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With stronger career literacy, jobseekers can optimize career opportunities amid disruption

Tim Ragan

Much like literacy was a core skill in driving 19-century industrialization, career literacy is a key skill for success today. Consider how rapidly our economy and work environment are evolving. The level of organizational disruption – driven by technology, globalization, outsourcing, automation – is unprecedented and accelerating. For individuals, the higher their level of career literacy, the more they are futureproofing themselves for the turbulence ahead.

Career literacy is about developing the habit of constantly exploring and optimizing career opportunities. It is being continually attuned to what is working, what is not, and having an action plan to address identified deficiencies and opportunities.

How can we help our clients develop greater career literacy to futureproof their careers? By coaching and helping them through these seven steps.

1. Take ownership of “Platform of Me”

Futureproofing starts with the client’s commitment to take full ownership of their career – and life – with a framework known as the “Platform of Me.”

For each of us, our one truly scarce resource is time. When you take away sleep, basic personal grooming and eating, we have maybe 100 remaining hours weekly to program in our most purposeful life. What are our clients choosing to do with those 100 hours? Help them break it down into meaningful categories (e.g. paid work, commute time, family activities, relaxing, hobbies) so they more clearly understand the choices they are making.

This opens the space for a valuable conversation about how they would invest their time in their ideal world, revealing insights into required shifts in time usage to approach their ideal.

2. Bolster your productivity

It is one thing to know how you want to invest your time and quite another to develop the discipline, routine and habits to invest it that way. We can help our clients centre their career objectives by guiding them to create and maintain a “weekly heartbeat” habit for planning and managing their work. In this approach, the client identifies a theme for the work week that will drive their focus. Rather than just being driven by an endless to-do-list, this encourages the client to visualize what a successful work week will look like.

Mid-week reflections allow course correction as required and the week ends with recording a short status report of the week’s activities. These simple actions can become a powerful routine over time. That is when a client’s performance really takes off, because they are being deliberate and disciplined in what they are choosing to focus their time on.

3. Get clear on how you add value

Let’s go back to a core issue for work-life success: We all must decide what we stand for and how we want to invest our time. The “Platform of Me” provides the structure; your programming focuses on maximizing the value you derive from the activities you invest your time in.

We want to put our clients on a path where they can gravitate toward work that fulfills them, and this means they need to be crystal clear about what they find important and meaningful.

“We all must decide what we stand for and how we want to invest our time.”

Our clients all see the world differently, are wired differently, have vastly different capabilities and experiences, and find themselves drawn to different working situations to contribute their time and effort toward. We need to provide a step-by-step approach for leading them through this discovery process.

4. Hone your story through practice

Having greater clarity of purpose allows our clients to shift their time from the highly ineffective job board “spray-and-pray” routine to more disciplined networking activities. By investing their time meeting people, they create ample opportunity to practise sharing, tightening and refining “their story.”

It is important to understand that their story is not about education certificates, role descriptions and years of experience; it’s about why they are drawn to seek out certain types of challenges and how they add value in solving those problems. The more they share their story, the more comfortable and confident in telling their story they become, and the more their personal and professional network grows.

Read more from the Career Pivots issue

Career competencies and skills translation: Helping students prepare for the future of work

Book review: Don’t Stay in Your Lane an essential read for career counsellors

Career development helps people and organizations thrive

5. Get more curious

In these highly disruptive times, perhaps the greatest value from ongoing networking is learning about and from others, what they are seeing and experiencing, and how they making sense (or aren’t) of what is happening around them.

Our clients can tap into that rich vein of insights, challenges and opportunities through the simple act of asking more and better questions. Here’s a few tips and tricks to help them boost their curiosity:

• Continue to reach out and meet new people. This will help jobseekers tighten their brand messaging and enhance their conversational skills.
• Ask lots of questions. Listening to others share their stories demonstrates interest and makes jobseekers memorable to their connections.
• Always follow up. A “good to meet you” note is courteous and jogs the connection’s memory of the interaction.
• Stay in touch. Clients should periodically “drip-feed” their growing network with interesting articles or connections.

