DOLE launches guides on career, work for HS and college students, jobseekers

A February 10, 2011 press release prepared by the Department of Labor and Employment

To help address the perennial problem of skills and jobs mismatch, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), through its Bureau of Local Employment (BLE), launched recently two guides on planning for a career and preparing for employment both for high school (HS) and college students who are beginning to seek jobs.

Career Guide for High School Students: Trainer’s Manual is a 40-page, 21 cm. x 27.5 cm perfect-bound printed reference material on bookpaper, printed in black.

Meanwhile, Employment Guide for College Students and Job Seekers: Trainer’s Manual is a 31-page, 21 cm x 27.5 cm perfect-bound printed reference material on bookpaper, also printed in black.

“The production of the two guides is part of our initiative to address the job mismatch problem. The guides are envisioned to help students and jobseekers aim or study courses which will provide them skills needed by the industry,” Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz said.

She said that career and employment guidance, which is one of the three pillars of employment services, together with labor market information and employment facilitation, is a major component of BLE’s job search assistance that aims to link jobseekers to employment opportunities.

The trainer’s manual for HS students will help these students determine ‘job-fit’ or matching their traits, interests, values, skills, and abilities to careers in which these strengths can be best used.

BLE Director Criselda Sy said that a training of DOLE frontliners on career and employment coaching had started the creation of this manual.

“The manual solved the quest for a material—by DOLE frontliners, PESO officers of LGUs, schoolteachers, career specialists, counselors, facilitators of job interviews and job fairs, and local guidance associations—that will provide effective career and employment coaching to graduating HS students,” Sy said.

Meanwhile, the college students and jobseekers trainers’ manual will help users on job search/exploration and local market information concerns such as (1) creating a resume’ and portfolio, (2) getting the job search started, and (3) passing the interview.

Both manuals have been distributed in all DOLE regional offices nationwide for use in a career-planning program or duplication by interested parties. Both have a CD-ROM version and a companion video, complementing the manuals at the program’s end. The program, which can be a half-day or two-day activity, builds on the students’ strengths.