Landing an apprenticeship thanks to application training

With its "Application Training" offer, Pro Juventute is committed to helping young people successfully gain entry into the working world. The Vontobel Foundation is supporting this project from 2024 to 2026, which enables these young people to practice the process of applying for an apprenticeship – in realistic simulations with experienced professionals.

Founded in 1912, Pro Juventute is the largest Swiss foundation assisting children and young people, organizing a diverse array of activities and projects, each oriented toward a specific target group. Overall, its mission is to reinforce the resources available to children, young people, and young adults so that they can benefit from healthy development.

In its focus area on “the transition from school to work," Pro Juventute is committed to helping youths gain successful first-time entry into the world of work. As part of this focus, the foundation offers an "Application Training" program, which is based on developing the career orientation skills outlined in Switzerland’s Curriculum 21, which states, "Students should be able to present themselves and their skills convincingly, both with formally correct application documents and in personal contact with employers."

This free training is intended to make the transition from school to working life easier for students and help them find a suitable apprenticeship. Given a set of tasks developed by Pro Juventute, program instructors prepare individual classes addressing the application process, augmenting the classroom learning with role-playing exercises involving experienced professionals who play the part of an employer conducting a job interview with the program trainees.  Afterward, these practice-oriented volunteers give the young “applicants” feedback on their interview as well as on their application documents, with the aim of strengthening their application and presentation skills.

The program is particularly helpful for young people who are at increased risk of missing out on attaining educational qualifications and thus smoothly transitioning from school to work. Several risk factors can have a cumulative negative impact on their chances, such as their family’s low socioeconomic status, coming from a migrant background, having been channeled into special-ed classes, or leaving school having met only the very basic requirements. The young people in question often lack any social support from private sources that can assist them in the process of choosing a career. Negative performance-related experiences and sometimes uncertain self-assessment also demotivate them when looking for an apprenticeship.

The Application Training program has been around since 2016. Since 2022, a supplemental skill was added to the program allowing participants to practice making phone calls with a potential employer. This is a useful skill since, in their everyday lives, young people often prefer texting to phoning, which means they are missing an opportunity for direct communication with a company offering an apprenticeship position. Becoming more comfortable with this approach through practical simulation also increases their chances of succeeding in the application process.