Problem statement
Young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) often struggle to find their place in the world of work. They may lack direction, the ability to make informed (career) decisions, and suitable role models. These challenges can worsen due to their distance from the labour market and previous discouragement during their studies or work experience. This can create a vicious cycle, trapping young people further in NEET status.
NEETs are more likely to come from poor socioeconomic backgrounds and face multiple disadvantages. These factors make it harder for them to make informed career decisions, identify suitable opportunities for education or training, and manage key transitions effectively.
Transitions are crucial for young people as they move from one stage of life to another. The most significant is the school-to-work transition, which has been unsuccessful or disrupted for many NEETs. A failed transition can leave young people feeling disconnected from both education and employment pathways. Viewing young peoples’ experiences through the lens of transitions provides valuable insights into their lived reality. It highlights the need for targeted support and guidance to help them navigate pivotal moments in their lives.
NEETs may also feel overwhelmed by the range and complexity of educational and training options available. Without clear guidance, they struggle to understand not only the labour market but also their personal starting point – such as their career aspirations, interests, existing skills and competences, and those needed for a successful career path. The absence of role models and mentors who can offer valuable guidance, inspiration and motivation may further limit NEETs’ understanding of potential career pathways and the world of working in general.
A lack of early and adequate information about career paths – including working conditions, skill requirements, and opportunities for growth – can lead to further disengagement among NEETs. This knowledge gap shows the importance of comprehensive career guidance that covers these aspects and offers additional support to young people at risk. Lifelong guidance can help develop career management skills, particularly decision-making and adaptability. Overall, the challenges NEETs face in navigating career pathways and transitions highlight a need for effective lifelong career guidance and support systems. By addressing these issues, NEETs can overcome barriers and build the skills needed for successful integration into the workforce, reducing the risk of long-term social exclusion.
Beneficiaries
Addressing the problem
Policy makers, managers and practitioners involved in career guidance services targeting NEETs may find the following tips useful.
Information and guidance services are most effective where they use multi-channel delivery (web, telephone, face-to-face or self-directed services for those who are ready), and are scalable according to individual needs (i.e. more support for young people with higher needs). This is critical for at-risk youth, including NEETs, as they are a diverse group with different skill levels, activity status and personal backgrounds. Quality guidance is person-centred, accessible to all, and personalised to each individual, with activities adapted to the person’s situation and responsive to their needs and aspirations.
Career counselling can help individuals to discover, clarify, assess and understand their own experiences, knowledge and skills. It can also help them explore the alternatives available and develop strategies for implementation. One-to-one support through coaching or mentoring programmes can be helpful for those facing multiple barriers to learning.
Career management skills develop over time, with different competences mastered at different stages of life. Practitioners and other staff should provide information and guidance to ensure that young people are fully aware of the range of options open to them. This is particularly important for young people from vulnerable socioeconomic backgrounds and circumstances that may lead to becoming NEET. Guidance practitioners should ensure that strengths and needs are recognised early on to increase or rediscover motivation in their learning and work life path.
The overall approach to guidance should enable a user-centred process of capacity building led by young people and their needs. Practitioners can use reflective questioning and other tools to improve self-efficacy and self-management. This includes awareness of education and training systems as well as the labour market. Ideally, a practitioner is non-directive and acts as a qualified critical partner who helps a young person map and navigate their own path towards learning and work.
Read more on guidance for at-risk groups in Cedefop’s Inventory of lifelong guidance systems and practices.
Appropriate guidance, including for NEETs, develops an individual’s competence in self-management, learning, and career management. It enables NEETs to understand their competences and interests, and to develop the skills needed to plan and manage their own learning and work paths back into education, training or suitable employment.
Career management skills development should begin at an early stage when young people are transitioning from school to training or to employment, through training and career development activities. Examples include self-assessment exercises, training in personal management (such as time management and networking), sourcing and using career information, and defining career plans and objectives. Online resources and blended learning strategies can be valuable in developing career-oriented skills for young people outside formal education systems.
Employers can also support young people in their career development. Together with guidance services as well as other key stakeholders, employers play an important role in helping young people gain a realistic understanding of the workplace. To support at-risk youth, local-level cooperation between key stakeholders can create opportunities and real-world experience for NEETs to try different occupational areas through work tasters, work shadowing, work-based learning and internships. Other possibilities for employers to get involved include contributing to the development of curriculum materials for NEETs, and offering career talks or site visits.
Coordination between guidance practitioners and other relevant professionals supporting NEETs ensures that no one is left behind, achieves comprehensive service provision and avoids duplication of work. Coordination allows for the continuous exchange of information to capture and review the latest learning opportunities, taking into account local labour market needs. It ensures that NEETs can access all the services and information they need to manage their careers, regardless of the first point of contact.