6. Churn your opportunity pipeline

Each new connection represents a new opportunity for jobseekers. A client’s opportunity pipeline is just like a salesperson’s prospecting funnel: there are many prospects at the top and few at the bottom. Our client’s job is to fill the funnel at the top continuously with fresh opportunities and transition evolving opportunities down through the funnel, making them increasingly tangible and real.

Key to your client’s success with this step is “churning”: adding new connections to the top of their funnel while nurturing existing relationships to move them forward. This should not be transactional (“Do you have a job for me?”), but an opportunity to develop deeper relationships.

7. Join an accountability community

A well-functioning accountability community with other motivated professionals provides opportunities to learn, collaborate and grow. Unfortunately, most people don’t have a support community to tap into.

What do our clients need from an accountability community? A handful of people who are simultaneously cheerleading for them and their dreams – while asking tough questions to force them to get serious and specific. People who hold their feet to the fire, while encouraging their passion to reach for the stars. That is the kind of engaged community we all need, the village that it takes for each of us to reach our full potential.

Conclusion

Helping our clients through these seven steps futureproofs them against the unknown – and undoubtedly challenging – times ahead. Dedicating as little as one hour weekly to their “Platform of Me,” they can take regular positive, tangible, bite-size steps. As they build this routine into their life, they’ll enjoy greater professional success and satisfaction and achieve their goals faster.

Tim Ragan (BScEE, MBA, owner Career Constructors), leveraging 35 years of varied business experience, is on a mission to help others survive and thrive our modern working times. Ragan’s career book (Reboot Your Career) has helped thousands create a powerful values-based brand, and he facilitates a community of self-employed professionals (Free Agent Collective) to accelerate their professional growth. tragan@careerconstructors.com

Four ways career professionals can support graduates’ school-to-work transition

Chiedza Pasipanodya

According to the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE), the number of international students in Canada increased by 185% between 2010 and 2019. Despite this impressive growth, there hasn’t been a corresponding increase in national discussions on the need for appropriate service provision for these students, and only few conversations about international student outcomes after graduation. The pandemic has also limited the mobility of international students and many are studying remotely from their home countries, introducing a different set of challenges. As international students transition from post-secondary education to the world of work, the unique challenges and barriers they face require innovative and intentional supports.

A 2019 Statistics Canada report found that although international students are more likely than their domestic counterparts to have completed advanced degrees typically associated with higher earnings, such as a master’s or doctorate, they still earn less than their Canadian-born peers in the years following graduation. These findings highlight the need for a strategic, specialized approach to service provision for international students, particularly as they are a key source of talent for the Canadian labour market and play an essential supporting role in the sustainability of post-secondary enrolment. International students also figure significantly in Canada’s immigration strategy; nearly a third of those holding a bachelor’s degree and almost half of international students with a master’s degree transition to permanent residence within their first 10 years in the country.

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn have increased competition for jobs. Labour market shifts have also underscored the need for recent international graduates to take an exploratory turn from their major and geographical location to consider career options more aligned with their broader skills and competencies. New career pathways and ways of working are emerging quickly, often faster than higher-education institutions can develop programming. The ability of recent graduates to apply their skills in different and emerging industries is essential in order to succeed in the labour market. This adaptability, combined with a commitment to lifelong learning, will ensure that international graduates are able to retrain and upskill as needed to meet labour market demands.

“A 2019 Statistics Canada report found that although international students are more likely than their domestic counterparts to have completed advanced degrees typically associated with higher earnings, such as a master’s or doctorate, they still earn less than their Canadian-born peers in the years following graduation.”

Career practitioners are well positioned to provide supports that better equip international students to overcome barriers to successful participation as they enter the labour force. This article will outline four ways career professionals can support international students as they transition from school to work.

1. Encourage them connect to their competencies

 As new industries and jobs emerge, career development practitioners should encourage recent international graduates to explore careers and work opportunities outside the narrow scope of their major. The courage and ambition that enabled international students to leave their home countries and study abroad position them well to transition to the workforce and leverage their skills across sectors and roles.

