Background: The modern labor market requires from specialists not only a deep knowledge of professional skills, but also a willingness to develop meta-professional soft skills in the context of building their career strategies. Moreover, we are talking about the potential possibility of changing the professional field of activity. Obviously, this landscape largely determines the need for continuous self-development, tracking trends in the labor market, and following trends in the global exchange of information.

Purpose: The Journal of Employment and Career creates a platform for communication and information exchange on the stated issues in order to broadcast the most relevant scientifically validated information, to develop scientific knowledge in the specified subject area.

Materials and Methods: Based on keywords, the editor of the journal conducted a search in the international databases Scopus and Google Scholar in order to accumulate the most relevant sources reflecting the current state of the problem. An analysis of these sources made it possible to present the main approaches to building career strategies that were reflected in previous studies. Based on the data obtained, the author of the article visualized the main trends.

Results and Implications: The obtained results testify to the cardinal transformation of the labor market, which invariably causes a change in career strategies. Hence, the role of primary professionalization increases, since the choice of a career should be determined not by the availability of an educational institution, but by internal motivation for activity.

Backgrond. Despite the fact that the phenomenon of the psychological contract has been studied in foreign science for over half a century, it has not received due consideration in Russian psychological, economic and sociological scientific thought. This allows updating the topic and initiating its understanding in new socio-economic conditions. Under the psychological contract, we mean informal labor relations that develop between an employee and an employer in an organization, during which mutual expectations of the parties arise and are maintained, which are rarely articulated, realized, are veiled or general in nature, the violation of which leads to destabilization of the labor process (labor disputes, conflicts, staff turnover).

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of the psychological contract from the position of sociological science and the ways of its implementation in the system of domestic higher education.

Materials and Methods. The main data collection methods were a theoretical analysis of standard contracts concluded between a teacher and a university, and a semi-standardized interview method that allows obtaining factual data from the teaching staff of three Moscow universities regarding the implementation of a psychological contract and the most typical areas of its violation.

Results. The study revealed the following patterns: a significant excess of the workload actually performed by the teacher, which is not reflected in his individual rating, KPI criteria (effective contract) and, accordingly, is not monetized; the frequency of behavior of the competition for the position of teaching staff as a latent impact on the employee on the part of the employer in a competitive labor market; changing the requirements for the education and competencies of the employee; inconsistent and contradictory management style, which gives rise to a feeling of insecurity, deceived expectations, disappointment in the profession, which leads to a decrease in labor efficiency, health problems, and professional burnout.

Implications. The results and conclusions of the study can be used to create internal regulatory documents of the university, to regulate in more detail the rights and obligations of the teaching staff, which will improve the quality of the organization's management; to standardize the activities of a teacher in accordance with the level of his education, received a scientific degree and title and develop clear KPI criteria; to create conditions for prevent- ing staff turnover, increasing labor motivation of employees, maintaining physical and psychological health.

Background. According to the Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring social inclusion is one of the important priorities of the world community. However, in practice, barriers to inclusive education are still strong, which actualizes the search and determination of ways to overcome them.

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to analyze the regulatory and organizational bases of employment of graduates of specialized institutions in Kazakhstan and to show the role of the factor of social activity of students.

Materials and Methods. The study was carried out in two stages. First, the authors, having analyzed the normative sources, the authors commented on the normative foundations of inclusive education, career guidance in special educational organizations and employment of people with disabilities and people with special needs. Particular emphasis was placed on identifying the main barriers to employment. At the second stage of the study, the authors tracked the identified trends on the example of the experience of career guidance and employment of persons with special educational needs of students of a special educational organization. The approaches proposed by the authors to ensure the effectiveness of career guidance and further employment of persons with special educational needs, taking into account objective and subjective factors, can be used in the activities of such organizations.

Results and Implications: Based on the analysis and generalization of scientific research data, regulatory documents and statistics, it was revealed that students show a low level of activity aimed at professional choice, development and implementation of professional plans, while the main approach should not be the care of the state, but the feasible work activity of a disabled person. Overcoming them requires the efforts of the state, society and depends on the willingness and activity of citizens and parents to be included in their solution. However, an equally important factor is the social activity of graduates of specialized institutions themselves, and its development should be purposefully ensured in the learning process.

Background. Applied bachelor's degree involves the training of practice-oriented graduates, and the main goal of training in this case is the acquisition of the most practical knowledge, skills and abilities that allow them to be involved in production processes straight after the graduation. In addition to the system of work placement the implementation of a communicative project at the graduation course is an important tool allowing graduates to work out their skills and abilities, and to form the basis of the student's thesis.

Purpose. This study analyzes the pathways of the communication project implementation of such projects in the context of the educational activities of future specialists.

