Formative evaluation of instruments employed for the promotion of individual career advancement

The unit ‘Förderung beruflicher Entwicklungschancen’ is one of the Wiener ArbeitnehmerInnen Förderungsfonds (waff) main organisational units responsible for a wide range of initiatives aiming at the support of individual career development of Vienna’s population. The portfolio includes various career counselling programmes, schemes for co-funding of further education and training, information sources and the steering and administration of temporary projects aiming at the support of career development for hard-to-reach target groups.

Within the large scale project, all instruments and their interplay have been analysed within a multi-method study, based on document analysis, a meta-analysis of existing evaluation studies on single initiatives, a merged data base on more than 70.000 participants supported by one or more instruments between 2002 and 2007, 70 qualitative interviews with beneficiaries of the various instruments and administrative data on the career outcomes for a large sample of participants, allowing for the assessment of career outcomes two years after the last support activity. The study used a life structure-life stage approach for analysing and explaining the career development for individuals and highlighted the particular importance of the non/availability of a desirable (learning conducive) workplace for shaping individuals career progression. Clients had been found using various support mechanisms at various stages of their career progress over a period of five and more years. A summary of the findings (Hefler and Nindl 2008) is available online.