Newspaper » What skills are most required for a young person starting a career?

Date: 29 Jun 2017

By: Evelina Šidagytė

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Recently there are more and more projects focused on youth development, preparation for the labour market in the Europe. Lithuanian organisation Knowledge Code together with partners from UK, Italy, Poland, Spain, Cyprus and Romania is implementing Erasmus+ Vocational Educational Training Strategic Partnership Project “Apprentice Training Preparation – New Approaches in Managing the Transition from Education to Employment”, which aims to help youth to recognise the challenges of a career path and develop the necessary skills to succeed in the labor market in order that young people after leaving education would be sufficiently prepared for the labor market. The Project team is going to create a suite of modular resources and test them in real training situations with career advisors, trainers and organise several events to maximise the interest in the final tools and share them.

According to the employers and career advisers insights about necessary skills, now project team is developing methods, tools for work with young people. To find out what is most needed skills for the modern young people seeking to enter the labour market, the project team did a research. Career counsellors who work with young people and employers were asked. In Lithuania, we took an interview with some career advisors who work at ESFA project “Discover Yourself”. We asked them a question: “What are three the most important attributes and young people should possess them when starting their career?”. Answers to this question were quite different. The project “Discover Yourself” career counsellor Simona Košinskaitė mentions that it is 1) initiative, 2) having a goal and knowing how to reach and the ability to achieve it, 3) openness to experience. According to the coaching specialist/supervisor Akvilė Budreckytė, it is a curiosity, desire to improve and a job that stimulates your development. Based on psychologist Ernesta Vaivadaitė (Local Ukmergė Labour Exchange) opinion, it is initiative, openness to experience and flexibility. According to the psychologist from Labour Exchange Office in Mažeikiai Lina Juozapavičiūtė, first of all, self-confidence, trusting yourself and others; secondly, persistence, will; thirdly, willingness to learn. Lina also shared that “Youngsters often lack flexibility: they do not know in which areas they can apply their acquired speciality, they are thinking too narrowly, e. g., if a student completes a florist course, she is looking for ads only for a florist job. It can be a lack of imagination, how this speciality can be adapted elsewhere. Also, they do not know exactly where and how to look for a job according to their profession, also where they can seek help, consultation with any issues, career guidance. It should be provided with an incentive to start learning to look for a job, not to wait while they finish their studies because of they often after searching and not finding a job in several weeks loose motivation and self-confidence”. Career advisor Irena Mediuta from Vilnius Youth Job Center believes that young people should be able to communicate with different people, possess leadership skills, an ability to work in teams, as well as it is an important sense of responsibility and good foreign language skills.

Also, we tried to figure out what employers think. Customer service team leader Gintare Zilinske from Callcredit Information Group Kaunas says that a young person needs to have a „can-do” attitude, which is about being open – minded, self-driven and confident, „the candidate mindset is much more important than a diploma. The fact that you have a degree in hand does not guarantee success – during the interview is very important to be able to reveal their best features, such as being goal – orientated and ability to work as a team”. She gave an analogy with sports teams “So no one sport team is successful without knowing how to work together to reach the common goal. In order to this you need to have such skills: 1) cooperation, so you need to know how to cooperate with each other, 2) confidence and 3) knowledge, you need to be the best what you do, 4) trust each other, 5) communicate, to know basics of effective communication, 6) be responsible for your actions. There is no sport team in the world who would start the game without a strong belief that they gonna win the match”. Innovation Office director Rasa Žilionė mentions that a young person who starts a career should have a positive attitude and initiative, to be open minded and interested in their professional field. According to Vilnius Branch Manager Toma Vevelstad from HR solutions company Amber Staff: “I should mention that a willingness to learn is one of the biggest skills required next 10-15 years period of time , it means that we not only have to learn at schools, study at university, there are various forms of learning, especially video learning, so young people they have to be prepared to learn all the time, not stop at school or university. Of course, you should speak with your employer about possibilities of continuous learning, about the possibilities to gain new skills and competencies. Another personal attribute is consistency. Very often young people are not consistent at the job, so I wish a bit of patient. One employer for a bit longer time than few months or half a year. At this period you could find more about the company, about the company’s culture, make the better connection with colleges. This kind of experience will be very valuable for you in the future. Not only to write in your CV, but also for you as a future employee. Another thing, you should be open minded to new things and not be resistance in learning new things.” In summary, employers identified that soft skills, motivation to work and learn, values, mindset, work experience are much more important than educational qualification. Most employers and career advisors identified quite different necessary skills. In most cases they mentioned: