Career Entry Support by Mentoring

Vocational guidance helps young people who want to start an apprenticeship to find their way into a career and achieve their goals. It is aimed at students who are aiming for a secondary school leaving certificate or a special school leaving certificate and then an apprenticeship, but need special support along the way. The support begins in the preliminary class, i.e. one year before the students leave school, and continues into the first year of training.

The starting signal for the mentoring system for the transition to the labour market was given in 2009 with a model trial. Since 2012, career transition support has been a standard instrument (Section 49, Third Book of the Social Code) and can be offered at all general education schools.

The career guidance counsellors personally support the young people, jointly analyze their strengths and weaknesses and motivate them. They derive support plans to guide the young people individually to the individual stages of the career choice process. If necessary, they organize additional support services, such as tutoring. Support is provided in close coordination with the career counselling service. The young people document all steps in a documentation and reflection tool.

Often it is also a matter of critically reflecting on the young people’s career aspirations in order to prevent them from dropping out of training later on. The career entry support encourages the young people to gain positive experiences and thus strengthen their self-confidence.

The career entry guides are employed by an educational institution, which have been commissioned by the Federal Employment Agency. In order to meet the requirements of their tasks, the career entry guides must be highly qualified.