To move into the workforce, international students need to understand how the skills and competencies they acquired in post-secondary can be applied to different jobs and sectors. For example, a political science student might feel a government policy job is a natural fit for their degree, but they could leverage their creativity, analytical skills and research experience to work in communications or knowledge management. Career practitioners can use skill identification and competency assessment tools to provide recent graduates with valuable information about their skillsets, thereby increasing new graduates’ agency over their career choices. The best of these tools provide real-time labour market information and have the potential to help employers interpret the skills and competencies that recent graduates can offer at a time when younger workers are essential to labour market sustainability.

Read more from Careering

Pandemic pivot perspectives from the class of 2020

Equipping international students to navigate culture difference in job search

Helping international students ‘find their voice’ through identity exploration

2. Get informed about immigration regulations

While flexibility is a key component of career success, the extent to which recent international graduates can pivot is often limited by Canada’s permanent residency employment requirements. Research shows that international students need campus and career services that are specific to the students’ goal of pursuing employment as part of their immigration process. Understanding immigration regulations in light of the Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) program and the limitations on working in various sectors without compromising international students’ eligibility to pursue permanent residence is essential to those serving them. (The PGWP is the work permit issued by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada that allows international student graduates from designated Canadian colleges and universities to work in Canada upon graduation.) Practitioners who understand the bigger procedural picture can provide better support linking students’ studies to their jobs, to fulfill Canadian work experience requirements.

3. Take an intersectional approach 

International students are diverse and so require diverse approaches to the challenges they face; those advised by career practitioners who take an intersectional approach may be better served. Intersectionality is a term coined by U.S. law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the way multiple forms of discrimination (for example, race- or gender-based) overlap in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups. Service provision should consider the varied ways in which racism, sexism and systems of oppression affect international students and their ability to change course and pursue new opportunities to flourish in the labour market. Practitioners should provide specific, appropriate and responsive supports that address graduates’ many challenges and barriers to entering the labour market.

4. Help them grow their networks

Evidence from previous economic downturns suggests that youth graduating from post-secondary education during a recession find it harder to find employment, particularly well-paid employment, compared with their immediate predecessors; lower earnings persist for 10 to 15 years. Increased labour market competition makes networking an even more important component of job search. However, when international students at Memorial University were asked to identify their most challenging barriers to employment, 82% said they had minimal to no professional networks in Canada.

COVID-19-related restrictions have made it more difficult to develop these important networks, but many organizations have shifted the networking experience online. There is value in leveraging webinars, online conferences and other virtual events to expand one’s network. Actively participating in such forums can help international students and recent graduates meet people and develop relationships to better understand the labour market, the opportunities available and the required skillsets. Online networking can also facilitate opportunities to arrange informational interviews, which can go a long way toward improving students’ understanding of different industries and roles. Career practitioners can recommend communities and platforms such as Immigrant Networks for Immigrants and International Students that provide invaluable supports and opportunities to develop mentor-like relationships with professionals.

A strategic approach to international student career services – one that addresses students’ complex identities and acknowledges the unique role of career practitioners in this area of labour market integration – is essential. The ability to pivot and adapt quickly is a quality born of flexibility and adaptability, a characteristic critical to the future of work as international students and recent graduates enter and explore the labour market.

Chiedza Pasipanodya is Program Manager, Knowledge Management, Global Talent Bridge at World Education Services (WES). As an immigration and refugee policy and programming professional, she also uses her lived experience to inform her approach to supporting newcomers to Canada.

References

Arthur, N. and Flynn, S., 2011. Career development influences of international students who pursue permanent immigration to Canada. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 11(3), pp. 221-237.

Arthur, N. and Flynn, S., 2013. International Students’ Views of Transition to Employment and Immigration. The Canadian Journal of Career Development, 12 (1). http://ceric.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/International-Students-Views-of-Transition.pdf

Baratta, M., 2020. Career development resources to support Black students and jobseekers in Canada. CareerWise. Available at: https://careerwise.ceric.ca/2020/11/05/career-development-resources-to-support-black-students-and-jobseekers-in-canada/#.YDLMwuhKg2w

Frenette, M., Lu, Y. and Chan, W., 2019. The Postsecondary Experience and Early Labour Market Outcomes of International Study Permit Holders. Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019019-eng.pdf?st=U-s22c6O

