Training and Job Orientation is one of the most searched topics on the web. It concerns every individual in society, from young graduates seeking their first job to the unemployed eager to start a new career.
The world of work has undergone significant transformations in recent years, becoming increasingly competitive. Cross-functional skills are required, as well as a lot of professionalism and training. Keep in mind that economic and social changes have also favored the rise of the digital realm, resulting in the emergence of new professional roles.
When talking about work orientation, it’s essential to rely on a guiding figure, a consultant, or a career coach. The expert, using appropriate techniques and tools, helps define the most suitable career path based on one’s previous skills and abilities.
A work orientation center focused on traditional professions doesn’t fully meet the needs of today’s job market. Undoubtedly, education is crucial in every professional field and should be considered an integral part.
However, gaining skills in the digital job market provides greater placement opportunities. The important thing is to rely on professionals who can help you learn the right skills and apply what you’ve learned, both through live lessons and real-world practice.
That’s why I recommend the internship program that offers the chance to gain practical work experience, enabling you to acquire the necessary tools to launch your envisioned career. In this article about work orientation, you’ll also find information on:
- what work orientation means
- how to navigate the job market
- why choose to focus on digital professions
- how to prepare for professional orientation.
What is Job Orientation?
What does work orientation mean? The word “orientation” comes from the Latin word “oriens” (east), the cardinal point where the sun rises. Thus, in a broader sense, the term indicates all activities aimed at guiding a person in the search for a profession.
While in the past, the more delicate phases of this process were entrusted to the family and educational environment, over the last decade, the process has become more self-aware. Consequently, techniques and tools have been refined.
The user is empowered to independently embark on a career path that aligns with their characteristics and personal experiences.
As previously mentioned, work orientation isn’t only relevant to young graduates but also to unemployed individuals seeking requalification. However, it’s essential for everyone to have the opportunity to contribute actively and productively to society.
Through work orientation for individuals with psychological disabilities, for instance, even the more vulnerable segments of society can enter the workforce.
Similarly, experts in work orientation and inclusion or those engaged in work orientation for foreigners are entrusted with the professional requalification of individuals who are away from their home country.
But why does understanding the right profession demand so much effort? The primary motivation is to minimize wrong decisions. Opting for the wrong work orientation course or the wrong schools can truly jeopardize your professional aspirations.
Of course, you aren’t bound to follow the same direction for your entire life. You have the possibility to change and later assess if the chosen profession better aligns with your personality. Alternatively, you may need to pursue a different career path.
Hence, relying on those who can guide you toward the most suitable profession for you is beneficial, eliminating the risk of wasting time.
Watch this video to learn how to choose the right career orientation path
Purpose and benefits of Job Orientation
Job orientation serves as a crucial process aimed at enhancing employee engagement, retention, and adaptation within an organization. Its primary objective is to equip new hires with comprehensive information about their roles and responsibilities, fostering a seamless integration into the company.
This entails acquainting them with senior-level colleagues, supervisors, and peers, often through facility tours, which cultivates a sense of belonging and ease. During orientation, new employees are encouraged to seek clarifications on their roles, leading to enhanced confidence in meeting company expectations and thereby boosting productivity.
The introduction of company policies, encompassing dress codes, payroll procedures, and ethical guidelines, reinforces a culture of professionalism and ensures that newcomers understand the organization’s values and mission.
Moreover, job orientation extends to the presentation of employee benefits such as leave entitlements, sick days, and retirement plans. This spotlight on additional perks contributes to improved employee retention by underscoring the comprehensive advantages of their new positions.
Beyond administrative aspects, orientation involves systems training, where new hires acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to start their roles proficiently. This training not only aids in resolving technical challenges but also provides ongoing support, ensuring a smoother transition for the newly onboarded employee.
Altogether, job orientation acts as a foundational step in nurturing a positive and productive work environment, facilitating effective teamwork and individual growth.
Explaining how to navigate the world of work isn’t straightforward. It involves more than simply drafting a resume and attaching a cover letter. Often, despite your best intentions, comprehending what to do after completing your studies isn’t easy.
