Transitions to Working Life: Securing Professional Competence

Abstract

This chapter examines the transition from education to work as a critical phase of professional career and the development of professional competence. Literature on transition to working life has brought up several challenges that many graduates meet in early stages of their career such as threat of unemployment, inadequate knowledge and skills, decreased self-efficacy and increased stress, instability of professional identity, early attrition and changing occupation, newcomers’ role and position in a work community, and the importance of workplace learning. This chapter examines each of these challenges from the professional competence point of view. Special attention is paid to the role of social partnerships in meeting the challenges.