Steinmetz, K., 2020. She Coined the Term ‘Intersectionality’ Over 30 Years Ago. Here’s What It Means to Her Today. https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/#:~:text=Kimberl%C3%A9%20Crenshaw%2C%20the%20law,inequality%20is%20not%20created%20equal

The Honourable Ethel Blondin-Andrew, P.C. is a Shútao’tine (Mountain Dene) from Tulit’a, Northwest Territories (NWT). She is a senior leader with the Indigenous Leadership Initiative. Early in her formidable career, Blondin-Andrew taught in three NWT communities; in Tuktoyaktuk, Deline and Fort Providence, eventually specializing in Indigenous language curriculum development in Yellowknife. In 1988, Ms. Blondin-Andrew was the first Indigenous woman elected to Parliament, serving for 17 years as an MP, 13 of them in cabinet. These days she spends much of her time out on the land working with Indigenous Guardians and helping them to address issues of food security for her people.

In a sentence or two, describe why career development matters.

We need to be deliberate, and we have to plan our future. Too many times, people leave it up to whatever happens. I believe you’ve got to combine vision, skills and make room for constant renewal and learning.

Which book are you reading right now and why did you choose it?

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. This book is about the people of the Osage that were taken off their land and put on a piece of land that the government in the States thought was useless, but it was oil-rich. The system felt they couldn’t have that, so they were murdering them.

What was your first-ever job and what did you learn from it?

I was a cashier when I was young, and then I went to work at the hospital as a candy striper. I learned how to deal with people. I learned how to be humble. And I learned that there was no job too big or too small, for me or anybody else there.

What do you do to relax and how does it help you?

Something I do is food harvesting. I love to pick berries. I prepare and make dried meats, because I like giving to people who are not well. It relaxes me to know someone’s going to receive it.

What is the one thing you wouldn’t be able to work without? Why?

I am much known as a pen hog. I always feel as though if I haven’t had a pen in my hand during the day, it’s a lost day.

What’s something you want to do in the next year that you’ve never done before?

Write a book. Everybody wants to know when I’m going to write my book. The other is to do a pilgrimage.

Who would you like to work with most and why?

If I can live long enough, I’d like to work with my grandchildren. I have two of them. I want to give them the gift of our language. I want to give them the gift of how culturally and historically we worked.

What is one piece of advice you have for people as we navigate these challenging times?  

Keep active, eat well, sleep well and do one thing at a time.

Which talent or superpower would you like to have and how would you use it?

I’d like to be able to heal people’s spirit. I’d like to give them back their power. The greatest gift in the world is to know that you made a difference to people like that.

What do you consider your greatest achievement and why?

I have become involved with conservation and caring for the Earth. In accordance with my old teachings from my people, I have a responsibility to my people, I have a responsibility to the animal kingdom and I have a responsibility to the Earth. At 70 years old, I’ve done a lot of things that involve other people’s power, other people’s objectives; this is mine.

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

Most Canadians who want to make a career transition have viable and desirable options available to them. Their opportunity landscape broadens if they are willing to learn skills and technologies required for a new job. This is also good news for employers experiencing labour shortages, who may have more options for recruiting than they may think. These are among the findings of research by Future Skills Centre and The Conference Board of Canada, which assessed job transitions for 450 occupations using their OpportuNext employability skills database. Here’s what else they learned.

View infographic PDF.

Plain text below image. 

A viable job transition requires similar skills, abilities, knowledge, experience and education.

A desirable job transition pays similar or higher wages and has prospects for growth.

Switching gears

• 22: The average number of possible qualifying transitions for each occupation
• 5: The percent of occupations without viable/desirable transitions
• Nearly half of the 450 occupations have fewer than 20 possible transitions
• One-third have fewer than 10

Highly paid or highly specialized jobs may have no viable or desirable transitions. To pivot, they may have to:

• Retrain
• Employ different skills
• Take a pay cut

In the third quarter of 2020, nearly one-third of employers reported they were limiting investment due to labour shortages.

9 key social and emotional skills for jobs with the most transitions:

• Active learning
• Active listening
• Complex problem-solving
• Co-ordination
• Critical thinking
• Judgment and decision-making

When students develop strong self-knowledge, they can craft personal statements that will help them reach their goals

Janet MacDonald

Meaningful career exploration activities are important for many reasons, but do you know they can affect students’ success with post-secondary admission and scholarships?

