Career Guidance and Orientation
ITEM 1
How would you define career guidance?
Career guidance is the process of supporting individual decision-making and training professionals who strive to reconcile the individual conditions of a person (skills, motivation, interests) with existing external opportunities (including professional training).
Vocational guidance, defined as proactive support to individuals, is emerging as a focal point of active employment policies. It serves as a foundation for coordinating all other employment policies to help define methods and tools for analyzing needs, training, and performance evaluation. The need for continuing professional development influences training provision, requiring constant adaptation to individual needs. In this way, lifelong learning becomes a key element of employment.
Parallel to this concept, guidance has evolved in recent years from a residual, ancillary training program to an instrument of integration between education, vocational training, and work. Guidance throughout life is now viewed as a dynamic and continuous process, a “meeting point” between individual demands and external opportunities.
ITEM 2
What are the key elements that help us identify Orientation as a process of intervention? (P. 35)
Before starting the activity and the record, we must begin with the definition of guidance, the capacity to help someone or something navigate from one place to another and understand their location.
Personal guidance focuses on the inner life of a person, their inner harmony, personal balance, and self-knowledge, without losing sight of their environment.
Vocational guidance is a process of helping individuals choose and prepare themselves for a profession or job. It involves decision-making, training, and professional placement, aiming to integrate personal needs with social needs.
Academic orientation is a process of helping students resolve problems they encounter in academic life. This aid process always addresses situations requiring help in school activities, supporting students throughout their school journey to make choices in accordance with their interests, abilities, and personal situation. The type of aid offered by school counseling varies depending on age and educational level.
Occupational & Vocational Guidance
Occupational & Vocational Guidance aims to identify the occupational profile of individuals to guide them towards training or job placement, evaluating their skills, training, and interests.
While both relate to career guidance, vocational guidance focuses on self-discovery, while occupational guidance emphasizes finding a job.
Vocational guidance has a professionalizing nature: its primary purpose is not preparation for further study, but obtaining adequate qualifications so that students can enter established jobs in the workplace.
Psychoeducational counseling aims to identify reasons that may hinder the development of each of the four phases of counseling: creating a partnership, identifying problems, finding solutions, and supervision.
Here, the student works independently.
- SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIATION OF CONCEPTS
GUIDANCE Vs. ADVICE
The type of support in guidance differs from counseling. In counseling, the student requests assistance from a counselor, teacher, or psychologist.
OCCUPATIONAL ORIENTATION Vs. LABOR ORIENTATION
Both refer to processes of aiding individuals, but with differences. Vocational guidance is required for long-term career changes, while occupational guidance addresses immediate needs at a given time. Both aim for integration into adult life, either through further education and then work, or directly into the workforce.
ITEM 3
Differences between Occupational Orientation (OO) and Vocational Orientation (VO) (p. 91)
OO: This term has a stronger emphasis on the activity or profession, referencing aspects related to the task.
VO: Focuses more on procedural aspects or those prior to career selection.
However, both terms are often used interchangeably and have similar guidelines.
ITEM 4
Difference between Occupation and Career
Occupation: Is a physical reality, the activity to which a person dedicates most of their useful time.
There can be obstacles to reaching one’s occupational goals.
Career: Is the progress or development of an employee in the performance of their multiple occupations and jobs. It also encompasses competitive goals and objectives.
The goal of a career is individual development and professional interest.
ITEM 6
What is the IPP and its purpose?
The IPP is a questionnaire that serves to identify the professional interests of adolescents.
The main objective of the guidance is to help students choose occupations, studies, or activities according to their preferences, preparation, and possibilities. The questionnaire does not measure intelligence or personality skills.
The score sheet includes 17 professional fields, each providing two scores: AC (activities related to the field) and RP (professions related to the field).
BLOCK II
What is a career transition and employability? (P. 145)
Transitions are ad hoc changes that require adaptation beyond assimilation (in the words of Piaget). The change necessitates a period of assimilation to the new situation and accommodation.
Integration is defined as an ad hoc process concerning only the achievement of employment at a given time. Employability is achieved through a job appropriate for one’s education or professional expertise and initial expectations. Occupational integration refers to obtaining a job, without considering its type or quality.