The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced regular patters of career guidance. Globally everything has stopped: projects were postponed, and workplaces were closed but this situation has pushed career counselors to search for new opportunities about how career guidance could be carried out. The pandemic has intensified existing challenges in society, adding complexity for the processes of a transition of educational systems towards digitalization and have intensified the need for remote career guidance. Young people become particularly vulnerable to the digital divide. Career development support has been at risk with the emergence of an unpredictable future. However, career guidance during the pandemic can serve as a tool for understanding the situation in depth and searching for new opportunities that exist, by helping individuals to overcome anxiety. While practicing physical distancing, career counselors have kept active professional networks in assisting their clients with their needs. The operation of career guidance has been transferred mainly to the online format and has required the counselors to develop new skills and competencies. The methodology employed in this study included interviews with individual career counselors about the main challenges and solutions discovered during the lockdown. Career counselors were questioned also about how they shaped a more sustainable and flexible online career guidance system. They revealed details about their struggles and hopes encountered in the situation of crises. The authors point to critical areas for improvement that career counselor can provide to their clients during the lockdown.

The present study investigates the career choice of 8th graders in the context of reform processes in Latvia and changing demands of the job market. Career planning in this article is seen as a spiralling and dialectic process that is influenced by multiple factors, the process that involves planning, generating options, evaluation of options and making decisions. Reform processes in Latvia requires career counsellors to help young people to maintain an attitude of acceptance while choosing a career path, and in addition to develop meaningful and professional life changing discussion on available career options in order to become significant adviser while guiding pupils on adapting to changing requirements of a job market. The aim of the study is to explore the main influences determining the career choice of the 8th grade pupils as well as to explore the sources of information that determine them on making such decisions. Research methodology: For the purpose of this study the authors chose a pilot questionnaire in order to explore the career path of the 8th graders. The study draws on tendencies of youngsters’ choice of a career obtained in Latvia and Czech Republic. Research findings: Considering the changing demands of a job market, the teachers need to consider an adaptive career managing processes for the youngsters by taking into account a dialectic interplay of multiple influences on pupils’ career choice and to foster a more sustainable career path in helping pupils to gain career maturity in decision making and developing competencies needed for the future.