This Saturday will take place the large Studyrama-Formathèque orientation fair at the Parc des expositions de La Beaujoire in Nantes. The last show before the choices on the Parcoursup platform, which begin on January 20. The opportunity for high school and university students totally lost in their orientation to meet professionals. Speaker at the show, Axelle Martinelli created her company Coach & evolution to support people in their professional development. Interview.
These young people who do not know at all what they want to do with their future, how many are there?
It’s enormous ! I’ve seen a lot of numbers, for example on people repeating their first year of bachelor’s degree. In 2017 it was 40%. It’s a big part and, above all, they are a little lost with the current crisis. They need to make sense of their choices. The financial aspect is a little less valued compared to the personal balance aspect.
Saturday, if lost high school students or students come to ask you for advice, what can you answer them?
It will depend on whether they have too many choices or not enough. It’s tailor-made, but I’ll ask them what the fear behind their question is. What I propose, since I work with students, is to start from themselves, to get to know each other well. Start by getting to know each other well to know the areas that make sense to them. This is one of the basics of the method ikigai.
What are the keys to this method? How can she help these young people?
ikigai is a great tool for them. It’s a Japanese method that means “reason for being, joy of living”. Find a good reason to get up in the morning. We first unfold what the person likes in life starting from his dreams, which makes him vibrate. Second step: what are his talents? To be able to feed this sphere, the person can, for example, ask around for the talents that others recognize in them. This is called the soft skills. The sphere of talents makes it possible to restore confidence in the young person, to consider the future in an enthusiastic way. Third step: put him in touch with the world. What are the needs that I can relate to the needs of the world? The idea is to find what skills to make available to society.
Should we rely on the sectors that recruit the most? What are they currently?
This is a good question to ask, but if we start from the areas that recruit the most, we risk orienting ourselves according to market needs. This is often what happens. It keeps changing. I can tell you something but it may be that in six months it will be totally different.
Does an orientation fair really help in the choice of training courses?
It is not necessarily decisive. But it can open the consciousness. What is decisive is rather the exchanges with students, the directors of training. But the living room still has its place.
Should we be afraid of making a mistake? We say “wasting years” when we reorient ourselves, but in the end is it really wasted time?
I precisely militate for the “right to the error”. I have two children aged 18 and 25. The first is in master of community manager. He had no idea what he wanted to do. He did a first commercial BTS year, he looked for himself for a long time. My 18-year-old daughter obtained a professional baccalaureate, she is now in language school. There is no “good” course. I did a BTS in tourism, after a degree in languages and then a higher school of communication, I did Sciences Com. This is also why I am going to testify on Saturday morning at the Formatheque on the professions of communication. We must accept this right to error.
When you’re 18 or 20 you don’t know everything. This is the time when we can afford to do something that does not necessarily suit us, but at least try…
Yes. And since we don’t know what we want, it’s the parents, the social milieu, society that will leave their mark. The less you know yourself, the more others will have a weight on you, and make you take a path that is not yours. I find these people in retraining who tell me “I did that as a study because I had good grades in such and such a subject, but I didn’t like it at all”. Similarly, you should not do your training to bring back a diploma and please your parents.
How can parents support their children in high school or college who feel lost?
I will tell them not to worry too much. The ideal is to communicate with their child. For example, if he tells them “I want to become a YouTuber”, don’t tell him straight away “no, you’ll do something else” but ask him what interests him in this job as a YouTuber, and let him explain. Once dissected, it can correspond to a job that will be more accepted by parents. I am in favor of starting from the dream, to see if it is applicable in reality.
It seems much easier today than 10 years ago to take bridges to move from one training to another…
Indeed, knowing that now we will have to do a dozen jobs in a professional career. There are walkways everywhere. If we start from ourselves, we are sure not to be mistaken. If you know where you want to go, that’s the main thing.