Newsletter for Career Counsellors

The so-called Abi-Newsletter (Abi: short for Abitur, general school leaving certificate for university entrance in Germany) is a special newsletter for career and academic counsellors of the Federal Employment Agency who advise upper secondary students. The newsletter has existed for many years and has been edited by various academic counsellors since then. It currently has more than 1,800 subscribers and appears once a month.

All counsellors who have subscribed to the newsletter can send information or interesting articles about degree programs, vocational trainings, employers, gap year opportunities, counselling methods, career guidance ideas, etc. – in other words, anything that might be of interest to career counsellors – to the current editor. The editor then compiles a newsletter for the advisor community from the submitted contributions and sends it once a month. The articles, overviews, flyers, etc. sent by subscribers are sent as attachments with the newsletter.

This is one of the most important sources of information for the career counsellors at the employ-ment agencies. It utilizes so-called swarm intelligence. Colleagues can share their knowledge, discussions are initiated and ideas are exchanged.

Furthermore, this method is very accessible and organized in a grassroots democratic manner. No managers are involved, and internal issues such as wage agreements or working conditions are often discussed openly.