Career Readiness Skills

The review of the related literature for this study focuses on the different studies concerning career readiness, and its factors, and job mismatch.

CAREER READINESS Guidance when it comes to career planning among students starts early on in the schooling of each student. As early as Nursery, Guidance Counselors / Facilitators and teachers orient pupils to different occupations available and as students transcend to higher levels of education, career education becomes important to help them shape and solidify their career path.

Different factors affecting a person’s career readiness have been tackled and studied over the years. Some of these are personal (i.e. self-awareness, options, decision-making, interests) (James P. Sampson Jr., 2013)

(2015), Cariño-Mattison (2010) and Yoonjung Choi, et.al. (2015) suggests that career intervention should start even before entering college as it is essential to one’s decision making and career development. Engaging students to interventions before graduating improves their academic performance, self-concept and becomes goal oriented (Bos, 2013).

One of the career interventions that experts are looking at is group counseling when it comes to career education. P. Clay Rowell (2014) and his colleagues explored this and group counseling’s help with collaboration from different educational branches may have to undergraduate students in relation to their career decision making.

Moreover, engaging students in internships, or as we all know as On-The-Job Trainings, and proper supervision will do help and encourage them with regard to employment (Mat D. Duerden, 2014).

Harry, et.al. (2015) and Choi, et.al. (2012) explored gender as a factor in one’s adaptability with regard to his career. The former’s study suggested that females compared with males have higher ability when it comes to adapting, while the latter’s in contrast as gender doesn’t influence one’s career maturity. Moreover, the former’s study also explored the importance of developing one’s control, commitment and how he perceives challenge in the industry he’s in and how it can largely affect one’s coping

Job (Labor) mismatch is one of the factors that affect any country’s increasing unemployment rate and one of the pressing problems one’s economy needs to address (IV, 2014). As Atty. Suyao, DOLE Regional Director, states “employers are keener on the skills rather than the educational background of the applicants, which gives rise to the problem of jobs mismatch and unemployment.” (IV, 2014).

With this problem, DOLE reaches out to our education sector and suggests that they supply the needed skills for employment and this is currently being addressed as the education sector slowly becomes receptive and adjusts the curricula to train the students in order give what is needed to help our economy (DOLE Challenges Unemployed Youth to Develop Life Skills, 2015; IV,