CERIC celebrates 20 years of Advancing Career Development in Canada

In 2024, CERIC is marking 20 years as a national charitable organization, advancing the field of career development in Canada. We have worked over that time to support diverse communities of career and employment professionals through education, research and advocacy.  

During the course of the coming year, we will be highlighting our history, our impacts, and our future directions to achieve our vision of a Canada where people have the capacity to use their skills and talents towards a more fulfilling future for all. 

Of course, these past two decades have only been possible with the incredible leadership and support of our funder The Counselling Foundation of Canada, our project partners, supporting organizations, Board members and Advisory Committee volunteers, and staff. 

We’ll kick off our anniversary celebrations on Jan. 29 at Cannexus, Canada’s Career Development Conference, which takes place both in Ottawa and virtually. 

Just some of the exciting initiatives to be showcased at Cannexus include: 

• Release of two seminal CERIC-funded reports – Hidden Sector, Hidden Talent: Mapping Canada’s Career Development Sector and Career Development 2040: Preparing for Possible Scenarios of Work and Careers  
• Publication of three new CERIC resources: Practice Principles: Career Theories and Models at Work, Exploring Possibilities! Journeying Through Career-Related Learning in Grades 4–6 and L’accompagnement visant l’intégration des personnes réfugiées faiblement scolarisées : une perspective interculturelle en orientation   
• Relaunch of CERIC’s Canadian Career Development Researcher Database featuring 200+ leading anglophone and francophone researchers from across Canada, in both academic and community-based settings   

With funding from The Counselling Foundation of Canada, CERIC began operations in 2004. CERIC provided a home for many important programs that preceded it, including the ContactPoint (now CareerWise) and OrientAction online content communities and the Canadian Journal of Career Development. CERIC launched the Cannexus conference in 2007 and has seen it develop into the largest annual event of its kind in the country. It has also nurtured a variety of project funding partnerships that have created innovative resources for career counselling and development. 

Over the past 20 years, CERIC has maintained its focus on increasing the economic and social well-being of people in Canada through career development. Our current strategic mandates to realize this are by “Promoting career development as a priority for public good” and “Building career development knowledge, mindsets and competencies.” During this time, we have continued to evolve to meet the changing needs of Canada’s career development professionals, enabling and supporting thought leadership, learning and skill building, community collaboration, and raising the profile of the field.