Professional activity occupies an important part of our life. Therefore, it is so necessary to do something that brings pleasure and fills our lives with meaning. I loved my future career even being a student, so I didn’t have to pay someone to write my research paper for me.

Most people think that career guidance is done through a test developed back in the 80s. The questions that can be found in it sometimes relate to professions that have already disappeared from the labor market. They were relevant for the time in which they were created, and then they guaranteed stability. Now the labor market has made a huge step forward, and therefore career guidance should teach not how to choose a profession once and for all, but strive to develop skills, acquire knowledge. If earlier the presence of a diploma said that you are a professional, today you need to prove it to the labor market every day. 

The most important statement that I am trying to convey to everyone is that people create a profession out of their interests and abilities, and not vice versa. That is, there is no single profession that everyone can learn to be successful and happy. The economy and the labor market are created by people.

So, huge changes in the labor market have occurred, in particular, due to successful entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk – professions in the field of IT and robotics have become popular. Rapidly developing social media have spawned bloggers: viners, YouTubers, tiktokers, etc. And these professions are among the highest-paid now. At the same time, it is fair to remember that global professions remain relevant, without which it is difficult to imagine our life. For example, doctors and teachers.  

Problems with choosing a profession in children often arise due to a banal misunderstanding of what it is. The concepts of “position” and “functions” and their practical significance are sometimes a mystery for them. It is difficult for kids to imagine that people, having studied at the same university, in the same course, can work in different places and different positions. 

It turns out that during career guidance it is important to understand your strengths and determine the growth zone. From this, a competent further route will be built. The priority when choosing a profession should be personal characteristics, not trends and the opinions of others.

It happens that a child at the age of 14 knows what he wants to do. He can’t find out if he doesn’t have time to think about it, and adults just tell him who to be. “Oh, you’re good at math. You can be a programmer!

The period of self-determination in children begins at the age of 12 and ends at 17. At this time, the child needs to ask a lot of questions, given an opportunity for analysis. A huge number of different classes that parents choose, on the contrary, can confuse. Children show interest when they are bored and have time to think about their true desires. That is, to understand what interests a child has in certain professions, you need to understand what he does when he is bored and what games he plays. Besides, work is also, in a sense, a game. There are certain rules, functions, and tasks. Personal qualities, professional qualities, and everything else is acquired already in the process.

Another important factor to consider is the competent selection of the university. Studies show that the majority of students leave universities not because the profession does not suit them, but because of the wrong university. Strong methodological universities are suitable for theorists who like to analyze and process a large amount of information. And the Higher School of Economics is already about activism and youth policy. Therefore, it is necessary to choose a university without relying entirely on ratings.

It follows from this that a person who understands well what the labor market is, where and how it moves, and how personnel selection is carried out should be engaged in the vocational guidance of schoolchildren. 

What has replaced career guidance tests? 

It is safe to say that the specifics of career guidance depend on the national characteristics of each country.

For example, in America, they begin to orient children from the age of three, because children at this age begin to play, choose the games that they like. In Germany, career guidance is tied to the industry, automobile companies, etc. And this is understandable because it is a very systemic country. Finnish career guidance is more about personal development and practices related to meaningfulness and reflection. In Japan, dynastic and clarity are accepted. 

Returning for some time to the topic of career guidance tests, it should be noted. Psychological tests most often determine abilities. That is, what is given to us at the genetic level. Depending on the desire and conditions, they can be developed or not developed.

One child has abilities, but there is no interest, the other one is not so capable, but there is a great interest. The second one will be more successful. Geniuses are one in a million when abilities and interests coincid.

Interest can develop abilities, in the opposite direction this process does not work. If something is given to a child easily, his interest will not last for a long time. Therefore, it is better to use training instead of tests. In this format, you can build your path of success.

In particular, training allows you to use game practices that are simultaneously aimed at self-knowledge and modeling the future. The human brain fully matures by 21. Therefore, the rehearsal of adult professional life at the age of 13-15 is very useful. Career modeling can be used for this. A teenager, being at point A, imagines point B and takes a few mental steps back to understand what actions influenced his path.

The most important thing in the training format is peer feedback. It’s no secret that the authority for teenagers is their peers. Their opinion is much more important than the opinion of parents and teachers. And so we create such conditions when guys give each other positive feedback. Even if something goes wrong, the coach settles everything in time, and classes are comfortable.

After the training, the kids realize that they can do something well, go out and continue to work on themselves. Another important stage is the consultation of parents:

It does not happen that a person was born so gifted that everything came to him by itself. Some people dream, and then go and act – that’s how success appears. The most important thing is not to discourage children’s dreams, especially dreams of realization in the profession. 

It happens that teenagers are sent for career guidance, and they have suicidal tendencies or some other problems. This cannot be ignored. There are cases when children eventually had to undergo serious treatment. Teenagers do not like to visit psychologists, but with the help of career guidance, they can be reached to help. 

An even more interesting option is career guidance in the camp.

Interesting mechanics have been developed for that. The teenagers ended up in the city of Annapolis, which urgently needs to be saved. In 12 days, the children have gone from the position of a schoolboy to a specialist in a specific field, having studied at adapted universities and changed their course. Following their psycho types and existing development strategies, they chose their role in the labor market: the head of the enterprise, an expert. The conditions are as close to reality as possible – and you can take a loan for your business, and come up with interesting collaborations, and burn out if something goes wrong. The winner of the whole game was the team that eventually had the most money. 

The point of this educational content is to realize that this world is full of opportunities. The main thing is to be able to learn. After a while, the boy whose team won said that if it wasn’t for that camp, he wouldn’t have thought about business. But now he is confidently moving in this direction. 

And this is one of the most striking indicators of the effectiveness of this format of career guidance.

In the future, it is planned to create a career-oriented online game for teenagers with companies that exist in the labor market. In the future, the child will be able to learn about his abilities, get a job in a company, try something there and understand whether he should move in this direction.