Attracting young talent to STEM careers: how career guidance and tailored maths tutoring can reshape career choices

Many young people do not turn away from a STEM career because they lack interest or practical aptitude, but because they experience mathematics as an insurmountable hurdle. A company-based or regionally anchored combination of career guidance, diagnostics and tailored maths tutoring can lower this threshold and increase the willingness to consider a technically demanding occupation at all.

Why mathematics has such a strong impact on career choice

In discussions about the shortage of new talent in STEM, the focus is often on image, securing a skilled workforce, career education and the attractiveness of technical occupations. Less visible is the fact that many young people do not reject a technical career primarily because of a lack of motivation, but because they interpret poor school performance in mathematics as a sign of insufficient aptitude.

This is where a key mechanism of career choice becomes apparent: it is not only objective abilities that matter, but also the subjective confidence in one’s own capacity to learn and perform. Those who have repeatedly experienced “not being good enough” at maths tend to avoid occupations where they expect mathematics to play a role – even when practical skills, spatial awareness, technical interest or perseverance are actually present. From a career guidance perspective, this is significant, because a part of the real potential pool of future specialists never even comes into view.

Career guidance as a way of clarifying aptitude, motivation and meaning

Sound career guidance can achieve more at this point than simply providing information. It helps to distinguish between diffuse anxiety and real demands, to match occupational interests with concrete job profiles and to clarify what a young person is actually willing to make an effort for. Especially during the transition from school to apprenticeship, this sense of meaning is crucial: young people are more willing to invest in demanding learning processes when they recognise the inner connection between their own abilities, their occupational future and their personal identity.

Career guidance tools can fulfil several functions:

1. They make interests, strengths and development potential visible.
2. They help to assess occupations in terms of fit rather than fear.
3. They specify the demands of individual apprenticeships instead of treating mathematics as a blanket exclusion criterion.
4. They promote realistic self-perceptions: not “I am bad at maths”, but “I have gaps in certain areas, but I can work on them in a targeted way”.

This shifts the perspective. A STEM occupation no longer appears as a risky overchallenge, but as an achievable path under clear conditions.

The value of diagnostic tools

An important lever lies in sound diagnostic clarification. Structured, level-appropriate tests of school knowledge and basic intellectual performance can help to transform the vague feeling of academic failure into a differentiated picture. This is valuable for young people as well as for parents, career advisers and training companies.

Diagnostics can answer questions such as these:

1. Where are the actual gaps in maths – for example in basic operations, fractions, percentages, equations or understanding of quantities?
2. Where is logical thinking in fact robust, but overshadowed by insecurity?
3. Which demands are central for a specific apprenticeship and which deficits can be remedied within a manageable period of time?

Technically demanding vocational and STEM-related occupations do not all require the same type of mathematics. In some jobs, secure handling of quantities, ratios, areas or simple formulae is paramount; in others, analytical, abstract or algorithmic thinking is more important. When young people realise that mathematics is both job-related and learnable, the threshold for embarking on such a path decreases.

Why appropriate maths tutoring is more than teaching content

Maths tutoring has a particular impact on career choice when it does not merely manage deficits, but actively prepares learners for job-related demands. Effective support systematically builds foundations, closes gaps in knowledge, trains ways of thinking and at the same time strengthens emotional resilience when dealing with mathematical tasks. It is precisely this combination of subject-based development and psychological stabilisation that is decisive for many young people.

Support is methodologically effective especially when it

1. starts from the actual starting point,
2. plans small, attainable learning steps,
3. makes calculation methods comprehensible instead of simply providing solutions,
4. incorporates practice-oriented examples from technical occupations,
5. and makes progress visible in such a way that self-confidence can grow again.

Many young people do not lack intelligence; rather, they struggle with a mix of gaps in knowledge, expectations of failure and maths anxiety. When this dynamic is addressed with sound methods, not only do marks improve. Their inner willingness to engage with technical demands changes as well.

How companies can actively increase willingness to enter STEM

A company-run offer of appropriate maths tutoring sends out a strong signal: the firm is not only looking for already perfect applicants, but is prepared to foster talented young people with development potential. This message is particularly important for securing a skilled workforce, because it broadens the pool of potential apprentices.

Such an offer can have an impact on several levels:

1. Before application: young people are more likely to consider a technical occupation if they know that support in mathematics is available.
2. During selection: companies can assess potential in a more differentiated way instead of rejecting applicants prematurely because of individual school marks.
3. At the start of training: support reduces the shock of the transition from school to vocational college.
4. During apprenticeship: critical phases such as reviews, examinations or demanding college topics can be accompanied in a targeted way.
5. For retention: those who experience support are more likely to trust the company and to persevere through difficult phases.

For young people, this creates a safety net. For companies, it creates a realistic form of talent development. For the region, it increases the chance of attracting into STEM and technically oriented occupations those young people who currently drop out too early.

Linking motivation and securing skilled workers

At heart, this is about a new attitude towards attracting young talent. Many companies look for apprentices who immediately meet all academic requirements. Yet in occupations with a shortage of new entrants, this expectation can be too narrow. It is more promising to place greater emphasis on potential, motivation and learning capacity and to treat deficits in mathematics not as a rigid boundary, but as a developmental task that can be tackled.

This also clarifies the sense of purpose for young people. A technical occupation then becomes not merely “difficult”, but a path towards independence, professional pride, strong development prospects and a tangible future. When career guidance makes this perspective visible and maths tutoring secures the necessary build-up of competence, a powerful bridge is created between career aspirations and actual readiness for training.

What this means for offers such as VIA MEDICI

An offer that combines career guidance, diagnostic clarification, psychologically informed motivation and precise subject-specific maths tutoring can be particularly effective at this interface. It addresses not only gaps in knowledge, but also uncertainty in decision-making, self-doubt and the question of a suitable occupational direction. In this way, mathematics is no longer treated as an instrument of selection but as a key competence that can be purposefully developed.

For training companies, trade associations and regional networks, this brings concrete benefits: they can guide more young people into technically demanding occupations without lowering quality standards. For young people, the benefit lies in the fact that a STEM career does not have to fail because of an uncertain school report or past experiences of failure. For career guidance, it provides a practical lever to link aptitude, motivation and support more closely together.

Final thought

Where career guidance, sense-making and appropriate maths tutoring work hand in hand, the likelihood increases that mathematical insecurity does not turn into a premature rejection of a STEM occupation. A company or regional network that visibly offers this kind of support not only enhances the training readiness of individual young people, but also expands the overall pool of new talent for technically important occupations.

Mathematics does not have to become a barrier to selection; it can be developed as a key competence in a targeted way.

Lorenzo Medici · Chartered Psychologist · VIA MEDICI