An Online Career Intervention for Promoting Chinese High School Students’ Career Readiness

To assist Chinese high school students in improving their career readiness and tackling career decision-making difficulties, we designed a synchronous online career intervention based on the Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) theory during the Covid-19 pandemic. The online career intervention consisted of a series of career courses to develop high school students’ knowledge and skills in career planning, career assessments for exploring their vocational interests and academic self-concept, and a database providing basic information about university majors. To evaluate the intervention’s effectiveness, 957 10th grade students were recruited in the study, 601 participants (girls = 227, boys = 324) were randomly assigned to the experimental group (online career intervention), and 356 (girls = 159, boys = 197) participants were randomly assigned to the control group (no any career interventions). All participants completed a pre- and post-intervention assessment of their career maturity, vocational identity and career decision-making difficulties. Results indicated that the online intervention significantly increased high school students’ career readiness and reduced their career decision-making difficulties. The practical implications of this research for online career interventions directed at Chinese high school students are also discussed.

Sustainable Career Development: A new challenge in career counselling in the modern era

Sustainable Career Development constitutes an interdisciplinary research area in the field of counseling and career guidance that is based on Sustainable Development. In this context, the aim of the manuscript is to report the importance of providing career counselling to manage one's personal and professional growth and development in a sustainable approach. In the framework of this effort, we are presenting the Sustainable Career Development Scale and putting forward a number of implications for career intervention, which relate to sustainability in career.

The development of coping strategies for young people to construct their identity in times of the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a major impact on young people across the world. Many students struggle to complete their studies amidst the pressure of the pandemic and have many difficulties constructing their identity and career which is crucial at this period of life. An overview of the main effects of the pandemic on their identity and career development is presented.Objectives: The first objective is to highlight the challenges faced by youth regarding their identity and career development, particularly the challenges induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The next objective is to explore different strategies that may be implemented to ameliorate the effects of the career shock induced by the pandemic. Lastly, the goal is to propose career guidance and counselling interventions that professionals may utilise to help young adults to cope with the career-related consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.Method: This article was informed by an overview of the current psychosocial literature. Relevant literature was reviewed and critically analysed. It was also informed by the review of an empirical experience with a group of students who kept diaries during pandemic confinement periods.Results: The analysis resulted in three sets of psychosocial strategies that youth can develop in order to face the difficulties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Each set of coping strategies is related to a specific career intervention that may be implemented by career guidance and counselling practitioners.Conclusion: To support the development of adaptive coping strategies for the youth, career and counselling professionals need to address the three main types of challenges that are described.

Application the GCC Model for Community Counselors' On-the-Job Training to Promote Career Intervention Skills ─ College Specialty-Oriented Career Planning Skills

This study is an action research, a total of 12 community counselors from the community career counseling center for youth, the Taipei Youth Salon in Taiwan, were chosen as the sample, and these research subjects participated two stages of on-the-job training group. The survey results in the "Satisfaction Survey of Community Counselors Participating in GCC on-the job training group" (5-point scale) where the overall satisfaction on the development group of this study is high (M=4.8 and S=0.26); it was not only improving their career intervention skills, but also very helpful for individual stress relief (M=4.9; S=0.36). It is expected that the GCC model will have a seed effect, and the long-term vision is to use the model to train specialty-oriented career counselors/teachers for "specialty-oriented career planning courses" in higher education.

THE ROLE OF MOBILE INSTANT MESSENGER AS SUPPORTIVE PLATFORM FOR MEDICAL CAREER INTERVENTION

Background: Career intervention in medical students is an activity meant to increase awareness and early exposure on various medical careers. Utilization of technology as a support to career intervention model offers a novel approach that might optimize the exposure and quality of the intervention and can be developed as a safe and non-judgemental environment for the students to talk about career-related topics. Aims: This study aimed to determine the use of mobile instant messenger as a supportive tool for medical career intervention. Learning Media Review: LineTM is a mobile instant messenger platform that is used to communicate and send messages using the internet. This platform provides voice and video calls, text messages, polls, and other features such as: stickers, photos, videos, voice messages, and location. These features can be accessed free of charge by users. This article uses discussion and participatory observation methods for three weeks. Thirty six (n=36) first-year medical students that were joining a career introduction course were placed into on online group, a LineTM group, led by two facilitators to guide their daily discussion. The responses are voluntary and they were encouraged to express themselves freely without any topic restriction whatsoever throughout the sessions. Online transcripts were then coded according to recurring topics and themes that came up during their discussions. Eight themes were identified from the discussion and categorised into three: 3 major categories, 2 intermediate and 3 minor. Major themes identified were role model, non-academic career information, and clinical clerkship. This study show maximum engagement of 26 participants on first day with maximum discussion length in one topic of three hours during career-related topics. Conclusion: Mobile instant messaging is considered useful in supporting a medical career intervention, especially in providing career information and carrying a momentum for career-related discussion. It is further stated that the role of online facilitator as a peer mentor is major in providing quality discussion, a safe environment, and accurate source of information to the students.