Career Counselling Expert

The objective is to build on a guide called “methodological guide” developed by CNAM-INETOP, on which the counsellors were remotely trained. This guide is a very good basis but there is a need for an expert with strong expertise and local knowledge of Iraq to adapt, simplify, translate and contextualize this guide. In addition, one or several refresher sessions should be provided to counsellors on the simplified tools, in order to ensure that career development centre can start using the guide on the long-term, improving it and ensure ownership of the tools.

EF is recruiting a short-term career-counselling Expert to support of 25 Career Development Centre (CDC) advisors for Mosul and Nineveh universities through four main activities:

• Get feedback from CDC counselors on methodological guide and tools that were presented to them and training sessions they received; assess their needs following previous sessions to build on their feedback for the refresher course (assessment phase)

• Review and simplify the existing “methodological guide” and training materials developed by CNAM-INETOP for CDCs in Mosul and Ninewah Universities (150 pages). This guide is a strong basis on what is expected from CDCs, but should be further adapted to the Iraqi context, also taking into considerations means and resources of CDCs

• Coordinate the translation and supervise translated deliverables of the methodological guide (translation costs will be covered separately by Expertise France)

• Develop simplified tools (fiches, powerpoint presentations, toolkit) based on the methodological guide, in Arabic, to facilitate usage for CDC counsellors

• Facilitate one or several training sessions (depending on methodology developed by the expert) for the 25 CDC counselors on the newly developed tools and on simplified methodological guide (in Arabic)

• Write a final report explaining main achievements of the assignment, including tools developed, and changes observed in counselors’ understanding of the methodological guide.

Context

Career Development Center For Mosul and Nineveh Universities

Upon graduation, students in Mosul face great difficulties finding employment locally because the private sector suffers from sluggish economic activity and the public sector sees hiring freezes for civil servants, a traditional source of jobs[1]. Students generally have low employability because they lack work experience, having been exposed to few opportunities for internships or work-study projects. In addition, students lack the soft skills needed to search for a job. Such difficulties primarily affect technology and engineering graduates.

Since the career centres have been operating for less than three years in Mosul, they still provide little direct support to students who want employment or work experience. For the most part, the 23 career counsellors at the Mosul University career centre and 2 at Ninewah University career centre (25 in total) are specialists in their fields but lack proper training in professional-career guidance.

The project thus aims at reinforcing the capacities of the career-centres, and build on the previous work conducted by CNAM experts, on particular on the methodological guide developed to guide counsellors on what is expected from a working career-development centre.

Career counsellors need a good knowledge of academic and training programmes, and an ability to analyse the local labour market. They also need strong interpersonal skills in order to talk to students and build their confidence, help with decision-making, and personalise coaching methods while taking disability, gender, and other aspects of diversity into account. Between 2019 and 2021, they benefited from several training and coaching sessions delivered by international experts (mainly French Institution called CNAM-INETOP) mobilized by EF. In order to make structural and lasting changes, these capacity-building actions need to be strengthened.

Profiles Sought

• Relevant university degree (eg. Higher Education, Vocational Training, Political or social science, international development, monitoring and evaluation);
• At least 10-year experience in technical or vocational training / career counselling / higher education programming
• Good understanding of the Iraqi context. Knowledge of the Iraqi Higher Education system would be a plus.
• Excellent training and facilitating skills with ability to adapt to a diverse multicultural environment;
• Excellent command of English and Arabic (oral and written).

Expected Deliverables:

1. Methodology of the Education workshops (including any presentation or guidance document provided to the Advisors)
2. New version of the translated and contextualized methodological guide
3. Newly-developed tools (simplified and contextualized)
4. Training Session report including the agenda, list of participants and materials used
5. Final report with an analysis of the progress made by counsellors, lessons learned, need for additional capacity building, room for improvement etc.