Career guidance is a counselling activity aimed at identifying education, training, and employment pathways that best meet the user’s needs.
It is a Socratic process, not just an advisory activity, and does not end with a mere transfer of knowledge from the counsellor to the person seeking guidance. It is therefore a process aimed at reflecting on one’s interests, ambitions, qualifications, and skills in order to better understand how an individual can develop from both a human and professional point of view.
Following a definition of orientation present in the Italian legislation, I can define career guidance as the following:
– A process: It is something that happens between two or more people in relation to each other. It is not a transmission of knowledge. Orientation is something that happens between two people (the counsellor and the person asking for orientation) or in a group that determines a change.
– This process is about knowledge. People in guidance are asked to deepen their knowledge of themselves in relation to the context (social, educational, professional, cultural, economic) in which they live or wish to live.
– This knowledge should help the individual to autonomously define or redefine personal and professional goals and place them in a life project.
– Finally, guidance aims to provide the tools to support the action that derives from this life project.
