School project "JobFit" provides career entry support for pupils

For most pupils, the transition from school to a professional career poses a great challenge. The schools already employ a host of approaches to prepare young people for their search for a vocational training position and the writing of job applications. Frequently, however, the pupils are neither equipped with the knowledge about the right behaviour during an interview, nor is the appropriate behaviour towards superiors and colleagues in the working environment a competence that can be taken as a given.

Thus the social behaviour of some young people increasingly constitutes a problem in this context and in the end often results in the discontinuation of the vocational training. The conveyance of social and emotional competences within the school project "JobFit" targets this issue and supports pupils in learning and practising favourable modes of behaviour. The JobFit training was developed at the University of Bremen at the Zentrum für Klinische Psychologie und Rehabilitation (ZKPR - Centre for Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation) on the basis of a behavioural therapy group training.

Schools interested in the project can book the training programme "JobFit" free of charge with the university psychologists. The target group for the training are eighth grade pupils and higher, who are about to enter their professional career or to take up a work placement. The training is comprised of ten successive modules which are implemented in class by student employees from the University of Bremen's ZKPR in cooperation with a teacher on site.

During these 90-minute long modules, the pupils are brought to work in a targeted manner on differentiated self-perception and reflected outside perception as well as on a secure way of dealing with their own emotions (for example, impulse control). Two modules are specially designed to prepare the pupils for a job interview, aided by video feedback. Other central topics are an appropriate way of dealing with praise, critique and failure as well as with mobbing.

After successful participation in the project, the pupils receive a certificate which they can add to their written applications.