Summary
Career Jumpstart is a career centre for (near) graduates of students with support needs, who are looking for a suitable job. This page describes the vision, background , and working methods of the project.

The waste of untapped talent combined with the negative psychological impact of not having a job for graduates prompted the creation of Career Jumpstart in 2021. Career Jumpstart is a career centre for (near) graduates with support needs who are looking for a suitable job. From 2023, we will be for all TU/e and Fontys students in Eindhoven, Tilburg, Sittard, Venlo and Den Bosch. We want to help 100 (almost) graduates find a suitable job or final assignment, with the aim of turning it into a job. We do this by offering customised coaching and training.

Connecting higher educated people with a support need (disability and/or chronic illness) to the labour market is not without its problems. Graduates with a disability are less likely to be in sustainable employment than young people without disabilities and are almost three times more likely to be unemployed (Coppens, Vinckx, de Groot, & Kans, 2019). The Netherlands far underperforms in this respect: almost all countries in the European Union have a smaller gap between the participation of higher educated with and higher educated without a support need (Buscher-Touwen, van Hal & de Groot, 2018). Also, the knowledge and skills of this group of graduates are more often underutilised when performing work (Poulissen, Fernandez Beiro, Küenn-Nelen, & Michels, 2017). This is a waste of talent at both personal and societal levels.

Around 30% of students in higher education have a disability and/or chronic illness. At the start of Career Jumpstart in 2021, this was around 10,800 students in Eindhoven (Fontys University of Applied Sciences ±6,900 students, Eindhoven University of Technology ±3,900 students). In doing so, we estimated on the basis of similar projects that the transition to work is problematic for 751 students from this target group. In both education and business, there is a growing consensus that the talent of this growing group is too great to be left untapped.

Especially among the group of people with autism, we see shocking grades. For only 48% of people with autism, income from work is the main source of income (Dutch Autism Register, 2021). 51% of those with autism who do find a job have higher skills than required for this job. Many of these problems are caused by inappropriate education, work or care. Not surprisingly, around 70% of candidates within Career Jumpstart have an autism diagnosis.

Within Fontys ICT, the Career Jumpstart project is linked to Student+

Our vision: Students in need of support from TU/e and Fontys are guided directly from the study programme to a sustainable place on the labour market that matches their level of study programme, unique talents and individual needs.

We align with Fontys University of Applied Sciences' vision Fontys for society by:

• Horizontal cooperation with the region, the work field, governments and fellow institutions such as TU/e;
• Development of talent and career skills;
• Connecting with the labour market;
• Contributing to a vital and inclusive society;
• Contributing to improving accessibility.

For more information: please visit careerjumpstart.nl. For students, there is also an easy-to-fill contact form here. If you have any questions, feel free to email us. Career-jumpstart@fontys.nl Or walk in at 4.39 in building R10.