Meet Your Future: Job Search Effort and Aspirations of Young Jobseekers

How can career coaching and job search assistance from “the future you” (a successful alumna of your vocational training school) help influence trainees’ expectations and labor market trajectories? Working with 1,180 students from five Vocational Institutes (VTIs) in Uganda, this project aims to measure the success in the labor market for trainees aspiring to be both wage employed or self-employed. The randomized intervention will consist of two treatments: 1) a pure information treatment where students are provided information about average labor market conditions for their sector and successful job search strategies and 2) a career-coaching treatment where students, after receiving the information, are paired with “the future you” for one-to-one coaching sessions. Results forthcoming.