COMPASS TO EMPLOYMENT: PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS TO STRENGHTEN YOUTH EMPLOYABILITY
What if every young person could find their compass to employment?
In a rapidly changing world of work, millions of young people still struggle to find their place. The IECD draws on its field experience to share its solutions and provide tools for professionals supporting career guidance and youth employment.
A global challenge: millions of young people still unemployed
Nearly 65 million young people aged 15 to 24 were unemployed worldwide in 2023, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).
In many countries, access to education and vocational training remains a major challenge for young people. These barriers limit their employment prospects and hinder their ability to build a sustainable future. Even for those in training, there is often a gap between the skills acquired and the expectations of the labour market.
Building on experience to strengthen employability
Since its creation, the IECD has been working to promote the socio-professional integration of young people and entrepreneurs, placing education, career guidance, training, and employability at the heart of its actions. Drawing on this experience, in 2024 the IECD launched the “Professional Guidance and Sustainable Employability” (PGSE) initiative.
Its aim is to identify, formalise, and share the most effective and transferable solutions in career guidance and employment support, with clear processes to facilitate implementation and dissemination.
A collective tool: the “Compass to Employment”
The result of this collective work is the “Compass to Employment” catalogue, a unique, modular, and evolving resource, bringing together 15 practical guides and useful resources to strengthen youth employability. Designed for professionals supporting young people, the catalogue is structured around two complementary components:
- Methodological guides
These enable professionals to identify the support needs of Career Guidance and Employment Offices (BOE), better understand the profiles of beneficiaries, and define appropriate objectives for each individual pathway.
- Practical guides
They offer concrete, adaptable, and replicable solutions for career guidance and employment support: project framing, deployment steps, field recommendations, tools, and resources.
These practical guides are organised around three key stages of support:
- Career orientation and project development
- Connection with the professional world
- Socio-professional integration
A living document, serving the field
Designed as an evolving tool, the “Compass to Employment” catalogue will continue to grow with feedback and local initiatives. Through concrete tools, strategic recommendations, and resources that facilitate the replication of successful initiatives, it helps to:
- Highlight the IECD’s expertise and know-how in career guidance and youth employment;
- Equip teams and partners to implement solutions adapted to their contexts;
- Promote skills transfer and exchanges of best practices between projects.