In most cases, the skills acquired in school or university lack the purely pragmatic value that the job market requires. Advancing in your career without developing an understanding of the world of work and its context is unfeasible.
You must know the right work orientation strategies and how to apply them. Analyzing case studies that simulate real-life situations you may encounter is also helpful.
Hence, adopting advice that directs you toward the right path and reinforces what you’ve learned theoretically is effective. In this context, you’ll find some tools for work orientation that will enable you to correlate your skills and expectations with the reality of the job market.
Additionally, I recommend consulting books on work orientation to gain insights into new digital professions. But how can you navigate the job market? You’ll find the answers you’re seeking as you continue reading.
Download the ebook for a free guide on work orientation in the digital field
Take a Psychometric Test
Those who manage job orientation services, such as temp agencies or a consultant, offer psychometric tests during the initial assessment phase. The assessment of aptitude for a specific role is considered a self-guidance tool and is developed using very rigorous scientific methods.
It’s also effective for indicating a path to follow for your educational career. The goal is to highlight personality traits and aptitudes to make you aware of the most suitable professional career. However, these tests are specifically aimed at those interested only in offline professions.
Qualified experts in the field of digital professions, on the other hand, use a questionnaire with more precise and technical questions, a kind of pdf career orientation test. The purpose is straightforward: to determine your ideal digital occupation and choose the most suitable training course.
Take the career orientation test to start your digital career
Balance your existing skills
Through a job orientation interview, you can conduct an analysis of acquired skills. These can be divided into two types: hard skills and soft skills. Consider that until a few years ago, it wasn’t conceivable to be evaluated solely based on technical skills (hard skills) acquired during your studies and professional courses.
Today, however, company recruiters look beyond educational qualifications to identify the so-called soft skills—characteristics gained through experience or from your cultural background. Furthermore, these are qualities that promote improved relationships to create a positive work environment that is useful for achieving group results.
It’s the strong emphasis of coaching, compared to traditional job orientation experts, on enhancing soft skills that make this type of coaching more advantageous.
According to a study conducted by the Stanford Research Institute, 85% of long-term job success is determined by mastery of soft skills. This data underscores the importance of developing relational skills and bringing them to the forefront.
Additionally, the McKinsey Institute reports in a survey commissioned by Dell and published in September 2021, that 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 have not yet been invented. It’s estimated that demand for cross-functional skills will increase by 30% by 2030.
Currently, the most important soft skills sought by companies include:
- embracing uncertainty
- positively transforming biases
- digital fluency
- self-awareness and self-management
- cybersecurity literacy
- message deciphering and synthesis skills
- entrepreneurial spirit
- self-confidence.
So, we’ve moved from considering only professional and educational skills to valuing qualities like empathy or organizational ability. Personal characteristics can make a difference and reward those who have the will, character, and determination to achieve their goals.
Define Your Professional Project
Defining what the goal of work orientation is allows you to create the necessary professional project to prepare for a job search. It consists of a document outlining the profile of someone undergoing a work orientation activity. It comprises various parts such as:
- professional characteristics
- skills (hard and soft)
- resources available to the candidate
- actions to be taken during the job search phase.
Keep in mind that defining a career path is a dynamic process that is revised as specific results materialize or as needs change. In fact, to plan a professional career, the work orientation expert starts with questions like:
- what do you want to achieve?
- when do you want to achieve your goal?
- what means and resources do you have available, and what potential challenges?
- what strengths make your program different from others?
Download the free ebook on the highest-paying digital professions for your job market orientation
Why choose Digital Professions?
In the drafting of a work orientation project, one cannot ignore that a significant portion of the market is now oriented toward digital.
As reported in an Huffingtonpost article, approximately 70% of companies, starting from March 2020, have simultaneously introduced various projects and new processes, focusing on:
- remote work
- transitioning to Agile organizations
- having a robust online presence through social media
- utilizing eCommerce platforms and digital marketing tools.
