As you have read in the article 'When was the last time you reflected on your career?', a career counselling programme has many positive effects, for both the employee and the employer. Regularly reflecting on one's own career is valuable in order to be able to make future-oriented choices. As an employer, you can play a central role in this, namely by encouraging employees to reflect on this. Not only as a solution, but also preventively to promote the sustainable employability of employees! Bee Puls we see this as a Check Up'tje; After all, we also have our car inspected once in a while. Why shouldn't we do the same for our own careers and those of our employees?

Now a career counseling program is often initiated only at the moment when an employee is no longer in his or her place, functions less well, or draws little energy from work. In other words, when there is already a problem. To ensure that people continue to develop continuously and are and remain Sustainable Employable, there are increasing calls for the preventive use of career guidance (Kruythoff, 2019).

It's not just us from Puls understand the importance of a careerCheck Up. This has also been scientifically proven: a periodic career check increases the Sustainable Employability of an employee (Kruythoff, 2019). And thus limits the degree of unemployment in our society (Kruythoff, 2019).

What is a CareerCheck Up?

During a careerCheck Up the employee examines whether the position and the organization where he or she works still fits his or her situation, talents and wishes. A careerCheck Up supports you in making the right career choices. Through the use of tools and the advice of the Pulscareer counsellor, an employee can, among other things, gain insights into his or her position on the labour market. This is followed by a plan: what does this information mean? What can you do with this? What skills do you still want to develop to stay on your career course? A career counsellor from Puls supports the employee in this process.

An example of a preventive career guidance programme (CareerCheck Up) was the project Development Advice 45+; until recently, a temporary subsidy scheme from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. The aim of this advice was to encourage candidates aged 45 and over to take control of their own careers, until retirement, by actively thinking about how they can remain sustainably employable. Puls has supervised various 45+ trajectories, sometimes resulting in a career switch. In one of these trajectories, we guided a woman who had been working in her field for years, but had not yet received much challenge and energy from her work. After a number of interviews, taking personality and work tests and orienting herself within the online profession database, she made the choice to look for another job in a completely different sector. The career counselling programme gave her just the push she needed to take this step.

Are you still on track?

We at Puls believe that room for career development and professionalization should be a continuous part of the work, so that people can utilize, strengthen and develop their talents. Do you want to check whether you are still on track with your career? Or are you a manager and do you want to know how you can stimulate personal development and taking control of sustainable employability among your employees? Feel free to contact us for a no-obligation and exploratory conversation or take a look at the website under 'career guidance'.