Accompagnare gli studenti, costruire un’identità professionale: il tutorato di gruppo come crescita della persona

This paper analyzes the peer tutoring experience at a large university in northern\r\nItaly. The objective is to understand whether the mentoring experience promote\r\ntutors’ development of soft skills by increasing the perceived level of employability\r\nin the labor market. The insights are based on a study conducted with a group of\r\nformer students who are now active in the labor market. Research adopted a\r\nqualitative approach by conducting semi-structured narrative interviews in the aim\r\nof investigating how through the tutorship experience during the university period\r\nenabled to improve the perceived employability through the training of soft skills.\r\nThirty tutors were interviewed; inclusion criteria required that they graduated\r\nbetween five and ten years ago and that they had a perceived positive and satisfactory\r\nplacement in the world of work. The collected material was analyzed using a\r\nqualitative methodology, based on a content analysis approach, and revealed several\r\nskills that – according to the interviewees ‒ were solicited through their tutorship\r\nexperience. These skills proved to be useful and generated a competitive advantage\r\nfor graduates both while entering the labor market and in the subsequent\r\nconsolidation of their professional careers. The evoked skills were grouped into four\r\nclusters that highlighted how the opportunity to early experience relationships aimed\r\nat achieving a productive goal is an important lever for increasing the perception of\r\nemployability.