Some findings on career counselling in higher education

Abstract

Purpose

In the time of social and technological challenges and in the perspective of recent global crisis, the ability of students to perform on the labour market to get their first job and to make significant, fulfilling career, is very important. The aim of this paper is to examine some aspects of counselling students in higher education to develop their competencies as future employees. This article discusses similarities and differences in organised counselling forms for students in some neighbouring European countries.

Design/methodology/approach

The survey was conducted as comparative study desk research on the basis of internet data – higher education institutions (HEI) web pages. Authors defined a set of 28 items by which they evaluated each individual HEI, and developed a dislcloser index Career Centre – DICC. For 246 HEI entities involved in the research the authors developed and tested research hypothesis. The authors applied descriptive statistics and bivariant statistics – non‐parametric Kruskal‐Wallis test and the Chi‐Square Test.

Findings

The results show that there is a statistically significant difference between the countries regarding DICC. Correlation between the existence of the Careers Centre at HEI and the country is confirmed. There is no correlation between range of Career Centre users and the State.

Originality/value

For the purpose of examining the problem of Career centres at HEI, an dislcloser index Career Centre – DICC was developed. Significant difference between countries regarding DICC index was confirmed. The future research will include and will explore students points of view regarding their expectations and satisfaction with the existing career counselling offer at HEI.

Citation

Merkač Skok, M. and Dolinšek, T. (2013), "Some findings on career counselling in higher education", Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 81-94. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506201311315635