HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE SUPPORTED BY CAREER APPS, HOW ABOUT UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND ALUMNI?

Wow – you almost wish you were at school again! First Lady Michelle Obama initiated the ‘Reach Higher Career App Challenge’ to help middle and high school students navigate their educational choices with respect to their later career path. Five finalists came up with career apps designed to help school kids engage with these choices using technology: from connecting aptitudes, interest, and personal traits with the preferred educational pathway and the career consequences, to game-based activities around occupational choices. And let’s face it, if you are a teenager, playing games to explore your career choices is an obvious choice rather than talking to the study advisor.

Now the next question is: what are we going to do about the career readiness of university students and graduates? Will higher education also bring in gamification and facilitation of careers advice through technology or will it stick to the ‘good old careers office’? When we realise that 87% of graduates wish to have more careers advice from their universities, and 79% of them need help in finding employment, we may need to rethink our current career support*. What is the reason half of graduates feel ill-prepared for the next step after graduation? According to the employers, there is a gap between education and the real world of work. Combined with an increasingly competitive job market, the inability to close this gap proves to be detrimental to the graduates’ success in finding employment.

BRIDGING THE GAP

Building the bridge between higher education and the labour market has never been so important. Based on our data-driven understanding of student needs together with over 20 years of experience working with both universities and employers, CareerProfessor.works has been created to support graduate employability. Using gamification principles, the CareerProfessor.works app educates and prepares both students and recent alumni for employment, as well as boosts their cultural awareness in the international job market. The infotainment app is connected to a platform through which universities deliver careers advice to students, and help them strengthen the network between students, alumni and the university. Most importantly, CareerProfessor.works speaks the language of modern students: coming from high school with educational & career apps, students are looking for online solutions that are available to them 24/7.

The CareerProfessor.works platform is the missing link between higher education and the world of work.

Rita Nguyen,
ELM team

*Source

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