GoodGoing! explains its career advice services for the youngster

Approaching the labour market the first time

The youngsters

People often worry about youngsters:

• unemployment rates for Italians aged 15 - 24 are around 40%
• there’s a growing population of NEET: youngsters who haven’t finished studying (not even high school), aren’t learning a trade and are not working
• many continue to study at university and then do masters to “extend” their studies
• many escape and go abroad for different reasons and purposes.

The parents

Parents very often don't have the means to help their children: they offer a family unit that has an importance or which had an importance in the education of their children, but they might have a vision of the world that is out of date. I’m not taking about their legal role, but rather on schools and works (is it better to start working after university or do a master or a phD?), or the choice of the target of companies and the reference market.

A neighbour of mine and a former colleague at the Politecnico has two children: his daughter is in the UK with her husband who works for an American bank, while her son is a Bocconi graduate and joined a consultancy form in December.

I was really surprised! This was the type of situation that people in my days would have been looking for.

Nowadays many bright and qualified youngsters want to create, participate and contribute.

I am helping a young Italian man with two masters abroad and 5 years work experience at Google. We are trying to work out “what he’ll do when he grows up”: we haven’t even considered  any major companies..

So families can only really be expected to offer emotional and financial support and may otherwise get in the way and represent an obstacle.

Education

Education??? One thing you won’t get from your education is information about the labour market.

When you get of school,

or when you've been out of school for some time,

and then are looking back,

you realize there are three things a good education

should have given you...

But in your case, did not.

1. High school or college should have taught you

how to choose and find a job.

A job that matches your gifts, skills, and experience.

A job that not only puts bread n the table,

clothes on your back,

and a shelter over your head, but also makes you happy,

and gives you a sense of purpose in life.

...

from "What color is your parachute?" Richard Nelson Bolles, edition Ten Speed Press, 2008

The Career Coach

So?                                                                                                          

So I think that “knowing how to look for a job” is a skill like knowing how to use a PC, email, social media and speak a foreign language.

It is with this belief in mind that GoodGoing! is involved in certain events like the evening organised with  the "Milano Castello" Rotaract Club, the group of youngsters from the eponymous Rotary club.

Recently Cristina Gianotti was a dinner where she offered her own insight for youngsters looking for direction with coaching sessions for identifying so-called “career anchors” (or motivations), the approach for assessing potential alternatives between academic and employment options and, perhaps after a couple of years of work experience, to develop the required characteristics for performing better like assertiveness, communication, financial awareness, management of reports.

Attached are the slides that were used for the "Milano Castello" Rotaract Club evening on 18 November 2015.

A “new” skill: knowing how to look for work (in Italian) (905 kb.)