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Unfortunately, due to many organisational and bureaucratic technicalities, higher education curricula are often slow to respond to changing labour market needs. This is why our team believes that it is necessary to create innovative approaches to boost the level and quality of employability of young European graduates. This issue is considered important also by the European Commission as it supports EU countries and higher education institutions in modernising education programmes within its 2011 EU Modernisation Agenda.
 
For ‘Gen Y’s Guide’ project we decided to work with the business world in order to achieve realistic learning goals that will improve the young people’s employability and will subsequently be added to the higher education curriculum plans. The premise of the project states that candidates who are better equipped with certain soft skills usually have a better fit with their employers. That, in its turn, helps to raise the individual’s and organisation’s level of performance, hence contributing to the overall professional performance of both the employing company and the employee. The project aims at providing recent graduates with these crucial and much-needed soft skills as well as at facilitating the job searching process. 
 
The given project also aims to contribute to the achievement of the priorities and goals specified in the scope of Education & Training 2020 Strategy.
Firstly, students will be guided in gaining skills that European employers require while recruiting new graduates. Secondly, students will be guided in managing their personal brand and representing their employability skills by using right social media channels. Finally, equipping students with knowledge, skills, and core transferable competencies will contribute to the increase of the quality of higher education. The project’s activities will also strengthen the links between education, research, and business. 
The main output of the ‘Gen Y’s Guide’ project is a modern and practical curriculum designed to correspond to the needs of the Generation Y. While the guide will be mainly intended for students, it could be also used by various career offices. By referring to this guide, students will be able understand the changing conditions of the business world, learn about the soft skills preferred by employers and how to develop them, manage their own personal brand, and effectively market themselves to the employers via the relevant social media outlets.
 
The virtual guide will consist of 2 parts. First of all, students will identify whether, and to what extent, they have the skills European employers stated as required of graduates and will acquire practical knowledge necessary to develop those skills through various developmental activities. Secondly, students will learn how to manage effective personal brands and use social media to better promote themselves to employers. This will help the students and recent graduates to develop competitive personal brands and give them advantage in employment procedures as well as introduce their technical and behavioral competencies through correct channels in an effective way.
 
As a result of increased employment skills, young job-seeking graduates will be placed at jobs that are better fit for them which, in its turn, decreases the overall unemployment rate in Europe.
The goals of the project are also closely related to the priorities specified in the scope of Higher Education field of Erasmus + Program, which are;
  • To increase the employability and participation in learning by improving career guidance, counselling and support services.
  • To promote compliance of the education and competencies provided with the work force market and strengthen the relations between the business life and the fields of education, training, and youth.
  • To encourage occupational development for those who work in the fields of education, training, and youth work by improving and renewing the quality and scope of the continuous education.
Our team believes that youth unemployment and inter-generational cooperation are important issues that need to be addressed in academic, professional and corporate lives. This is why ‘Generation Y’s Virtual Guide to Skill Development and Personal Branding in Social Media’ is an important project that can bridge the gap between different generations, young job-seeking graduates and the business world as well as students and the youth workers. The practical output of the project - the virtual guide - will give young people and career workers actual skills and knowledge to bridge that gap.