Business & Money | Monday 11 May, 2015 7:54 am |

Qatar Career Fair (QCF), a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), recently held a Career Advisor Training Course (CATC) to equip individuals with the skills and knowledge of career advising and planning, and provide them with the tools to support youth on their career journeys.
The week-long course at Education City consisted of a series of projects, programmes and initiatives undertaken by the QCF, designed to prepare Qatari youth in different fields of the labour market. As part of QCF’s continued efforts to provide training and counselling to meet the challenges in national development, the course supports QF’s mission to unlock human potential in order to achieve Qatar’s National Vision 2030.

Director of Qatar Career Fair, Abdulla Al Mansoori, said:
“This course helps prepare aspiring young Qataris and help them choose their career path. Career counsellors play a key role in achieving this goal, so there is a need to equip them with all the tools and skills to support them in fulfilling their duties to the best of their capabilities.”
“The material for this course was carefully selected to ensure that it is suitable to the nature and character of our societies, targeting a wide range of individuals from career counsellors, parents, and teachers to all those who are interested in the field of career development. The course intends to enable professionals to accomplish their roles in planning and career guidance by providing them with the basic tools that will help them carry out their duties professionally. Through this course, we also aim to look for specialists in the field of planning and career guidance in order to serve the region’s labour market.”
The Career Advisor Training Course was successful in imparting valuable knowledge and strategies that will effectively guide students in their career planning and university admissions process as it focused on nine vital competencies - helping skills; career development and choice theory; assessment and career planning; the role of information technology in career planning; ethical guidelines; teamwork; the use of technology; employment research skills; and, lastly, programme planning and implementation.

One of the attendees, Hassan Yousuf, a training specialist at Milaha said:
“I decided to take part in this training course, firstly, because coaching and instruction is part of my role as I work mainly with fresh graduates, trainees and those with little or no work experience, and secondly, to further enhance and boost my skills as a trainer in order to advise students who need career guidance and direction.”
The course instructors were Dr Spencer Niles, Director of the Center for the Study of Career Development and Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr Mohamed Aboul Ela, General Manager of Integral Training and Development Company, who holds a PhD from the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the School of Management, Leicester University in the United Kingdom.