The career orientation fair, as an innovative approach to the development of career maturity

Abstract

According to the literature, traditional career fairs (which can basically be considered the classic method of career guidance) in Hungary are typically less fed by the needs of the students, and rather serve the interests of the exhibitors. The primary goal of the institutions appearing at the stands is to attract students to their own courses with supporting of various information and attractions that arouse curiosity and interest of the students. The HR profession calls this activity “recruitment” as it is rather supply. Our previous research (Kenderfi, 2020) indicates that the 7-8.  class children in the first grade come to these exhibitions unprepared, they do not receive any support to navigate between the impulses and information that act as a flood of stimuli for them, and they cannot count on the support of their environment in the individual processing of experiences. Based on these, we claim that these occasions are difficult to interpret as an independent pedagogical process, in the absence of which the student is left alone in the period before his career choice, in this stage of the orientation process. By organizing the Career Orientation Fair, we would like to create an opportunity for students in the upper grades of the elementary school, which enables them to acquire the career building competencies necessary for choosing a career, embedded in a complex pedagogical process. This makes possible for the student to be able to collect, interpret and synthesize self-knowledge, education and career information, which is a condition for the quality decision that awaits him (and his environment).