Best Practice of Career Guidance Issue 2022

Running head: BEST PRACTICES OF CAREER GUIDANCE 1
Best Practices of career Guidance for secondary school students
Name
Institution

BEST PRACTICES OF CAREER GUIDANCE 2
Introduction
The issue of career guidance is becoming increasingly important in today’s world,
especially due to the rise in unemployment. Many countries have in the 21st century been facing
educated unemployment partially because students are not advised to take marketable or relevant
career paths that are most likely to secure them a job in the already overcrowded job markets.
Students tend to be stuck in the large scale theories that advocated for a specific path to success
(Joseph, 2017). Many people borrowed these large scale theories, which explains the nature of
the current job markets. The issue of unemployment is a profoundly disturbing one that can no
longer be addressed by holding career fairs and guiding students towards favourable careers.
Critically, there is a need to organise more meaningful technology-driven career fairs and guide
students towards pursuing their interests and avoid being carried away by large scale theories.
How career fairs for given age groups can be organised
Career fairs have in the modern days been reduced to mere exposure events with the
students reaping almost nothing from them. All that students do on these events is to move in and
out of various locations without necessarily gathering adequate information about the concerns
of the specific career. To reap the most out of a career fair, all the parties ought to plan
adequately for the event (School Development Division, Education Bureau, 2014).
Firstly, the organising team must assemble all the required resources for the event to be a
success. A career fair is not an event to be held just because it is a requirement by a certain body
or because the administration feels that the students need it. It must be a productive affair
capable of moulding the learners into whom they would like to be in the future (Wong & Yuen,
2019). Investing adequately on the career fair means that the organisers will source reputable

BEST PRACTICES OF CAREER GUIDANCE 3
individuals to expose the learners to various careers as opposed to a case whereby employer
representatives come to an institution not quite sure of the information they give to the students.
Secondly, the students need to be told earlier in advance and be guided to acquire the
desired mental state for the exposure. The students need to be discouraged from believing that
they have to participate in the exercise as groups. They should be made to know that career
choice is a highly individualised idea and that the choices made must have a very slight external
influence if any (Domene, Shapka, & Keating, 2016). The organisers should do follow-up
activities after the event to ensure that no student falls victim of misinformed decision-making.
Students should also be made to feel encouraged about the choices that they make and be
stimulated to focus and direct all their efforts through their ultimate career goal. The follow-up
activities should be extended to cover all the participants in the career fair. This move will
definitely help in unearthing relevant insights about the entire experience that could consequently
inform future career fairs.
Guiding Students for Relevant Higher Studies and Appropriate Employment
Students at younger ages tend to approach life with a high level of enthusiasm which
gradually drops as they approach higher levels of learning. It is therefore critical to utilise this
enthusiasm and help the students start focusing on becoming whom they want in future. Higher
studies should be closely tied to the desired employment and students ought to be made to learn
this early enough (Milan & Miroslava, 2017). Ideally, the process of choosing what to pursue
at higher education could be an uphill task especially for the people who did not plan adequately.
After informing the students that their desired employment must be tied to their higher-level
studies, it is also necessary to explain the role of personal interests in both career and higher
studies.