North Macedonia: Higher Education is a Step to Successful Career Development and Career Leadership

The significance of the cooperation of higher education with the business community has recently emphasized its primacy more and more, as a basis for the successful development of a solid and economically justified society. Of course, this kind of cooperation indirectly affects what successful career development and successful career guidance mean. For these reasons, the communication thus established between these two important entities in society contributes to the successful social-economic development of a society, that is, monitoring the changes that occur, and taking timely steps to adapt to them.

From here arose the initiative for a multidisciplinary project that is realized within the framework of activities for the promotion of the role and meaning of career development and career guidance, in which the main opportunists were the students of the Faculty of Economics - Prilep, North Macedonia, who had an excellent opportunity to respond to the challenges of the real sector practically.

Namely, on May 12, 2023, as part of the multidisciplinary cooperation of the Center for Professional Training and Career Development at the Faculty of Economics - Prilep, North Macedonia, and a company from the IT sector, an event was held, at which the students who participated in the activity had the task of researching the set challenge, analyze and create strategies for their career development in the company as well as tools and methods they would apply.

The task incorporated multi-phase activities, thus enabling the application of theoretical knowledge in practice while acquiring skills in research, analysis, planning, creativity, teamwork, communication, self-promotion, conflict resolution, live and remote communication, use of numerous ICT tools, etc.

At the end of the event, the teams were tasked with presenting their results to representatives from business and higher education.

At this event, the satisfaction and benefits of this type of project task for all involved in it were emphasized and the possibilities for future collaborations were outlined.

Undoubtedly, the benefits are great both for the university and the company and the students, who have shown their willingness to respond to real tasks with many challenges.

The satisfaction from the successfully realized activity was mutual, especially for the students, who had the opportunity to cooperate with a top company, which opened the doors for cooperation and new ideas, and showed a positive approach and great social responsibility.

We hope that the activity undertaken in this way and the involvement of a part of the business community will be an incentive and motive that will encourage other companies to get involved in these and similar activities through which we will model healthy and prosperous personnel.