84professionally operating career advising services are not just an example of spending universitymoney to please students (as it may be considered at first glance). Career advising services cancontribute to the ranking of the universities and constitute an important element of universities’marketing and development.A university with career advising services is considered (and may be marketed) as a valuablepartner for business: a place where the employers may get professional, well-structured in<strong>format</strong>ionabout the present and future supply of a highly-skilled workforce. Successful contacts inone area may contribute to other areas such as scientific cooperation with partners from industryor promotion for the recruitment of future students.Furthermore, in organising its promotion strategy, a university with a career advising servicesmay focus on the fact that its students may count not only on sound knowledge receivedduring their education period, but also on individual assistance as to their professional development.In this way, the university sends a clear message: that it cares for its students (which isimportant, since student-centred institutions are one of priorities in the Bologna Process).6.2. Areas of operationThe main customers of career advising services will be students, employers and academia. Regardingspecific activities of career advising services, priorities are of course to be decided byuniversity authorities. However, the main operation areas of career advising services are alwayslikely to be the following: in<strong>format</strong>ion, education and cooperation.“In<strong>format</strong>ion” is to be related to job market opportunities, administration of databases ofjob-seeking students and job offers from employers, as well as to what to do to be successful onthe job market. “Education” means individual and group job counselling, soft skills training andworkshops (presentation skills, career planning, time management). By “cooperation” I understandestablishing contacts with employers, government and international partners, as well asorganising university events related to the job market such as conferences, seminars, job fairs orpanel discussions with employers. Through such cooperation initiatives, career advising servicescan attract employers as real partners for the university and can make a sound contribution to themarketing of the university (both for potential students candidates and business partners).Regarding the work of career advising services in the early stages, I would recommend focusingon group-based and large scale events, on soft skills training, conferences, companypresentations and recruitment events at universities, rather than on individual counselling forstudents. Students are generally unaware at the beginning of the benefit of meetings with advisersand for this reason may not show up in big numbers. Such a situation would both waste time ofemployees and damage the image of an institution that without customers may seem obsolete.In Poland, the need of young people to think about the future and make career developmentplans was not so familiar until quite recently and I suspect that young Croatians are similar in thisrespect. Such awareness emerges at a later stage, when the concept of career advising servicesbecomes more widely recognised and accepted, and when the attitude of students changes.Since career advising services may focus not only on students and employers, but also on cooperationwith academic departments and the university as a whole, it is worth considering theseoptions as well. The possibilities include research activities such as employability research ofFuture outlook: Final recommendations for launching career advising services in Croatian universities
students or a “first-destination” survey (survey of the first jobs of graduates). Although surveyscan be very time- and work-consuming when faced with limited initial resources, such activitiescan be very useful. Such surveys yield visible results that can be interesting both for the university(evaluation of curricula in relation to the needs of the job market) and for the media, which isof crucial importance for promotion and marketing.6.3. Organisational structureIn Poland, career advising services were all established (except in one case) as administrativeuniversity units. However, it should be noted that, according to university statutes, such an attributionlimits the development of certain activities of career advising services that may wish tomove in the direction of university education and research. Additionally, some career advisingservices in Poland have become victims of the policy of cutting administration costs to give moreto research and education activities of the university. I therefore believe that it is important atthe very beginning to clearly decide on the type(s) of career advising services to be established(their duties and prerogatives) and only then to decide on the status of the units within the universities’structures. This would ensure that the administrative status of the units does not createa barrier for their development in the future.6.4. LogisticIt is absolutely necessary that career advising services are located in an attractive place - onethat is easily accessible both for students and employers - with at least two rooms and trainingfacilities at disposal. As to staff, the optimum at the beginning would be three employees- with at least one of the employees working full-time (with no other duties). It is also crucialto facilitate the work of the career advising services staff through effective IT tools, such asuser-friendly websites and e-mail newsletters. Such tools save significant time and money andIT specialists may be contracted instead of being full-time employees.6.5. QualityWhen establishing career advising services, I would also recommend to create some quality assessmentsystem in the early stages of the service’s operation. This system should certainly notbe as complex as ISO standards, but it should provide a clear system of evaluation and feedbackcollectionfrom customers. A potential customer shall then be fully aware of what he/she may andshould obtain at the career advising services. Success factors and reporting rules and standardsshould also be elaborated.6.6. CooperationCooperation among universities within the country (especially cooperation between employeesof career advising services from different universities) is absolutely crucial for development ofcareer advising services, despite the obvious fact of competition (to get access to job offers or85Future outlook: Final recommendations for launching career advising services in Croatian universities