Abstract:

Participating in a recruitment selection process is a big challenge for final-year students in higher education. To elaborate a Curriculum Vitae in the classic Europass model is not always enough for the candidate to stand out in the first phase of selection and move on to the interview phase. In the professional context, when analyzing applications from young graduates, it appears that they have difficulties in creating a resume that is linguistically correct, attractive (that stands out from the rest) and, above all, personalized to the company to which they are applying. Moreover, in the individual interview or group dynamics, candidates are unable to answer such simple questions as "Tell me about yourself" or "What is your biggest weakness?

Since the university must prepare students to enter in the labor market and teach skills that allow them to respond to the challenges trough the recruitment process, this work is based on the development of a learning strategy, which consisted in the creation of individual professional portfolios in the context of a simulated recruitment process. This strategy had as main objectives to promote the students' self-knowledge, to develop oral and written skills and, above all, to prepare these students for the recruitment process. The work was developed in the curricular unit of Oral and Written Expression Techniques, in the scope of three courses of the higher professional training course: SME Management, Information Systems Programming and Network and Computer Systems, taught at Águeda School of Technology and Management of the University of Aveiro (ESTGA-UA, Portugal).

The portfolios were built online and included:
i. work and evidence that adds value to the candidate in a potential recruitment process;
ii) a creative Curriculum Vitae;
iii) a presentation Pitch in video format;
iv) an institutional presentation of the company to which the candidate is applying, and
v) a spontaneous application or ad response email that is creative and focused on what the candidate has to offer the company.

In this paper, we intend to analyse the perceptions of students regarding the teaching strategy used, with special focus on the transversal competences most valued by the participants and the added value of this work in the future context of recruitment, in particular given the challenging dynamics of projecting themselves into a simulation context.

Keywords:

Transversal competences, professional portfolio, recruitment, Oral and Written Expression Techniques, higher professional training course.