Career Consulting
IDEA’s team of consultants is made up of permanent human resources as well as a wide group of external partners. IDEA Consultants coordinate, supervise and implement the consulting sessions in collaboration with a multitude of external Consultants, included in the company’s Consultants registry.
IDEA provides Career Consulting services within the framework of Training Programs for unemployed and employed beneficiaries. Training Programs at IDEA also contain Career Consulting and IDEA’s specialized group of Consultants organize individual consulting sessions. During these sessions an investigation of trainees’ profile is initially carried out and then an action plan is gradually drawn up aiming at strengthening the qualifications and employability for each person.
Each and every Consultant has state certification from ASPAITE (Higher School of Pedagogical and Technological Education) and Postgraduate Studies in the field of Consulting and Career Guidance and Entrepreneurship. Their experience in Consulting is multi-annual, they address every beneficiary according to their individual needs and they help them effectively to retrain and enhance their employability in the modern labour market.
Meet IDEA’s Consultant team
IDEA TEAM OF CONSULTANTS
CONSULTING SESSIONS
Individual consulting sessions are conducted throughout the Training Programs. These sessions are coordinated by IDEA’s team of Consultants and are mostly conducted online, according to the needs and the schedule that has been set up.
For example, see in the links below some of the current Training Programs that include Consulting for the year 2022-2023.
For more information about the Training Programs, return to IDEA’s home page by clicking here
INDICATIVE CONSULTING TOOLS
During the sessions, personalized Consulting is provided for the creation of Digital Portfolio (E-portfolio), which helps unemployed and employed people to form a clearer picture of their path so far, but also to plan their future steps. In this context, individual sessions are included through which the trainees create their updated Curriculum Vitae as well as the model of an effective Cover Letter.
At the same time, IDEA’s specialized team of Consultants utilizes psychometric tools that are part of the Consulting framework of each subsidized Training Program. The psychometric tools used during the sessions vary depending on the Training Program of the employed or unemployed beneficiaries.
These tools aim to help each and every beneficiary to understand and plan their next professional step by receiving personalized guidance.
Indicative psychometric tools:
✔Professional Interests Tool
✔Skills Tool
✔Personality Tool
✔Communication & Interpersonal Skills Tool
✔Decision Making Tool
✔Professional Values Tool
✔Emotional Intelligence Tool
✔Critical & Deductive Thinking Tool
✔Professional Flexibility Tool
INDICATIVE PSYCHOMETRIC TOOLS
Every profession requires specific skills and qualifications. However, there are also cross-cutting skills which are essential in wider groups of occupations and can be transferred from one work environment to another. The aim of this tool is not to analyze and evaluate your skills, but to realize which skills/qualifications you have and which you would like to develop in order to gain fluency. Specifically, the following skills are explored using this tool:
Perception of Space
Some professions that require you to solve the following kinds of problems with ease; surveying, civil engineering, architecture, set design, shipbuilding, graphic design, decoration, technical drawing design, etc.
Numerical Ability
Some professions that require you to have developed numerical skills; accounting, finance, staffing of commercial enterprises, tourism professions, insurance, banking, trade.
Abstract thinking
In general, abstract thinking is needed by all those who are thinking of pursuing long-term studies and practicing scientific professions; research, writing, business and organization consulting, academic career, etc.
Language Ability
Some professions that require you to have developed language ability in mother tongue or in other languages; law, journalism, diplomacy, translation and interpretation, education, psychology, tours, secretarial and secretarial administration, office worker, etc.
Interpersonal Communication Ability
Some professions that require you to have developed interpersonal contact skills; medicine, nursing, education, psychology, social work, etc.
Administrative & Entrepreneurial Spirit
Some professions that require developed administrative and entrepreneurial spirit; hotel management, insurance, commerce, finance, bank management, etc.
Understanding Engineering & Technical Problems
Some professions that require you to understand mechanical and technical problems; electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, technology, etc.
Organizational skills
Some professions that require you to have developed this skill are; notary, librarianship, accounting, administration, journalism, economics, advertising, hotel management, etc.
Flexibility & Adaptability
Some professions that require this skill to be developed are; tourism professions, retail sales, export trade staffing.