Career guidance includes a variety of activities that contribute to the development of career management skills and offer opportunities for stakeholders to cooperate, such as:
- one-to-one conversations and group sessions with a career guidance practitioner;
- conversations with role models to increase motivation;
- peer support mediated by trained professionals;
- acquiring skills to critically assess, collect, and interpret information/resources from various types of media;
- support and advice on how to prepare a CV and complete an application form;
- social skills and capacity building, including mock interviews to build skills and confidence;
- self-directed and supported assessments of needs, aspirations and attitudes to clarify career choices and aptitudes;
- skills audits to identify existing skills and competences, and inform the development of an individual plan for next steps in learning, training or employment, or validation of informal and non-formal learning;
- work simulations or ‘discovery workshops’ where NEETs can experiment with different occupations or work environments to gain meaningful experiences and skills to make informed career decisions;
- conversations with employers and job shadowing opportunities.
Coordination is also about providing personalised, holistic and comprehensive supports to NEETs, who often have complex and high-level needs and face many challenges. This approach emphasises multi-faceted support, with multiple feedback mechanisms and structured referrals across relevant services (education, youth centres, social services, Public Employment Services, health services). Mainstream education and training providers can use this approach, which promotes partnerships with the relevant support services and effective communication channels and tools (e.g. personal portfolios). Coordination and referrals across different services ensure ongoing contact with NEETs, activities tailored to their needs, and help build trust between support workers and NEETs.
Referrals to social and psychological support can also help NEETs gain self-confidence, trust in institutions and others, a sense of belonging and motivation, enabling them to think more positively about society and their own future. Such support can form part of reintegration measures for young people excluded from the labour market or formal learning, facing particularly complex or sensitive issues.
All parties involved in lifelong guidance have an ethical duty to protect the confidentiality of NEETs’ private and sensitive information in line with data protection laws. The production of individualised career data (e.g. portfolios) should give the individual control and ownership of their information.
Coaching and mentoring offer individuals and groups the support they need to overcome personal barriers and realise their potential. These activities provide one-on-one support on an ongoing basis and are well suited to the needs of NEETs. Coaching may last only until the achievement of set objectives, while mentoring is usually a longer-term support whose objectives can evolve over time. The effectiveness of mentoring depends greatly on the mentors’ skills, value, systems and personality, as well as their ability to act as a role model.
Both coaching and mentoring can help raise NEETs’ motivation to learn. They can also support the transition into education, training or employment, and empower young people to set goals for the future. Both approaches rely on developing trust, where the young person sees their coach/mentor as neutral or ‘on their side’.
Mentors often play a key role in helping newly arrived young people and other workers adapt to the work culture, supporting smooth integration. Employers can also act as mentors, helping young people gain realistic insights into the world of work and the specific workplace, and understand how they can acquire valuable knowledge, skills and competences for the future.
To learn more about mentoring, please see Cedefop’s intervention approach on offering mentoring programmes to NEETs.
Access to up-to-date, high-quality labour market information is crucial for guiding NEETs in their career choices and helping them develop autonomy in their decision-making and a critical understanding of this information. Guidance practitioners, digital platforms, and various actors in the community play a significant role in providing relevant information on the skills and training required for occupations of interest to young people. Career guidance also aims to develop individuals’ skills to gather, analyse and act on labour market information, based on their own interests, ambitions, and current labour market demand.
A range of tools and strategies can be used in both face-to-face and remote delivery of services:
- up-to-date and high-quality information on training and job opportunities;
- relevant information on occupations and sectors of activity;
- information on salaries, workplaces, in-work progression, and other pathways for different occupations or sectors;
- information and advice on future skill demands and changing skillsets within occupations;
- self-assessment questionnaires to explore a person’s suitability for specific career pathways and help them understand their own preferences and potential;
- learning activities aimed at selecting, sorting and understanding career information and its usefulness.
Cedefop has developed a toolkit to help guidance practitioners integrate labour market information using ICT tools. Practitioners can build their own portfolio of labour market resources they consider useful for informing clients or developing their own materials. Cedefop’s Lifelong guidance inventory of systems and practices features a dedicated section on career information and ICT in lifelong guidance, covering labour market information and skills intelligence, with examples from countries included in each yearly collection (2020-present).
Employers are also well placed to provide up-to-date, relevant labour market information. They are essential in facilitating transitions to and within the workplace, motivating young people in the community by serving as role models. This can offer a balanced view of specific occupations or career pathways, leading to work experience and better chances of a good fit with particular workplaces and fields of work.
Expected outcomes
The positive outcomes can be expected at different levels:
