Vocational Guidance: What It Is And What It Is For
Vocational guidance has recently been positioned as one of the necessary tools to ensure a successful professional life. Knowledge from different disciplines has participated in the above, such as psychology, pedagogy, business administration, among others. At the moment, Vocational guidance is even one of the areas most worked on with young people at pre-university age.
Next we will see what vocational guidance is and what its main objectives and tools are.
The word vocation means “related to vocation.” In turn, “vocation” means special inclination or inspiration to adopt a way of life The latter based on a conviction and important identification towards what is adopted.
For its part, the term “orientation” refers to the action of placing something in a certain position. In this context, counseling is also the act of informing someone about a matter, in a way May this information serve as a guideline or guide to take action
The above has been specifically transferred to the choice of a professional career, since to a large extent, this is what marks a long-term life path, at least in industrialized countries.
Thus, vocational guidance can be understood as a process that helps in choosing a profession (Vidal and Fernández, 2009). This is the activity in charge of covering the needs that prepare said choice, and which range from promoting knowledge of one’s interests to the evaluation of the real possibilities of access to their exercise, its evaluation and its monitoring.
It is also a set of knowledge and practices that seek to ensure that young adults are trained in professional activities that correspond to their personal interest, and at the same time, ensure efficient performance in their future work environments.
This process not only has the objective of incorporating a young adult into the professional workforce and guiding them during their exercise, but also requires recognize the person’s interest and facilitate their learning about the work environment
It’s components
We have seen that vocational guidance is not a process solely focused on the individual. Because vocational guidance is strongly focused on promoting and expanding job opportunities and professional practice, said guidance must also know the real opportunities to access the labor market its relationship with the different study programs and the skills or competencies that are necessary to access them.
Thus, we can speak of two specific and necessary dimensions for the exercise of vocational guidance: one focused on knowing the individual, and the other focused on knowing the characteristics of the environment where their professional development is expected to occur.
1. Explore the person’s interests
In the context of vocational guidance it is common that the interests of the person are explored through the application of psychometric tests , and sometimes, from in-depth interviews. The former allow us to evaluate everything from different personality profiles, attitudes or performance, to specific preferences.
For the most part, these tests determine a range of possibilities with which it is possible to consider, for example, whether the person has the necessary skills to perform the work of interest , or if, on the contrary, the profession of your interest does not correspond to your abilities or your real chances of success. Thus, a series of options are usually presented that are arranged from highest to lowest, and from which the person can make certain decisions. This is how these tools seek precisely to guide the person’s decision.
Therefore, vocational guidance consists of providing all the information that allows the individual to recognize their own interests, skills and areas of opportunity, or in some cases, also facilitating the recognition of the competencies that need to be strengthened to enter a specific medium-term work context. or long term.
2. Analyze the characteristics of the context
On the other hand, it may happen that the person’s interests correspond to their skills or competencies available to carry out the professional activity of interest. But, not necessarily the opportunities to access said activity correspond to interests or abilities
In this sense, part of vocational guidance consists of precisely evaluating the real access opportunities and making them visible to the interested person, so that they themselves are the ones who propose the alternatives that they consider relevant.
The information and tools that help satisfy this need range from sociodemographic studies that account for the number of professionals carrying out a specific activity, to labor and market studies where it is possible to see which professions are more or less competitive, or with more or less possibility of economic remuneration, or what the economic cost of studying certain professions is, among other characteristics.