Materials and Methods. The project is a multi-level practical activity for establishing partnerships between the “Dialogue of Hearts foundation” with the media and the commercial sector. The main research methods applied are analysis and a systematic approach. Classification and comparison methods were also used. The communication project implementation was based on a four-stage marketing model. The goal setting of the project was carried out according to the five-stage model of P. Drucker. The contractor had a crowdfunding task to raise funds for one of the fund's programs. The results of the project were monitored using the the set of KPIs (the number and quality of publications in the media, media coverage, the amount of funding raised).

Results. The result of the project was a developed instruction for establishing communication support for the foundation's charitable activities, illustrating the development of the graduate's key competencies.

Implications. The article may be of interest to teachers of communication disciplines, practitioners in the field of communication support for charity, and recent graduates in the field of crowdfunding, as it contains a description of the key mechanism for solving the problem of attracting funds to a charitable foundation.

Background: Nowadays the number of students studying abroad increases rapidly. Migrant students represent a highly motivated and achieving category and contribute a lot to the economies of the host countries. Coming to the host country they face different challenges, one of them being employment. Previous studies reveal that migrant students during the period of their acculturation undergo various difficulties, and even after graduation, there are such hurdles as pressure, immigration policies, and an uncertain future. If they want to pursue a career in the host country, new barriers such as documentation requirements, problems with language and discrimination could appear.

Purpose: The necessity to create a safe environment that can help them acquire the necessary skills needed at a job interview made the research authors consider the use of a VR tool.

Materials and Methods: 171 migrant students took part in the research. Based on a needs analysis to depict the barriers migrant students face while seeking a job in a host country the architecture of a computer simulator “Employment navigator” was designed.

Results: The identified needs of migrant students, as well as the main barriers to their adaptation, can influence the optimization of the system of adaptation of foreign students in the conditions of host universities. The ‘Employment Navigator’ virtual reality simulator can be used as a tool to assess the readiness of a migrant student to undergo a job interview successfully.

Implication: Virtual reality simulators make it possible to repeat actions as many times as necessary to achieve the desired result and proved their efficiency applied to all vulnerable categories of citizens.

Background. The article is devoted to the study of the concept and essence of professionography - a comprehensive study of the profession. The relevance of the research topic is due to the extremely important significance of staffing organizations, the development of a system of evaluation and selection of hired personnel, the need to improve the mechanism of personnel selection. Various points of view on the concept of professionography are given, which, in the author's opinion, are imperfect. In this regard, the author's interpretation of professionography is proposed, which is based on the disclosure of the essence of the concept of professionography.

Purpose. The purpose of this study is a theoretical justification of the specifics and importance of professionography as a field of scientific knowledge and a means of personnel selection. The objectives of the research are the following: generalization of existing views and scientific points of view on the problem under consideration; development of the author's definition of the concept of "professionography"; identification of the specifics of professionography as a field of scientific knowledge in the context of solving personnel selection problems; analysis of the basic principles of professionography; identification of popular and effective methods used in professionography.

Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of the study was the methodological foundations of labor psychology. The psychological theory of activity developed by A.N. Leontiev acted as a methodological basis for occupational research. The provisions of this theory contributed to the formation of a systematic approach to the psychological study of professions.

Results. The results of the conducted research include theoretical substantiation of the specifics of professionography as a field of scientific knowledge and means of personnel selection, the author's definition of the concept of professionography, identification of popular and effective methods used in professionography, their analysis and classification/

Implications. The results can be used in the process of further study of the problems under consideration, as well as applied by practical psychologists and sociologists.

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed existing realities. These changes are directly related to the danger of this disease and the mode of infection. Since SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted from person to person by airborne droplets, it was necessary to introduce restrictive measures aimed at distancing people from each other such as the mandatory wearing of medical masks, the observance of social distance.

Purpose. The presented study was aimed at reviewing the current literature on the impact the introduction of restrictive measures to combat the spread of coronavirus infection on the psychology of workers as well as to identify the types of emerging psychological disorders.

Materials and Methods. The search of the papers published from 2020 to 2021 and indicated in Scopus database was conducted. A total of 1516 papers were identified, 32 articles were selected based on the predetermined eligibility criteria and included in this review.

Results. The review found that the greatest impact on mental health was experienced by healthcare workers. The most common symptoms are anxiety, stress and depression. In addition, we managed to find out that most of the articles relevant to the topic of this review were written in China and Italy. According to the results, both during past pandemics and during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, doctors were at increased risk for the psychological impact exerted during the pandemic.

Implications. It would be desirable that further studies in the field cover a wider range of human activities as well as more countries. This would help for a more extensive analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on human mental health.