Article by L’Albero
On last 20th January, in Italy an interesting and productive Focus Group took place. During this event, the Italian team of Master the Act (MACT) shared the work done so far about the MACT Methodology with three potential stakeholders.
In particular, the MACT team and the participants discussed not only the Methodology and its learning modules but also the concrete possibility that the professional profile of the Creative Mentor for Employability (CME) of entering the Italian labour context, in this case, composed of recruiters, (public and private) employment agencies, and theatrical professionals.
After conducting specific research at the European level, and after developing the first draft of MACT Methodology, we decided to collect views and opinions on what we consider the key competencies of a Creative Mentor for Employability (CME) and of a job seeker and also on the methodology able to develop them.
For the project, it’s, in fact, very important to share objectives and possible solutions with those who are the potential beneficiaries of the MACT Methodology. Therefore, the participants of the focus group were all professionals with a profile consistent with the project’s target: the coordinator of a recruitment team, the president of a social cooperative that deals with the design and the development of paths of job placement, an educator and cultural mediator that serves as tutor and facilitator in several employment agencies.
Their external points of view on the project were very useful to validate or make improvements on the methodology and the tools that the project wants to create.
One of the most interesting observations from those who deal with the selection of candidates was that the theatre could be a very effective tool not only for the development of transversal skills but also for the assessment of these skills during a job interview. Hence, the theatre could be an extremely innovative and effective tool also to conduct (or to take) job interviews. The participant who deals with the design and the development of paths of job placement particularly appreciates the training modules that develop competencies still underestimated: the module “Future goals”, particularly useful in this historical period of great uncertainty, the module “Focus on Creativity” and the module “Assessing personal strengths”.
The participants to the focus groups confirmed that the interest in the acquisition of these tools is transversal in respect of the potential beneficiaries of the MACT Training and that range from job recruiters to orientation centres, employment agencies, but cultural mediators and educators that it will be in their interest not only to use innovative tools (theatre) but also to learn for themselves several competencies useful for acting inside a context increasingly complex and international.
However, they noticed also that – referring to the Italian context – it could be difficult altering the status quo. The general Italian employment and recruitment contexts are still very traditional. Therefore, “Master the Act” should find a way to open a dialogue with the Institutions, a dialogue that at first could be hard. This will be the greatest challenge that the project should try to overcome, putting over the idea that it’s necessary to work before on who help the job seekers and later on the job seekers themselves. As the cultural mediator underlined, the learning modules don’t look as simple transmission of tools, but as a whole journey that leads to a degree of awareness of these innovative practices that can’t be part of a top-down process but that need a previous sharing of values and views.
The MACT team will meet also this challenge!
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