Vocational guidance has recently positioned itself as one of the tools needed to ensure a successful professional life. This has involved knowledge from different disciplines, such as psychology, pedagogy, business administration, among others. Currently, vocational orientation is even one of the areas most worked on with young people of pre-university age.

Next we will see what vocational orientation is and what its main objectives and tools are.

What is vocational guidance?

The word vocation means “related to vocation”. In turn, “vocation” means special inclination or inspiration to adopt a form of life . The latter is based on an important conviction and identification with that which is adopted.

The term “orientation” refers to the action of placing something in a certain position. In this context, orientation is also the act of informing someone about an issue, so that this information serves as a guideline for action .

This has been transferred specifically to the choice of a career, since this is largely what marks a long-term life course, at least in industrialized countries.

Thus, vocational orientation can be understood as a process that helps in the choice of profession (Vidal and Fernández, 2009). It is the activity in charge of covering the needs that prepare this choice, and that goes from favouring the knowledge of one’s own interests to the evaluation of the real possibilities of access to its exercise, its assessment and its follow-up.

It is also a set of knowledge and practices that seeks to ensure that young adults are trained in professional activities that correspond to their personal interest, and at the same time, ensure efficient performance in their future work environments.

Such a process not only aims at incorporating a young adult into the professional workforce and guiding him/her during his/her exercise, but also requires recognizing the person’s interest and facilitating his/her learning about the working environment .

Its components

We have seen that vocational orientation is not just an individual-centered process. Since vocational guidance is strongly focused on favouring and widening work and professional practice opportunities, such guidance must also know the real opportunities of access to the labour market , its relationship with the different programmes of study and the skills or competences that are necessary to access them.

Thus we can speak of two specific and necessary dimensions for the exercise of vocational guidance: one focused on knowing the individual, and the other focused on knowing the characteristics of the environment where his professional development is expected to occur.

1. Explore the person’s interests

In the context of vocational guidance it is common that the interests of the person are explored through the application of psychometric tests , and sometimes through in-depth interviews. The former allow the assessment of different personality profiles, attitudes or performance, as well as specific preferences.

Most of these tests determine a range of possibilities with which it is possible to consider, for example, whether the person has the necessary skills to perform the job of his or her interest , or if, on the contrary, the profession of his or her interest does not correspond to his or her abilities or real possibilities of success. Thus, a series of options are usually presented that are arranged in order from the most to the least, and from which the person can make certain decisions. This is how these tools seek precisely to guide the person’s decision.

Therefore, vocational orientation consists of providing all information that allows the individual to recognize his or her own interests, abilities, and areas of opportunity, or in some cases, also to facilitate the recognition of competencies that need to be strengthened in order to insert himself or herself into a concrete work context in the medium or long term.

2. Analyzing the characteristics of the context

On the other hand, it may be that the interests of the person correspond to his or her skills or competences available to carry out the professional activity of interest. However, the opportunities for access to said activity do not necessarily correspond with the interests or skills .

In this sense, part of vocational guidance consists in precisely assessing the real opportunities for access and making them known to the person concerned, so that he or she can propose the alternatives that he or she considers relevant.

The information and tools that help to satisfy this need range from sociodemographic studies that account for the number of professionals exercising a specific activity, to labour and market studies where it is possible to see which are the most or least competitive professions, or those with greater or lesser possibility of economic remuneration, or what the economic cost of studying certain professions is, among other characteristics.

Bibliographic references:

  • Vidal, M. and Fernández, B. (2009). Vocational guidance. Educación Media Superior (23)2: 1-11.