Current Experience of Graduates’ Career Planning and Its Use for Identifying Requirements and Setting Goals for Career Centers at Universities

Every university graduate faces a problem of employment. A young specialist without work experience can hardly find a job by his/her specialization, which would allow them not only to use the acquired knowledge but also to get an adequate estimation of their efforts. Today Russian universities adopt the overseas experience in career promotion by helping graduates in their career planning, as today's higher education institutions in Russia are extremely interested in graduate's career development and at the same time in successful functioning of the university in general. The article grounds the necessity to set up Employment and Career Centers at universities, whose organizational and economic characteristics and trends of development can give an opportunity to accumulate and allocate the best practices of graduates' career planning and technical and technological support of interaction with business partners for different categories of graduates. Here a young specialist can find consultations of career experts, help in compiling a competitive CV and assistance in searching for a suitable vacancy. At the same time the Employment and Career Center at the university can carry out an important function of informing university employees about the necessity and importance of graduates' career planning and stimulating graduates' interest in self-organization and professional self-development.

Generalization of Foreign Experience in the Career Guidance Center Work of Urfu

The subject of the work was to improve the methodology of the career guidance center of the URFU (Yekaterinburg, Russia) by overcoming contradictions in the recommendations on the profiles of activities for people with different types of personality. An adequate recommendation is based on combination of the generalized opinion of experts (12 career centers at the US universities, authors of 8 books) on the profile of the applicant's activity (manager, agent, etc.) and 24 fields of activity. Due to this solution it was possible to evaluate each sphere for the applicant by saturation with suitable profiles. And it extremely increases his chances to realize the most significant project by the age of 39. The methodology was based on the typological concept of the personality structure from the personality type, the character type and the dominant type of intelligence. This concept in contrast with the five-factor model of the personality structure demonstrates a significant result of the work. About 70% of graduates of the Russian universities do not work on the received specialty. For 7 years the presented methodology of the vocational guidance center of the URFU (Yekaterinburg, Russia) was improved to the level at which these "lost" 70% were detected at the testing stage before entering the university. The typological model defines a large field of variations PT+CT+TI in which talent can be multidirectional. This makes the career center mission not always feasible. The center should have the ability to design a personalized project. In career centers at the US universities the applicant is recommended a variety of options where he can be useful. Thus, they shift the responsibility of the problem of choice to applicants’ shoulders. The proposed methodology allows forming a project in which he will be most effective and competitive.

Information and Communication Technology: Social Networking Sites in Career Centers in Vocational High Schools

This study aims to analyze information and communication technology used by career center institutions in vocational high schools. Career centers in vocational high schools are institutions whose job is to manage graduates by conveying important information about employment. The method used in this research is descriptive. This research involved 9 vocational high schools. Respondents in this study are the heads of career center institutions in vocational high schools. The selection of vocational high school research samples uses the Stratification Sampling technique. The tool used to collect data is a questionnaire. The results of the study found that at career centers in vocational high schools do not use SMS gateways in conveying information, using websites by 43%, tweeters by 71%, yahoo mail and Gmail by 0%, Instagram by 100%, Facebook by 100%, telegrams by 19%, and WhatsApp by 100%. The advantage obtained from the use of social media in vocational high schools is the ease of use criteria with a value of 96%, the ease of interacting with alumni criteria is obtained a score of 92% and the student response criteria of 78%. While the use of social media has disadvantages including students giving responses that are not following the information provided, must be prepared to answer many questions raised by students, and can create content to deliver on social media.

Opportunities to expand the offered administrative services from the career centers

Purpose. An important prerequisite for the successful completion of the graduating students is the good functioning of the career center of each higher school. Given the current tendencies of digitization of the services provided, it is necessary to seek opportunities for their expansion. The main objective of the present study is to build on the experience gained and the practices applied in the higher education institutions providing career services to students to seek opportunities to improve this process. Methods. In order to achieve this goal, various methods are used in the publication, such as the method of empirical analysis and synthesis, the analysis of current regulations and studies among students. Results. The results obtained are in the direction of building and developing modern communication channels and modern digital electronic administrative services for the students. Conclusions. The conclusions outline the main challenges facing the higher education career centers and the opportunities for expanding the provided administrative services for the students.

Challenges in Building the Administrative Capacity of Career Centers in Higher Education Institutions

Purpose. An important priority for higher education institutions is the career development and realization of the students. In the dynamic labor market in Bulgaria this is becoming a serious challenge. It is important that these processes provide prerequisites for career centers to participate at all stages of the career path of students. The main objective of the present study is to build on the existing good practices and work of career centers to highlight the main factors for increasing their administrative capacity. Methods. The applied methods of study allow the basic objective to be achieved. These are: empirical analysis and synthesis, as well as an analysis of the existing regulatory framework. Results. The results obtained are in the direction of building and developing the administrative capacity of the higher education career centers. Conclusions. The conclusions outline the main challenges facing the higher education career centers and the opportunities for increasing their administrative capacity.