EUROPASS COURSE FOR GUIDANCE PRACTITIONERS

The most important work is then done on the Europass platform.

Important tip: Pupils have already created a Europass account during a previous session with their teacher, as it can take time to receive the confirmation code by email.
 
The philosophy of the platform is presented: a profile from which one can create a CV and a covering letter. In addition to this, there is a library and links to training and job offers.
 
The profile part:

Students have little professional experience and this part can really help them to put forward everything they have already experienced, in a professional, associative, leisure or academic context.
The more traditional sections such as "Work experience" and "Education and training" invite them to fill in their activities by explaining them and not just naming them.

"Language skills" and "Digital skills" enable them to position themselves in relation to expectations and to move away from trivial and uninformative self-assessments.

This task can also be done in cooperation with language teachers.

Finally, "Hobbies and interests" encourage self-knowledge with the possibility of adding sections with proposals they would not have thought of. They often do not think that activities outside school can be valued on a CV. for example, some of them supervise young people in a sports club, practice refereeing, help with the organisation of events...

Once this work has been done in their mother tongue, it becomes easier to do it in a foreign language with the profile in different languages such as English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and so on…
 

The "My Skills" and "My Interests" sections

In this context, the "My Interests" section is of little interest because all students have a common goal which is to look for a work placement abroad. On the other hand, it is very interesting to show them this section for future use of the Europass platform, which could support them throughout their lives.
 
The "My Skills" section makes sense here with a school audience. Indeed, this tool is very interesting. It helps students to express themselves on competences. After having entered a skill, the platform proposes other skills close to it, which allows young people to extend their self-knowledge and to indicate skills that they did not even imagine as such.

Moreover, student can identify the skills that are expected in the professional world and they can match them with their own. This has a very positive and rewarding effect on the students.
A cross-fertilisation of ideas can be proposed here by having the pupils work in pairs.
 
This work leads them to reflect on themselves and to better understand the type of placement they want to do, in which professional environment, and in which country.

The students then use the website www.euroguidance-france.org to look in the internship section, where advice and tips are given for each Erasmus+ member country to find an internship. This work was carried out thanks to the collaboration of all the Euroguidance members in the different countries.

Brochure “Stage en Europe” photo

The CV and the cover letter

The final step of this work is to create a CV and a cover letter to apply for a traineeship in Europe.
The CV helps to guide the students, who still have little experience in this task and for some of them, it may be the first time they have attempted this type of exercise.

The structure of the CV is proposed by the platform, while retaining a certain amount of flexibility regarding the order of the headings and the headings that one wishes to see appear.

Video testimony from Laurine, a BTS student at the Carriat high school in Bourg en Bresse and a Europass user to create her CV. She says, "It's organised, it can be modified, and we are guided step by step...".

Student’s testimonial video