My Career My Future: IYF’s Career Guidance Approach to Elevating Youth Agency

My Career My Future (MCMF), known as “Descubre tu Vocación” in Spanish, inspires young people to recognize the positive energy that comes from pursuing their passions with enthusiasm and discipline. It empowers them to identify and seize opportunities that align with their interests, enabling them to independently build their own futures.

Supporting Youth to Understand Opportunities, Navigate Choices

My Career My Future supports learners to make decisions about their program of study and facilitates degree program changes based on analysis of labor market opportunities along with their strengths and interests. The curriculum has a strong gender focus and encourages students to critically reflect on the impact of traditional gender roles on their career choices.

When incorporated into formal education systems, IYF intentionally places the curriculum BEFORE young people must take or confirm decisions about what they will study, empowering them to take decisions assertively. Many public schools do have career guidance, but it is often divorced from information about the local job markets and doesn’t lead to meaningful decision making.

We also know that inundating young people with labor market information is not productive. Instead, through a structured curriculum and active learning methodology, we start by engaging youth where they are, guiding them to reflect on their interests, values and skills. Then we help them to understand their context, through labor market information and information about career ladders, in order to chart their path towards their goals.

My Career My Future Four Parts of Learning

The course concludes with an opportunity to change or confirm their degree program, with school staff on hand to facilitate the transition. In Nuevo Leon, Mexico where annually over 10,000 students participate in the My Career, My Future career orientation curriculum and employment data access strategy, IYF was able to document positive trends related to degree program changes. The majority of the degree program changes were into degree programs with high earning potential, and young women abandoned low earning degree programs that conformed to traditional gender roles.

MCMF’s Adaptability by Context and Scale

Whenever IYF and our partners deliver My Career My Future, we always consider accessibility, scale, and suitable engagement models. As a result, IYF has designed the training experience so there are both online and offline delivery options through our MCMF Online platform. Some programs even deliver content on the radio and have learners participate using a workbook and WhatsApp chat groups. Context is everything. Being flexible with both low-tech and high-tech tools, resources, and approaches is central to the MCMF ethos.