TVJ-The virtual job club

Si chiama 'TVJ – The virtual jobclub' il primo sito che ha l'obiettivo di creare delle comunita' virtuali tra chi cerca lavoro. Finanziato dall'UE (costera' 570 mila euro), fara' il suo debutto nell' autunno 2006 in 4 Paesi europei: Italia, Polonia, Spagna, Gb. Ha spiegato Leonardo Evangelista, coordinatore del progetto: 'Il jobclub virtuale, permettera' di assistere un ampio numero di persone garantendo continuita' dei servizi, accessibili gratuitamente e a distanza'.

Project overview

A virtual community can be defined as a social aggregation that emerges from the Internet when enough people carry on public discussions long enough and with sufficient human feeling to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace. Through virtual communities many people find help and advice easily and conveniently (no mobility barriers, 24 hours a day opening hours, etc.) with limited or no help from professional experts.

TVJ THE VIRTUAL JOBCLUB wants to develop a methodology based on virtual communities (a virtual job club) to motivate and assist people involved in job search in their day to day tasks (job search by all means, not only internet based job search). The virtual job club will be hosted on a website (in four languages) appositely developed, at first closely connected and than (in the last part of the project) integrated with the already existing websites addressed to job seekers managed by the partner organisations.

Support to jobseekers in their day to day tasks greatly improves their chances of finding a job, as the more they continue to feel motivate, the more prospective employers they contact. However, this kind of help is very expensive because, traditionally, is provided by professional advisers and carried out in small groups (the traditional job clubs) or through one to one counselling. The development of an efficient tool, such a virtual job club, that can be accessed from a distance through the internet, has the advantages to give an easy available and effective help to jobseekers and to do this at a relatively low cost. Through this project the partner organisations want to share and integrate what they have already been doing in assisting jobseekers using ICT, and develop it further. The project's website will be freely accessible and great care will be given to dissemination of project’s results, entrusted to a media and news agency belonging to the Project’s partnership.

The main project outcomes are:

1. a study, in English, about good practices in virtual communities (including virtual communities of careers guidance practitioners). The study will be carried out by a company specialised in social research.

2. an interactive web based guide to job search in four languages. The guide, with a common structure, will take account of national differences in job search.

3. a website containing
A. the guide to job search,
B. several personalised spaces (a diary, an agenda, a portfolio of the job search) accessible by each jobseeker through a password
C. a section where the jobseekers can communicate by using several means (email, forum, chat, videoconference) with each other and with each of the virtual community facilitators (one for each language). The website constitutes the main instrument to attract visitors and to make them interact so to form a virtual community. A virtual community for each of the four project languages will be promoted.

4. A handbook on how to use virtual communities and internet in general for teaching job search techniques and giving advice and support to jobseekers. The handbook is addressed to all organisations that manage support services for jobseekers, and are interested in using this ICT based methodology for improving their services, and will also contain an account of the project.

TVJ is promoted by the following organisations which are involved in the management of employment and/or careers guidance services in their Countries and which want to improve the quality and availability of those services:

1. VEB Accademia Europea www.vebaccademia.it: (I), coordinator, a no profit organisation managing careers guidance services and accredited for vocational training courses;

2. DEP Consultora Strategica (ES), a private company specialised in social and marketing research;

3. Educaonline EL (ES), a private company managing www.educaweb.com, the main Spanish portal devoted to training and guidance; );

4. AIDA (I) www.aidanet.com a software and media company;

5. Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz AHE www.ahe.edu.pl (PL) the main Polish private University,

6. Prospects www.prospects.co.uk (UK) Prospects is one of the largest providers of education, guidance and consultancy services in the UK.

The scientific director of the project is Leonardo Evangelista.