Physical Endurance & Strength
Some professions that require you to have developed this skill are; Warehouse staffing, technical production, technical maintenance of facilities.
Information Technology
Some professions that require this skill to be developed are; office staffing, programming, specialized web and application design, e-commerce.
Spontaneity
Independence
Philosophical & Critical thinking
Ambition
Self respect
Responsibility
Aggressiveness
Energy
Boldness
With this tool, every beneficiary conducts a self-evaluation through a Communication and Interpersonal Skills Test. The purpose of this evaluation in the context of Consulting is for each person to explore and project their strengths, while at the same time understanding which skills they would like to improve. These skills include:
Active Listening Skills
Most people consider themselves to be good listeners and therefore do not need to practice this skill. In fact, few people are really good listeners. Attentive or active listening needs practice and patience. It also requires addressing bad practices that have become entrenched over the years.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is a different and peculiar type of intelligence which does not refer to speed of thought, memory and other brain functions like the traditional ability we call general intelligence, but focuses on the part of interpersonal relationships and intrapersonal adaptation and gives special emphasis on emotional elements (recognition of emotions, awareness, self-awareness, emotion management, empathy, social skills, etc.). Research shows that people with high E.I. enjoy more satisfying and successful work and relationship conditions.
Verbal Communication and Effective Speaking – Presentation Skills
The way we express ourselves affects our relationships with others. Verbal communication is not just about the words we use, but also about the way we use them. Verbal communication is not disconnected from other interpersonal and communication skills. It is related to listening, non-verbal communication, emotional intelligence and subdivisions of basic skills such as: reflection and action. How we feel about ourselves—our self-esteem—affects how well we communicate verbally.
Group Communication
The part of the assessment that focuses on Group Communication examines how well we can communicate and interact in a group. Communication skills within a group context are often related to levels of self-esteem and confidence.
Decision-making is a very important element of our daily life and determines our future course and its results in various fields of activity.
The purpose of this tool is to explore how the individual typically makes decisions and then help to use this information in the context of a Training Programme, career planning or career choice.
Since every single individual has a completely different personality, skills, confidence, experiences, desires, goals, weaknesses and flaws, naturally they make choices in a completely different way according to personal criteria when they have to make a decision.
Each way of making a decision is judged as more or less successful depending on the initial goal and the final outcome of things. However, there are no absolutely right or wrong ways of making a decision.
The Vocational Values Test is a tool for diagnosing the professional values of the individual. Two of the most valid approaches in measuring values used by this test relate to the interpersonal and intrapersonal values of the individuals in their professional life.
The first is connected with interpersonal adaptation, that is, the way people behave, move, decide regarding their relationships and their communication with other people.
The second is connected to individuals’ intrapersonal adjustment, that is, what people wish, feel, express, believe and prefer regarding their personal matters and their professional course.
The performance in the Professional Values test results from the individual scores on the 15 key factors that are considered to influence the overall process, as distinguished below.
Emotional Intelligence is the individuals’ ability to recognize their own emotions as well as the emotions of others, to distinguish between different emotions and to name them appropriately, and to use emotional information as guides in thinking and behavioυr.
The term became popular in 1995 with the book “Emotional Intelligence” by the author, psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman.
Self-awareness
Individuals have the ability to know what they are feeling at any given moment and understand how to use these feelings to make decisions and form their attitude towards things. Also, individuals can make a realistic and objective assessment of their abilities and weaknesses and reach a deeper awareness of their preferences, ideas and worldview. Finally, individuals form their self-image according to the elements of their past, present and future and establish a feeling of self-confidence.
Self-awareness includes three basic elements:
✔awareness of emotions
✔accurate self-assessment
✔self confidence
Self-regulation
Individuals are not only able to understand the cause and nature of their emotions they feel but at the same time they manage to handle and control them in such a way that they do not affect their work in a negative way but contributing to the achievement of their goals (e.g. anger can lead to a fierce fight in the workplace, or it can turn into stubbornness and persistence, which will lead to a superior work result, if the person knows how to control and handle it). At the same time individuals can behave conscientiously and understand when to sacrifice personal gain or personal pursuit for a higher goal. Finally, the person has the ability to recover and recollect themselves relatively easily from unpleasant emotional situations.
