myCareerCompanion aligns perfectly with AFC’s mission to prepare students for the job market

15 June 2021

For many years Academics for Companies, in short AFC, has been working together with myCareerCompanion. AFC is an interdisciplinary organization for and by students and its main goal – just like ours – is to bring the academic and the corporate world closer to each other, a common driver that created the perfect base for a successful and sustainable cooperation.

Elena and Charlotte make up the power pair that manage this leading student organization, active in Leuven, Ghent and Brussels.

myCareerCompanion is no longer new to AFC. Could you shortly describe how the platform is part of what you offer towards your members? And how does it fit within your mission and vision?

It is our mission to prepare the students to take the step from studying to working, on a personal as well as a professional level. Obviously, the myCareerCompanion platform perfectly aligns with this mission. By means of the platform, our AFC members discover their personal strong assets and their areas of development and they learn to translate this into suitable roles and company cultures. Afterward, AFC can bring the student into contact with organizations that have a company culture that fits their personal profile. The same goes for the personal skills that appear on their myCareerCompass after filling out the questionnaires. Students find out about their strengths and also where they still need some tutoring. AFC offers a wide range of workshops that focus specifically on the development of skills. In short: AFC and myCareerCompanion are really complementary!

myCareerCompanion is a permanent player within the AFC offer and it is no coincidence that it is part of the AFC track “Kickstart your career”. This track (a series of interactive workshops) prepares the AFC members to take the first steps towards the labor market in a thoughtful manner. myCareerCompass is indispensable in this process, not only with your online platform but also with the workshops given by you, as it helps the AFC members to get to know themselves.

We also know that we can contact myCareerCompanion at any time for internal organizational questions. For instance, the selection of our workshop members and presidents is based on the principles that we learned from myCareerCompanion. Thanks to these tips, we can handle the selection process in a much more objective way.

What do you appreciate about the platform and by extension our cooperation? Is this in line with the reactions that you get from your members?

Elena: The big eye-opener for me was the part about company cultures: “What company culture suits my personal profile?” I had no idea about this, and I found it very enlightening to see this in writing. I saw results that I couldn’t have predicted before.

Charlotte: As I will be graduating this year, I am fully occupied with applying for a job. myCareerCompass and more specifically my list with personal competences and their extra information really help me in my preparation. It is the ideal tool for upcoming job interviews. It helps me to tell something different from the standard clause “I am a teamplayer”.

myCareerCompanion also has a myCourses part, next to the myCareerCompass. What do you think about the courses that you can currently find there?

The content of myCourses is very strong and it perfectly complements with the AFC offer. We notice that every course offers an answer to questions that our students are coping with: “How do I write a strong CV?”, “How can I extend my LinkedIn network?”, “How can I pitch myself in a convincing way?”, “What does a salary package look like?”, … myCareerCompanion succeeds in creating a professional environment where students feel at ease, free to find out about themselves, and to acquire extra information.

It is very remarkable to us that you, as a neutral partner, really help the students in their search for a suitable job. The courses are full of practical examples and they are translated into a digital learning environment in an open, advising, and enthusiastic way.

How do you see the use of the myCareerCompanion platform evolving within AFC?

We have known each other for many years now and we especially appreciate the qualitative support! Being it about skill development, learning or HR, we are inspired and supported by you. We also know you as a partner who thinks ahead with us, brainstorms with us and advises us.

We regularly ask our students for feedback, and year after year, myCareerCompanion gets one of the highest scores in these surveys. And besides, the high feedback score has always been stable, hence our enthusiasm to work with you in every new academic year!

Do you take any other initiatives to prepare your students for the labor market?

We prepare our students for a professional career based on our 3 pillars:

Explore: Throughout the year, we organize events that inspire and guide the students in their interests-development.

Learn: Here, we focus on extra-curricular development of soft skills. We organize a series of interactive workshops, that have been clustered in a ‘track’ per topic.

Apply: The academic as well as the AFC knowledge are put into practice by gaining experience during a student consultancy project or a summer internship.

We do a lot of research to know what the students need. In that way, we can constantly optimize our offer. A healthy mix between ‘fun’ and ‘professionalism’ is crucial for us!

If you were to name 3 reasons why an academic organization should work with myCareerCompanion, which would you choose?

myCareerCompanion is a sustainable partner: an organization that shares our interests, that thinks and grows together with us and where we can apply for help at any time.

The myCareerCompanion platform is a real added value on the individual level of each AFC member and it is really complementary to one of our goals, i.e. self-development.

The personal, open and warm contact with myCareerCompanion is the icing on the cake for us.