A lookback to 'Your skills and jobs' online week

Organised by the Commission between the 30th of November and 4th December 2020, the event provided students, young people looking for a first job, experienced workers or entrepreneurs the opportunity to find out what the EU is doing to help them to find jobs and manage their career. They were given a chance to share experience and receive advice from experts on drafting CVs, on job and apprenticeships opportunities, on skills, and much more.

There were:

• 13 live chats with job experts
• 2 quizzes on green & digital skills
• A unique opportunity to WIN a 1-hour personal counselling session with a career guidance practitioner from the Euroguidance Network (www.euroguidance.eu)

The Euroguidance Network were delighted to partner in in this initiative. Euroguidance Sweden collated the contact details of appropriately qualified guidance practitioners (and Euroguidance colleagues) from 24 countries. Four quiz participants were selected as winners from a random selection of participants that finished the quizzes. They were matched to volunteer Euroguidance Guidance Counsellors (based on the preferred language).

These sessions were:

• In English with counsellor from Ireland (Sinead McNerney) and a candidate from Kosovo
• In French with counsellor from France (Yvan Couallier) and a candidate from Belgium
• In Italian with counsellor from Italy (Ilaria Piccioni) and a candidate from Italy
• In Greek with counsellor from Greece (Vouli Tetradakou) and a candidate from Greece

All candidates were between 20 and 34 (corresponding to the main target audience of the week) studying in higher education or university graduates looking for a job.

Preparation for the session was key; with candidates first completing a questionnaire with regard their educational and occupational profile and their expectations from the process. The answers were provided in advance, to the counsellors, in order that sufficient reflection time was given and to ultimately use the session in the most efficient way.

The experience of both candidate and Guidance Counsellor was extremely positive.

‘At these difficult and strange days, it is more important than ever before to support, especially young people, in their career development and encourage them to keep on dreaming. The prize of a counselling session was a great idea, that was extremely appreciated by ‘my’ candidate and of course, by me as a Guidance Counsellor and a Euroguidance member. It was a truly interesting experience.’ - Vouli Tetradakou (Euroguidance Greece)