CAREER GUIDANCE METHODS AT KEMEROVO STATE UNIVERSITY (the materials of the survey of first-year students in 2015)

Abstract

The paper discusses the challenges of student recruitment which Russian humanitiarian and classical universities face during the admission campaign. The methods used in career guidance by Kemerovo State University and the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology are described with estimation of their efficiency which was received from surveying the first-year students in 2015. In this research career guidance is explored in conjunction with the methods of public relations, understood as the work of the University aimed at professional self-determination of senior schoolchildren and creation of a positive im-age of KemSU and its faculties. During the research a special influence of “opinion leaders” (school teachers of History and Social Studies) on the formation of their students’ opinion the departments (Politology/Sociology) and the Faculty was found. On the base of the results the paper offers suggestions for forming career guidance. It is recommended to intensify the work on creating a positive image of the university and the faculty in the real and virtual information spaces, including print media, television and web resources; to work more carefully with school teachers of History and Social Studies which are the main opinion leaders for senior schoolchildren – future entrants; to accumulate the methods and techniques to counteract more successfully against the information creating a negative image of KemSU and the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology in the virtual space, including the popular communities in social networks and independent web resources.