Annex E. Online career guidance portals
Online Education Counselling Austria (Online-Bildungsberatung Österreich) targets adults with questions on education and occupational issues. All advisory services are confidential and free of charge. Another portal (erwachsenenbildung.at) is a one-stop-shop for every individual looking for online career or educational guidance, financing, education offers, information connected to the (late) completion of an interrupted official qualification and the recognition of prior learning. The portal also includes specific support to low educated learners, e.g. “learning to learn”, where users receive assistance in overcoming their fear to go back to learning, for example if they previously had negative experiences in a learning environment.
The Commonwealth Government manages a number of websites that contain career information (e.g. JobOutlook). These websites include analytical tools that allow users to input their skills, interests and experience to be provided with recommendations on occupations that may be suitable for their career. The National Careers Institute’s digital platform (yourcareer.gov.au) provides an authoritative source of accurate careers information and advice on learning, training and employment pathways. Informed by education and employment data, the digital platform includes a suite of career tools to match individuals to potential careers based on their interests, experience and education qualifications. Future updates to the digital platform will introduce additional tools and functionality to assist users in navigating and managing their career.
The Danish website UddannelsesGuiden (www.ug.dk) brings together information about different education options, the structure of the Danish labour market and the role of industries and businesses. It also features a Job Compass tool (JobKompasset), which allows individuals to learn about different occupations within sectors. The information provided for each occupation includes a description of daily activities, average income, tools or equipment used, and even the occupations’ outlook for the future. The Job Compass also directly links to the vocational courses that prepare and certify individuals in these occupations. Users can access further information and guidance easily via chat, phone or email.
Estonia’s minukarjäär website (www.minukarjäär.ee) offers career guidance information about available guidance services, workshops, trainings, articles about developments in the labour market, as well as interactive tools for self-analysis and job search. The website is currently being renewed with the objective of including more interactive options.
The education portal (haridusportaal.edu.ee) provides information about the work and skills needed in the labour market in the future. Users can also find practical advice for career development and a complete overview of the Estonian education system. This way, users can identify where they are in their lifelong learning process and plan their next steps accordingly.
In France the “Orientation Pour Tous” portal is intended to precede or complement the services provided by career guidance advisors. Available information includes current issues related to training and employment (e.g. impact of the crisis, explanation of how training systems work), training courses abroad, rights according to a person’s situation, links to different training organisations, as well as financial support available to attend training courses.
Greece’s platform (e-stadiodromia.eoppep.gr) is provided by EOPPEP, the National Organisation for the Certification of Qualifications and Vocational Guidance, an all-encompassing statutory body investing in better quality and more efficient and reliable lifelong learning services in Greece. It aims to offer innovative services supporting the career development of adults of all ages. The platform contains career information on learning, employment and mobility opportunities in Greece and other EU countries, online digital career guidance tools and exercises to develop the career management skills of adults and help them redesign their careers if they wish to do so. The portal includes an application that supports the user in drafting their own digital career portfolio. A labour market information system is also integrated on the website. Finally, the portal provides distant counselling services, to have a real time direct conversation with a career guidance counsellor. These tools allow clients to receive career guidance services through different means and at times that fit with their personal needs, while at the same time reducing the cost of career guidance provision.
In Ireland, the publicly-funded national career information portal (CareersPortal.ie) was developed as a direct response to a report generated by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) in 2007. It is a central one-stop portal for students, adult learners, jobseekers, parents and career guidance professionals. The free services include: a personal career file to assist in planning and managing the individual’s career development; analysis on 33 employment sectors highlighting skills shortages, associated educational courses, sector news and links to job vacancies in each of the sectors; an occupational database; employer profiles and interviews with jobholders in the respective sectors on their experiences working there.
HRD-net is a website launched in 2002 by the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MoEL) that provides a wealth of information on subsidised training programmes available, including on the duration of the course, training costs, as well as training quality information. Quality indicators include completion rates, satisfaction of participants, and acquisition of units of competences based on the National Competency Standards (NCSs). HRD-net is a successful example of an online database on adult learning: it counts over 11 million members (as of May 2018) and around 160 000 visits per day, and it acquired the Web Accessibility Quality Mark in 2018 (OECD, 2020[1]).
Interested users can find information on available education and training programmes, as well as qualitative information on the possibilities of distant learning, on the website AIKOS (www.aikos.smm.lt/Puslapiai/Pradinis.aspx). AIKOS is an open vocational information, counselling, and guidance system providing a wide range of users with information based on different sources, such as public, departmental, and other databases and registers.
Set in 2014 by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the Occupation Outlook is a mobile app that allows users to explore study and career options, with extensive information on labour supply and demand in over 100 occupations, covering around 90% of employment in the labour market. Each occupation has three dials that indicate its relative income, fees, and job prospects. These can be sorted by highest to lowest and tapped on to reveal a wealth of content about education requirements, average incomes, and employment growth. The app now also has a subject-levels-to-occupation matching tool that the user can use to indicate his/her desired level of education in key subject areas and get back matching occupations. The app also provides information on the qualifications needed for the job, the institutions (e.g. universities, training providers) where it is possible to obtain such qualifications, and the average cost of study. Occupation Outlook is designed to help students make well-informed study and career choices, but it is open to everyone.
The Portuguese Vi@s portal aims at strengthening people’s self-management of their careers. It provides information to support self-knowledge, soft skills development, entrepreneurship, exploration of different professions and job and training search. The information on the website is accompanied by exploratory activities, such as questionnaires, self-assessment and reflection exercises. It will be integrated later in 2020 in the IEFP interactive services portal (https://iefponline.iefp.pt/).
The PES in Spain, Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal (SEPE), runs a dedicated online platform for career guidance (www.sepe.es). Based on the individual characteristics of a person (e.g. employed, unemployed, young or older worker), the website provides the person with indicators of skills demand and supply (e.g. job vacancy, wages, occupations in shortages), with suitable education and training programmes and with information on training providers or programmes and their quality (e.g. satisfaction rates, employment rates after graduation). Soon a tool will be added that helps individuals better understand their skills with the help of digital profiling tools based on artificial intelligence.
A number of online portals focus on different key areas within the career guidance field. The publicly-funded national education portal (Utbildningsinfo.se) provides more general information on education and includes a search tool for education programmes in Sweden, a web-based career guidance tool, a description of the Swedish school system, a personal folder and a special section for guidance practitioners. Another platform (Studera.nu) informs interested candidates about higher education options. These two platforms are complemented by online information provided by the Swedish public employment service, describing the different professions and offering labour market forecasts. Arbetsförmedlingen, the Swedish PES, has recently relaunched a digital self-service package for career guidance and is now expanding it to be used by external parties (municipalities, trade unions, social security organisations, regions, authorities). The package includes digital career guidance services that can be of use for those who are unsure about which profession to choose, those who want to know more about the current labour market, and those who want to start studying or want to take a new step in their career. The package includes self-guided career guidance, an interest guide made up of 12 questions, labour market demand and offers.
Reference
[1] OECD (2020), “Improving the financing and governance of the Korean adult learning system”, in Enhancing Training Opportunities in SMEs in Korea, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/80baa930-en.