Vocational designing and career counseling in Europe: Challenges and new horizons

This article aims to illuminate new challenges in the field of vocational designing and career counseling in assisting persons planning for an uncertain and difficult future in the current economic climate in European and other Western nations. The first part of the paper starts with an analysis of the European socioeconomic context and provides a description of populations with significant career and life design needs: young people, older workers, migrants, temporary workers, women, people with disabilities, parents and children, employers. The second part of the paper focuses on an analysis of these challenges and suggests a revision of well-established vocational designing and career counseling assumptions in favor of a new form of awareness and new concepts. Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) and life design approaches are discussed as promising models to cope with the social, economic, and cultural challenges facing career counseling. Suggestions for interventions that could be implemented on a large scale, especially for at-risk populations and with preventive aims, are provided.