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Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

(GTAB)) and skills portfolios. Although some of these methods are not
overly influenced by cultural variables (such as identifying technical
competences), others are, such as testing for personality types or types
of intelligence. Care must be taken to account for cultural effectiveness
of the tests and to derive meaning from their results to the individuals
(such as vocational interests). Culturally sensitive value clarification
methodologies should also be used.
Teaching Planned and systematic progression of learning experiences to enable
learners to acquire knowledge, skills and competences. In guidance,
teaching is very much aimed at promoting the acquisition of career
managing skills, with methods such as drafting CVs and job application
letters, job search methods, time management techniques, and
interpersonal communication techniques. The development of CMS can
be important for migrants given their unfamiliarity with the receiving
country's labour market conventions. They might also need to develop
objective and self-critical attitudes toward settled habits and behaviours,
to understand better the effect they have on others. This requires
particular sensitivity of trainers to cultural differences and very
comprehensive needs assessment to correctly target the sessions,
carefully deciding what to do with whom, and when to do it.
Sampling Providing work experience, work trials, learning tasters and other
experiences that enable individuals to gain direct experience, thus
clarifying their decisions. Job shadowing is a common method of giving
people first-hand experience of professions. Sampling can be
coordinated with teaching, by inserting sampling moments in training
sequences or mixing training moments into sampling experiences.
Frequently sampling can derive mutual interest for trainee and employer
and lead to a traineeship opportunity in a firm and/or to employment. For
migrants, this type of experience can be particularly important as a door-
opener into the world of work, also informing about aspects of the work
culture that might be more or less in line with particular cultural
valuations. Firms of immigrant entrepreneurs can provide excellent
grounds to develop sampling experiences.
Enabling Supporting individuals and groups in dealing with organisations that
provide or influence employment and learning opportunities. For newly
arrived immigrants, enabling can be of great importance, given linguistic
barriers, low knowledge of the receiving country's institutions and the
weakness of their social networks. Activities that are successful are
often developed in cooperative structures involving organisations from
education and employment sectors, as well as local authorities.
Advocating Negotiating directly with organisations on behalf of individuals or groups
who may face severe barriers in access to equal rights at work,
education and training, housing, health services, support and benefit
systems. Advocating is a step further than enabling and can be of high
importance for immigrants. In this case, practitioners will effectively
mediate many of the relations that immigrants will establish with a
number of local agents and argue for their rights. This is not a role that
guidance services always play in public services, it is more common that
public provision is involved indirectly through cooperation with third

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