Abstract

This article reports on the first results of a survey conducted on Lazio-based universities to understand the functioning of university Orientation and Placement Services and to identify the best practices that are actually exportable from one territory to another. At methodological level, a quality analysis was carried out through in-depth interviews with operators and managers of university Orientation and Placement Services. The analysis focused on the functioning of the services in terms of: tasks performed by operators and managers, liaison with businesses, matching between labour supply and demand, and type of contracts offered. To identify the best practices, we monitored the services offered by the different universities by comparing them with the quality standards set by Italia Lavoro. It emerged that Lazio-based universities offer career counselling and both curricular and extra-curricular internship opportunities for graduates, as well as, to a much lesser extent, labour brokerage. Differences between public and private universities were noticed, which highlight how critical points for a university become strengths for the other ones. Finally, a map of exportable interventions from one university to another was drawn up.