (e.g. score calculation, admission process, etc.), and then during a personal 'research work' they have to examine the individual majors and professions. Based on their findings they can formulate their preferences. During the process, they also get to know the 'ikigai' figure, in connection with which they can also touch upon questions of larger life goals. After the end of the process, the students will be followed up for another year in order to examine the effectiveness of the program and psychological support.

The continuation of the 6 session programme is the PályaOriGO experience camp (4 days/3 nights), held the following summer, where students can gain skills through self-knowledge sessions that will help them make decisions about further education and increase their self-confidence.

This good practice was awarded the Hungarian Euroguidance Career Guidance Special Award for career guidance supporting methodology.