Unit 4 Identifying & Overcoming job seeking challenges

• Economic factors, including high national unemployment rates may negatively affect the efforts of refugees and asylum seekers in accessing the legal labour market,
• Refugees and asylum seekers can also be disadvantaged in terms of accessing the job market as a result of their language skills, insufficient qualifications/education and/or issues with officially recognising the equivalence of their qualifications/skills in the host country or Europe in general.
• The language barrier is also important for those refugees or asylum seekers who want to receive courses for upskilling and join the job market,
• The main challenges identified in a report of the European Commission were the following:
  • limited or restricted access to the labour market due to legal and administrative barriers,
  • access being hampered due to a lack of institutional support or poor resourcing of available support,
  • access to the labour market being further limited by low labour market demand (as a result of high unemployment in the countries or a low demand for low-skilled labour), which is a type of economic/labour market challenge,
  • a lack of language skills, low level of education as well as issues to do with the recognition of existing qualifications, as part of qualification/education challenges,
  • insufficient integration programmes, discrimination and tough cultural adjustment, as part of social challenges.

Source: European Employment Policy Observatory Synthesis Challenges faced by asylum seekers and refugees in successfully integrating into the labour market, May 2016.

• The challenges identified in this unit, along with culture factors are usually applicable to refugees and asylum seekers but some of them may still be present in second generation migrants,
• Overcoming the challenges of seeking a job:
  • Identify your strengths and weaknesses,
    • It is important to exhibit awareness of both your strengths and weaknesses,
  • Employers are now following practices like aptitude or personality tests in their job selection process,
    • Many websites like Assessment Central HQ (https://www.assessmentcentrehq.com/) have free tests so you can practice,
  • Once you land a first interview make sure you research and know a lot about the organisation,
  • Know the career direction you want to go,
    • Make sure that your personal and professional skills are a good match for the position you are interviewing for,
  • Prepare a professional resume,
    • Use the Europass format (https://europa.eu/europass/en/create-europass-cv) which is widely recognised in Europe,
  • Be open to job opportunities and exploit online resources,
    • Use online resources like EURES, the European job mobility portal (https://ec.europa.eu/eures/public/homepage),
    • Use a EURES adviser (https://ec.europa.eu/eures/eures-apps/um/page/public?lang=en#/adviser/search/list),

• Acquiring new skills:
  • In addition to using the university path or the online platforms, learners can also capitalise on opportunities available from the Erasmus Plus programme of the European Commission:
  • Erasmus Plus is the European Union’s programme for  education, training, youth and sport and can offer numerous learning and training opportunities for adults, students and learners (https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/opportunities/opportunities-for-individuals).

• Overcoming the psychological stress:
  • Be well prepared about the interview and your qualifications, remember that you are interviewing the organisations as much as they are interviewing you.

Source: Harvard Business Review (https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-to-handle-stress-during-a-job-interview)

• Using positive psychology theory:
  • Positive psychology theory emphasizes on the positive influences and experiences in a person’s life.
  • These might include character strengths, optimistic emotions, and constructive institutions.