Projecta’t: career guidance throughout life

The labor market, productive sectors and jobs are changing faster and faster every day. And you, are you already oriented? Traditionally, vocational guidance has been seen as a service to meet the needs of two specific groups: on the one hand, young people, who must choose an educational pathway to focus their professional career, and, on the other hand, unemployed people who must consider a pathway to labor market insertion. And this is the approach on which the different guidance programs in the framework of active employment policies in our country have been based to date. But, what about the rest of the workers, don’t they need professional guidance? The acceleration of changes in the production system and in the labor market means that the concept of a job for life has become a thing of the past. Technological advances are causing the disappearance of many jobs and rendering many skills obsolete. But they also generate new job opportunities, entail new ways of working and require new skills and abilities. Guidance is a process of personalized accompaniment that helps people to get to know themselves better, reflecting on their professional objectives, assessing their competencies, identifying their training needs, adapting to changes in the environment, identifying risks and opportunities in the labor market, making well-informed decisions about their future and leading their professional growth process. Career guidance also helps companies to identify the existing talent in their teams, to define career plans, to identify training needs, to adapt to changes, to improve the motivation and commitment of their employees, increasing competitiveness. In short, career guidance helps people to develop their full potential, companies to be more efficient and societies to be fairer. The European Commission, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Labour Organization have continuously recommended to the governments of the most developed countries the implementation of public policies and programs to provide career guidance to employed workers. In Europe there are many successful experiences in the implementation of different models of career guidance for working people. Some examples are:

• The French Law on the Right to Vocational Training and Guidance, which establishes guidance as a citizen’s right to ensure future employability and includes a set of measures such as career assessment, mid-career interview or guidance and training passport.
• The Flemish guidance check system, which provides workers with two four-hour career guidance checks every six years throughout their working lives.
• The British Mid-Life Review, a kind of personal MOT in which people aged 40 and over are helped to assess their employment and financial situation and plan for their future.

This year, the Consortium for Lifelong Learning of Catalonia has launched Projecta’t, a new career guidance program aimed at employed workers to help them become aware of their level of competence development and the evolution of their professional environment, and to accompany them in identifying, developing and accrediting the skills they will need in the future to maintain and improve their employability. We welcome this initiative, hope that it is here to stay and wish that it will help many people to say: I am what I want to be!