The data help us understand how important digital work orientation is. With the disappearance of traditional professions and digital transformation, companies are constantly searching for online professionals to innovate, grow, and become more competitive.
In this context, choosing to focus on digital work is crucial for pursuing a successful career. But what are the requirements for online work orientation? To find a profession that aligns with your professional skills, it’s essential to master the use of tools, software, and platforms commonly used by industry experts.
Remember that theoretical knowledge alone is not enough; it must always be accompanied by practical exercises. At Digital Coach, for example, you can participate in interactive operational practice sessions based on the “learning by doing” approach.
With the right training and practice, you could find work as a Data Scientist, a professional capable of analyzing large amounts of data to extract valuable insights for business, digital marketing, and sales strategies.
You could also become an expert in cybersecurity, a specialist responsible for monitoring security and risks in the computer network.
How to approach work orientation?
To approach the world of work orientation, it’s crucial to be guided by a competent and experienced individual. The choice of profession is an important step because it typically takes up a significant portion of the day and influences our daily life.
Those who guide you in defining your career path understand that orientation involves mediating between you and the market’s needs. Streamlining the self-orientation process means that the facilitator must support the individual through a journey.
Orientation is considered as life-long guidance, a process that spans one’s entire educational and professional life. Among those involved in career orientation, one of the more modern roles is that of a career coach.
A professional who, through career coaching, instills a mindset and imparts knowledge of personal branding to enhance your visibility and guide you in planning your path.
This approach distinguishes them from a typical career orientation advisor. Curious to learn about tools and materials for career orientation to identify your professional values? Keep reading!
Apply the right techniques
What are the techniques of career orientation? Knowledge of these techniques lies with career consultants or career coaches. However, those who seek their assistance play an active role.
The procedures for career orientation always involve proactivity to quickly find the most suitable job. One of the main techniques is reformulation, often used in situations of role-play or orientation interviews. It involves two phases:
- The user expresses their work-related needs, aspirations, and attitudes, and the coach listens and observes their facial expressions.
- The consultant reformulates what emerged from the conversation clearly and concisely, with the aim of helping the client understand themselves.
During the final phase of career orientation and guidance, known as active job search, the Individual Action Plan (IAP) technique is applied. This involves putting down in writing the actions agreed upon with the coach. These actions must be carried out to achieve the predetermined career goals.
Use worksheets
What are career orientation worksheets? They are tools that can be used in various stages of the orientation process. Generally, these worksheets serve a dual purpose:
- They allow you to gather written data useful for the coach to better evaluate and assist the individual.
- They help to clarify orientation needs and user aspirations.
Within the worksheets, significant events and memories that influence your career choices should be documented. Record past professional experiences, education received up to that point, cultural interests, hobbies, and events that were turning points in your life.
Often, a guided worksheet is used in simulating a career orientation interview.
Engage in exercises
Career orientation exercises encompass a set of activities that lead individuals to analyze their knowledge, skills, and competencies through practical tools. These exercises are conducted individually or in groups, with those orienting or requalifying professionally as the main participants.
Their execution is supervised by a consultant. Another highly effective exercise is the self-description framework. It’s a conceptual map used to develop self-awareness.
It represents an excellent stratagem for organizing the knowledge you have about yourself, being more aware of your abilities, and learning how to communicate them easily to others. In work orientation workshops, a technique called temporal perspective is also employed.
It involves creating a table of professional and personal goals, assigning them a level of importance, and indicating the timeframe in which you wish to develop and achieve them.
Conclusions and strategic coaching
In this guide to work orientation, you will have come to understand how crucial it is to approach the digital realm in order to pursue a successful career.
Keep in mind that for work orientation and skills assessment, it is necessary to consult experienced professionals who can bring out the best in you using the appropriate tools and techniques. The same applies if you want to start your own business and embark on a freelance career.
Finally, allow me to offer you some advice. The role of a recruiter and work orientation is now indispensable for business success. So, make sure to be the person with the right skills, as entering the job market as quickly as possible can truly make a difference in your future career.
Request a free career consultation for your orientation toward the most sought-after digital professions