Self-regulation includes the following separate elements:
✔self control
✔reliability
✔conscientiousness
✔adaptability
✔innovation
Behavioural Motivations
Individuals understand how to think and how to use their emotions and preferences in order to motivate themselves towards achieving a goal. At the same time, individuals take initiatives, constantly improve their abilities and show great perseverance and patience in order to achieve the desired goal despite temporary difficulties and obstacles.
More specifically, Behavioural Incentives include the following elements:
✔tendency to achieve
✔commitment
✔initiative
✔optimism
Empathy
Individuals are not entrenched in themselves and do not only care about themselves but understand without much explanation the emotional state and emotional transitions of the people around them by observing them. They can also theoretically put themselves in the shoes of others, understand the causes of their behaviour and approach the reason of their feelings. Finally, individuals can coordinate with those around them and develop with them meaningful relationships based on understanding and mutual respect.
In conclusion, the individual who shows a high degree of Empathy understands others, is oriented towards providing services, enhances the development of others, knows how to properly handle diversity and has political ability and perception.
Social skills
Individuals know how to handle their own emotions and how to recognize the emotions of others in an interpersonal communication or negotiation.
They can develop relationships of smooth interaction, persuade, lead, negotiate, solve problems and disagreements, cooperate, develop friendships and make dialogues successfully.
More specifically, Social Skills include:
✔influence – Contact
✔leadership
✔handling disputes
✔bond cultivation
✔collusion – cooperation
✔team skills and
✔change-oriented action
The Critical & Deductive Thinking tool explores the extent to which an individual has developed the ability to calculate, measure, control, discern relationships, proportions, and use inductive and deductive reasoning to reach conclusions about implicit and indirect connections between of abstract concepts, words, letters, numbers and shapes. Assessing critical and deductive thinking can provide useful information about an individual’s future adjustment and career success in a variety of occupations.
Relationships between sets of numbers
Individuals have the ability to detect numerical ratios, that is, the ability to discern in a series of numerical symbols, the relationships that exist and the laws that govern the sequence. They can find, though not always easily, what kind of relationships exist between sets (or sequences) of numbers. This ability is likely related to the ability of mentally perceiving and processing stimuli and paradigms which are “constructs”, i.e. the ability to discern relationships and analogies between stimuli that do not exist in real everyday life, e.g. a sequence of numbers or a sequence of shapes. Finally, although individuals have a relatively developed ability to use “possible-probable” reasoning, “trial-and-error” reasoning, and “process-of-elimination” reasoning, they are likely to have difficulty controlling stimuli and relationships based on what is possible or based on the exclusion of solutions that are demonstrably not applicable.
Linguistic & Grammatical analogies
Individuals have a highly developed ability to detect analogies between words and letters, that is, the ability to discern implied relationships and connections in a set of words or letters, based on specific laws and rules. This ability is usually also related to the ability to discover and produce different alternative solutions and interpretations for the same phenomenon, that is, the ability to approach a desired answer through different mental and semantic channels.
Symbol understanding & processing
Individuals face limitations in understanding and processing symbols. Difficulties also occur when detecting analogies in the sequence of shapes, that is, the ability to notice that among geometric or other shapes there are rules regarding they way they are arranged and differentiated. Several times, individuals seem to have difficulty understanding the concept of metaphor and symbolism, that is, the ability to discern the way that various shapes and symbols represent real-life quantities and concepts.
The aim of the Career Flexibility tool is to detect the individual’s attitude towards career flexibility and mobility. During the session the following concepts will be discussed:
✔geographical mobility (change of residence for the purpose of work)
✔labour mobility (change of job, employer, profession, or even career),
✔career change,
✔adaptability
✔flexibility with security
The tool is structured around the four main dimensions that make up factors of flexibility in the labour market and measures the degree of preparedness of the respondents. The four main dimensions are as follows:
✔Self-directed career management
✔Values driven Orientation
✔Boundary less mindset
✔Physical Mobility
Upon completion of the specific session, the Consultant will proceed to a summary of the results of the tool taking into account the beneficiaries’ profile, biography and their career path and they will discuss about them.
