Career Counseling &

Career Counseling is a multidimensional effort to support people in coping with the difficulties related to the whole of their professional choices (Maria Malikioses-Loizou, 2002). Vocational counseling is essentially a form of intervention aimed at enhancing the professional development of the individual or enabling the individual to make effective professional decisions (R. Nathan, L. Hill, 2006).

The application of psychometric tools has a dual objective: to contribute on the one hand to the assessment of horizontal abilities and skills of the respondent and on the other to their self-exploration, thus facilitating the successful matching of the person with the requirements of a job, which leads to a closer professional success. The successful combination of professional interests and professional reward leads to professional satisfaction. Finally, the combination of professional success and job satisfaction leads to a sense of job security (Savickas, 2008). Psychometric tools, diagnostic tools and professional profile development techniques are therefore applications for professional development, whether this translates into an improvement in the quality of the activity already performed by the user, a successful link with the labor market, or a qualitative educational path leading to new employment opportunities in the future (e.g. apprenticeship, traineeship).

An advisory approach is therefore adopted whereby the professional development of the individual follows an evolutionary path, which is dynamic, in the sense that it absorbs creatively (“metabolizes”) the frictions created by career discontinuities. The user of services does not simply capture a static image of his/her professional self, or his/her environment, on the basis of which he/she will seek “appropriate” opportunities. On the contrary, the advisory relationship is concluded in an online environment, which allows the user to form himself (in cooperation with the consultant/mentor) the “scenario” of his career, his individual biography. Through the individual biography, the individual organizes knowledge, skills, abilities and experience, which on the one hand “shares” with prospective partners or employers, on the other hand, manages, with a view to constantly updating, adapting and/or modifying in the face of new challenges and changes.