Romania: Beating unemployment through career guidance

I meet Andrea Argintariu at Washington?s International airport. The first thing that struck me about her was her outgoing attitude and the passion she obviously feels towards youth employment.

As we wait in the ?lost luggage? queue Andrea tells me about her Career Development Centre, the first of its kind in Timisoara, her home city. The centre helps over 10, 000 students and graduates to identify work opportunities and provides counselling and training services. They have also published a ?CareerGuide? ? currently the most complete careers guide in Romania, already in its second edition and with over 5,000 sold copies ? that offers advice and concrete tools regarding several different areas, such as work, internships, volunteering, how to set up your own business or invest in the financial marketplace.

What has now become a fully fledged Centre, that aims to expand to other Romanian cities as well as to bordering countries, began modestly. In the very beginning it was a student business club, but when a friend told Andrea that it was very similar to job centres in American Universities she began to think that if the model worked in America, it could also work in Romania. She decided to modify the American model by adding a few elements that were more suited to the Romanian context. As she neared her graduation and with an increasing desire to do something new, Andrea decided to take heed of a professor?s advice and to strike out on her own.

The challenge
When the project opened its doors in 2002 the objective had become quite ambitious: to promote the freedom to choose ones own career in an ex-communist bloc country, where career had always been a government choice. ?At first it was not an easy task? says Andrea, ?we had to change the mentality of people who were used to assuming that children would follow the choices their parents made for them?. ?Young people in Romania are used to be told what to do, they are scared of choosing their own training and careers. We wanted to make them understand that the years spent at university are the best time in which to explore different avenues and to follow ones own interests? explains Andrea.

In order to open people?s minds, Andrea invites leaders and administrators from different backgrounds and nationalities to talks. Students can come into contact with role models from a range of different areas and are shown that it is possible to make their own future choices.

Work experience
With the centre fully working Andrea and her team decided to create different training programmes to help students, including the ?Student Development Program?. Every year, approximately 60 students follow training courses on a number of themes, followed by 3 weeks volunteering at a local NGO. During the final stages of the course, the participants can choose between a range of different internships where they can put into practice what they have learned.

?Ours is a very simple vision? concludes Andrea, ?we would like all Romanian students to have the opportunity to get to know themselves better, to choose their own career path and to create a world for themselves that reflects their desires?.

More info:
www.careercenter.ro
www.odisee.ro