"Which Career For Me (WCFM) for Students, the online career planning support method for young people aged 16 to 25, has the advantage of being able to provide tailored support, both collectively and individually."
Thierry Dupont,
Certified Coach and Management Consultant Professionalization and Partnership Ecosystems Manager, IAAC.
Supporting Talents, Diversity and Orientation choices are at the heart of Thierry Dupont's coaching profession. With over 20 years of experience in team management and change support, he created IAAC, his own consulting and coaching company a little over 10 years ago to support managers and students in the evolution of their personal and professional projects. While Thierry Dupont intervenes a lot in companies on managerial issues, part of his activity focuses on helping students and high school students build personal and professional projects, particularly within the framework of institutional equal opportunity programs such as "Cordées de la Réussite". He also works at an engineering school at INSA in Toulouse. During these support sessions, Thierry Dupont was able to test Which Career For Me: Students, the online career planning support method for young people aged 16 to 25, and shares his feedback.
Three different audiences with the same need: Better self-understanding, motivations and job stereotypes
I was able to test Which Career For Me (WCFM): Students with three different audiences each with 30 people.
- With a high school audience whose goal was to work on job knowledge and training choices, with the underlying question of how to intelligently choose their specializations in relation to their professional project, the job, and the desired training.
- The second audience, as part of a bridge created by the Federal University of Toulouse, involved about thirty students who, after a medical course that did not lead to a conclusion, were questioning where to go and why.
- The third audience was a preparatory class in higher education at Bellevue High School in Toulouse: about thirty young people who have graduated from high school, come from disadvantaged backgrounds, priority neighborhoods of the city and large rural areas of the Occitanie region and who are offered a one-year program to strengthen their skills and work on their professional project. This is an audience that, if not supported, would never embark on higher education. My role was to coach them and work a lot on the self-censorship phenomena, in addition to professional projects and training choices.
These three audiences had a certain thing in common – the need to work on job stereotypes. They also needed to refocus on self-knowledge to identify what their motivations are; what meaning they want to give to their professional life. Then once they have determined a goal determine what is plan A, what is plan B, and what are the different ways to access these jobs.
A comprehensive method of support, individually or collectively, for young people
The use of Which Career For Me: Students to support these three groups of young people is quite comprehensive in the sense that it works on motivations, professions and also training paths. It additionally adds the identification, and appropriation, of a certain number of skills and soft skills that allow an individual to project oneself, to fight against self-censorship, to work thoroughly on stereotypes and to say "I have the possibility of... I can allow myself to...".
The method really allows young people to move through the different stages of their career planning - discovery of their professional interests, motivations, strengths, soft skills, mindset, company type; the professions that suit them best; the validation of their professional project; the search for the right information and training to develop their skills and knowledge expected for the desired profession - and really allows them to be deeply supported in this.
The tool allows for collective support on certain aspects, with two, three or four people during which young people can feed off each other's experiences and ultimately learn to look at their profile, which is very interesting. At the same time, it allows for individual support. The tool has the advantage of being able to provide tailor-made support, both on a collective and individual basis.
A method that puts meaning at the heart of career planning
Helping young people prepare with the skills they need to find, stay, and grow in a job is important, but doing so for a job they are passionate about is crucial.
The tool really allows a connection between two aspects: "Who am I?" and "What do I want to do?" The fundamental steps of the method are the job register and working on job stereotypes. We relate the soft skills highlighted to perform a job but also another fundamental aspect: the meaning. By reflecting on the type of job we want to go towards and what training to follow to be able to practice it, we put meaning back at the heart of the subject.
A progressive method that reduces young people's distrust of this type of test
Some young people express a bit of distrust at the beginning. They have preconceptions about the nature of a test, criticizing it for "putting people in boxes", "I type 3, 6, 2 on my phone and they're going to tell me what job I'm going to do tomorrow!". Ultimately, doing it step by step and collectively, an atmosphere and an alliance are created, the level of distrust disappears, and the young person quickly gets into the game because the method is progressive. All say Generally the feedback isthat this phase of taking the test is fundamental. Depending on the types of audiences, it is not a test that can be sent, hastily, without prior support and during the test phase.
The level of distrust can also be a priori, that is to say at the beginning but can also be through certain questions. Personally, I chose to systematically take the test with the young people I accompanied, except with students reorienting after a few years of medicine and who have a little more maturity, who took it in total autonomy and for whom the administration went very well. For other types of younger audiences, it is very important to take the test with them, as I perceived some difficulties for them in answering certain questions. Being present with them during the administration, taking the test collectively, step by step, was very helpful and avoided the pitfall of distrust that can come through a question. There are questions that may seem annoying to some students and not to others. Being present with these young audiences during the administration is for me a point of vigilance.
A very positive reception from the beneficiaries
Each of the audiences I have accompanied (those in second grade aged 15-16, others barely 18, or some aged 20-21) was able to find their place by taking the Which Career For Me test. For many of them, this test is a "revelation" in the sense that they say "Intuitively I knew that, but I never dared to say it, I never dared to put it on the table." or "Ah, I didn't know what this job was, it's very much in line with what I do on the side, in fact when I fill in 'validate my project', it fits, I see that it matches." Young people are generally "blown away". They come out of it somehow strengthened and full of motivation.
This allows us to lay a first stone, we connect on the "where I want to go". Depending on the young person's feedback, we see the aspects on which we will need to deepen individual support at that time. If it is very useful for young people, Which Career For Me is also very helpful for me, in my support process.