CERIC wraps up Canada’s Career Imperative roundtables

In 2013 CERIC hosted a series of roundtable events across Canada to discuss fixing our “talent disconnect,” where individual skills and interests don’t always line up with emerging career options or what regional job markets immediately offer.

Called “Canada’s Career Imperative,” the goal has been to have a national conversation about how to “develop, connect and retain the best of our talent” to meet the ever-changing needs of disruptive markets. This is a discussion in which business, education and government all have a stake.

A total of 178 individuals participated in the roundtables in seven cities: Burlington, Toronto, Calgary, Regina, Montreal, Vancouver and Moncton. Reports on each of the regional roundtables are available online at ceric.ca/talentdisconnect. As well, a national summary report highlights common themes, which include:

• Develop a collaborative national workforce strategy that involves employers, educators and government
• Educators and employers need to come together to connect what students are learning to what is required for future roles
• Improve the disconnect between employers and educators around the requirements of hard and soft skills
• Demystify entrepreneurship as part of the career education process
• Teach more effective work search skills in high school and post-secondary
• Employers need to be more broad-minded in their search criteria and focus on a person’s capacity to learn/relate to others
• Employers need to lower digital walls and reduce credential bias
• The culture of career counselling needs to be more reality-based and connected to skills in-demand and market opportunities
• Lessen information overload on jobseekers – and career professionals have a role to play

Participants in the roundtables also discussed what strong value proposition could be made for career development services. For the business world, participants said finding the right metrics around productivity and retention would make the case to employers for investing in career development. For senior policy planners in government, participants said to focus the value proposition around economic development as a different way of talking about career development.

As well, the roundtables generated extensive listings (documented in the reports) of regional as well as national collaborative innovations where business, education, community-based services, trade groups and government are developing and connecting people with productive and rewarding career opportunities.

Canada’s Career Imperative culminated with a special plenary panel at the Cannexus14 National Career Development Conference on Jan. 22. The panelists, Ian Shugart, Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development Canada; Steve West, CEO, Nordion (Canada) Inc.;  Lauren Friese, Founder, Talent Egg;  Brock Dickinson, Principal, Millier Dickinson Blais;  Dan Kelly, President & CEO, Canadian Federation of Independent Business and Dr Roseann O’Reilly Runte, President & Vice-Chancellor, Carleton University, brought the talent disconnect conversation to the national stage with their diverse perspectives.

The Canada’s Career Imperative regional roundtables and national panel were sponsored by Millier Dickinson Blais.

Share your thoughts on how to fix Canada’s talent disconnect at CERIC’s ContactPoint online community.