Individual counselling and accompaniment of young people is the core activity of the YourJob project. Thanks to the work and commitment of our guidance counsellors, the individual counselling is the activity where YourJob makes difference when compered to other similar projects or employment services. In the Mid Term Review that was carried out in September, the beneficiaries stressed the individual counselling as the most favoured activity. They pointed out friendliness, constant availability and dedication of our guidance counsellors as the most important aspects of our project. Therefore, our Guidance counsellors proved to be the most valuable and appreciated YourJob’s element. So we could say that the Individual counselling within the YourJob project is not only about informing and advising young people, it is about guiding them, constantly supporting and following towards the employment. It is a unique person-centred apporach where the proposed individual plan is designed based on young people background, needs and aspirations. Indeed, more than half of our beneficiaries benefit exclusively from the individual counselling and accompaniment.
„Individual counseling is a complex process and varies from case to case. Our first goal is for the candidates to feel comfortable and get their trust. Next step is to determine what the candidate’s wishes are, what he / she would like to do for living. This is a very important step. Many don’t even know what they want, so we try to find out together. The second step is to determine the competencies of the candidates. This often borders on and overlaps with professional orientation. Through various tests, we determine the real possibilities of the candidates, and when we determine the factual situation, we try to jointly conclude what needs to be done in order to realize their wishes – maybe some additional trainings, courses, development of a certain skill or maybe professional practice … It is not uncommon for the wishes and abilities of the candidate not to match. It is our task and responsibility to explain it to the candidate in the most appropriate way, not to ruin his/her dreams and self-confidence, but to encourage him/her to take some other path he/she would like to take. Once we determine the wishes and competencies of the candidates, it remains for us to determine the real situation on the labor market. Much depends on the demand for a particular profile. Maybe someone wants to become an astronaut and has all the prerequisites for that, but in Serbia it is simply impossible. We can say that our job is balancing and looking for a point of intersection between the wishes and abilities of the candidate and the real demand on the labor market.
We want to point out that, although we work in different parts of Serbia, we still work as a team and often consult with each other. After all, we are of different professions (Milica is an andragogue, Lidia is a pedagogue, and Jovana is a lawyer) and we complement each other.During the pandemic and the lockdown, it was easy to organize the individual counselling online, and it developed into a sort of psychological support for our beneficiaries which was and still is very important considering the circumstances. Many beneficiaries contact us on a weekly or even daily basis. They are scared and worried, often on the edge of despair. We strive to encourage them and give them hope and make sure their careers are on the rise. When we succeed in that, their happiness and gratitude are endless and that makes us happy and motivates us to increase our efforts“, explained Milica Bogdanov, Jovana Stojanović and Lidia Irga, YourJob GCs from Zrenjanin, Aleksinac and Ruma.
