In the career counselling process for young people, I encounter mixed and distinct profiles, namely:

• Profile of student pursuing academic career (master’s degree, PhD, research project, teaching, etc).
• Profile of the student who goes to a big company.
• Profile of the student who wants to go abroad: for them it doesn’t matter much the company they are going to work for, as they want to have an international experience.
• Students who come back after 1 year in the labour market, to do a new career planning.
• Students with doubts with the choice of a Master’s degree.
• Graduates who are unsure about what to do after they receive their degree.
• Graduate students who want career progression, or want to change jobs, or access other market opportunities.

We work closely with the companies that recruit our students to gather information that is more in tune with the reality of the market.
The young people who come to me for advice, some are lost in their professional careers, especially young people reaching the end of their academic path; others already come with a ready idea, but do not know which paths they should take, which tools they should use and which strategies they should use.

Two out of ten young people know what they want and ask for help to enhance it. The rest are at the exploratory stage.

80% of the students in Porto choose to work in Porto (remote or face-to-face). Those who do not choose to work in Porto, have the following alternative: Lisbon or abroad (the majority opts for abroad).

Students look for companies that have clearly defined mission, values, objectives and what functions they will develop. They usually look at job fairs, where they check if the offers are aligned with their interests, where they align the offers with their well-being and care for the balance between the professional and family dimensions. Students also talk about the relevance of respecting their time and their needs.

The main influences are:

• Friends: students seek friends from previous years, or who are in the labour market, in an attempt to gather information.
• Family members: in order to validate their choice (support).
• Teachers: to validate their choice in order to gather information and content, so that they can make a safe decision.

In order of importance, I list the factors that affect young people’s choices:

• The project and the activities developed. That is, what they will develop.
• The conditions and benefits that this company offers.
• The possibility of professional progress.
• The possibility of being recognized for the work they do.
• The location of the company, or the facilities where they will develop this work.
• Remuneration (interestingly enough).
• The training offered.
• The openness and receptivity of the company to new ideas.
• The flexibility that the company may have.
• The security and instability that this company can offer.

Parental influence: I feel that parents have an influence on the career decision of their children, in order to want to have them around.
The socio-cultural context in which these young people are inserted (in Portugal), influences the perspective of remuneration and recognition in the market. International companies have a higher remuneration, and for this reason are well-liked by young people.

Gender prejudices in the professions:

Women’s concerns in recruitment processes:

• Whether they wish to have children. (In the context of maternity leave).
• Equal pay.

Young women want to know how they should position themselves in these situations.

Engineering is still a very male-dominated field, although there has been a push in recent years to introduce more women into engineering. For example, some roles in civil engineering require greater physical strength (regardless of gender). Biologically, men have greater potential strength than women. This is a determining factor for jobs that require physical stamina. For these reasons, these professions seek more male profiles.

Women usually choose professions that have feminine profiles. For example, in the area of civil engineering, they choose areas such as urban planning, because they stay behind the scenes, as in most cases there is discomfort on the part of women for being in a predominantly male area, and being the only woman in the work environment. On the other hand, in the case of men, I realize that this scenario happens in the areas of biomedicine, bioengineering, chemistry, because they are predominantly female areas. Thus, men seek to work in management/coordination positions in these courses.

Gender differences are not relevant for the employer, but it is relevant for the student who has a gender entity that they may suffer prejudice regarding their identity, personality or in the way they dress, etc.

Psychology to female gender. In psychology, for example, the client himself chooses female psychologists because he associates the profession with gender, where he looks for support, comfort, emotional security, in the woman who has the profile of being more caring.

Pay gap:

Statistically, we can notice that men are paid more than women, but often, this has to do with the roles that women typically perform, i.e. women are usually associated (of course, this has a tendency to change), but they end up choosing professions more linked to care, and this comes from a historical trend. Professions aligned with care are nursing professions, the social area, psychology (where most psychologists are women), where they are less paid than the engineering area, where there are more men working. For example, I don’t see a company hiring for 1,500 euros for being a man and with exactly the same function and in the same company, reducing the salary to 1,000 euros for being a woman. This I have not seen. Furthermore, there is currently a law requiring companies to be more transparent with regard to equal pay between genders. What I have seen is professional progression and prejudice against women due to their responsibilities with childcare.

Gender stereotyping in recruitment processes:

I perceive gender bias in job offer descriptions, in an unconscious way. When I read a job advertisement that presents gender bias, I already perceive the conflicts that these stereotypes can arise, just with the descriptions of the activities and functions, and how interpersonal relationships can be affected by gender differences.