Career exploration is often linked to admission and scholarships through a personal statement. Personal statements are not required by all universities and scholarships, but they are used more each year. Programs that are highly competitive often use personal statements to evaluate students in a more holistic way. In scholarship applications, personal statements help the funder get to know the applicant’s future plans and to evaluate their suitability for the award.

What is a personal statement?

Personal statements go by different names and they vary in their requirements. For example, for admission to most programs at the University of British Columbia, students must complete a Personal Profile. At the University of Waterloo, an Admission Information Form (AIF) is required only for some highly competitive programs.

The admissions or scholarship personal statement asks students to address different topics, but one of the more common kinds of questions is the “future plans” question. This question often requires the applicant to discuss their plans for university and/or their career choice, and their suitability for it.

For example:

• The Waterloo AIF asks students to: “Please tell us about your education goals, your interest in your chosen program(s) and your reasons for applying to the University of Waterloo.”
• Ryerson University Media Studies asks applicants to: “Provide a personal statement as to why you have chosen Media Production and explain what you have done that demonstrates why you are a good candidate for this program. Please include your areas of interest and where you see yourself working after graduating from the Media Production program.”
• The Zonta International “Young Women in Public Affairs Award” says, “Please describe … your anticipated course of study and current career interests.”

Over the past few years, I’ve seen an increase in the number of post-secondary institutions and scholarship funders that ask “future plans” questions, and I predict this practice will only increase. It’s more important than ever for high school students to learn how to gather meaningful career-related information and how do the important work of learning about themselves – their interests, skills, values, qualities and motivations.

Of course, in addition to gaining admission to their chosen program, and perhaps some free funding, meaningful career exploration in high school has the added benefit of improving students’ selection of program/career, which sets them up for greater success in their education and career path.

How students can gather information to answer ‘future plans’ questions

Many of the future plans questions require the student to demonstrate “fit.”  The student should know about their chosen program and/or career area, and they should know about themselves, and then they must demonstrate how the two fit together. They need to do quality research on their program choice and/or career area and meaningful self-reflection on their experiences, and pull out what they learned about themselves. Students should be challenged to move past the standard, “I want to be a doctor because I’m good at science and I like helping people.” They must be more specific.

More on K-12 career development from Careering

Community connections foster K–12 career exploration

Client Side: Grade 12 was tough enough. Then the pandemic hit

Making career development ‘stick’ in K-12

Students can gather career-related information online from websites like WorkBC and from school-based platforms such as myBlueprint.  However, to find specific information that will demonstrate interest and fit, here are some additional suggestions:

a) Do informational interviews. One of the best ways for students to gather relevant, recent, quality information is to do at least one informational interview with people in the career area they are considering. This activity has the added benefit of demonstrating initiative and genuine interest in the field, which could help the student gain admission or win the award.

b) Do self-reflection quizzes. For self-reflection, students can do free career quizzes like 16 Personalities and focus their attention not on the career matches, but rather on the descriptions of their interests, skills and values. They should ask themselves and others, “Is this information an accurate reflection of who I am?”

c) Go deeper on university websites. Students should look deeper on the university websites for program-specific information. For example, they can review course descriptions, read about student experiences like co-op work terms and student societies, examine the different kinds of research professors are involved in and read alumni stories to discover what kinds of careers they hold. Suggest students choose something that resonates with them and discuss their interest in it.

More thoughtful choices, more success

Although developing a personal statement requires more work from the student, and it adds another layer of complexity to the admission and scholarship process, there is a silver lining. It “forces” students to do proper research on their chosen path, to truly reflect on why they chose it and to think about the steps they’ll take to reach their goal. When done properly, it teaches young people how to find relevant career information, how to self-reflect to gather self-knowledge and how to align the two.

While we know high school students are young and plans can change, “future plans” questions help students to stop, to reflect, and to make more thoughtful and informed choices for the next important step in their lives.

Janet MacDonald is a former university admissions officer. Now, with her business mycampusGPS, she helps high school students to prepare for university.  Her main service is helping students find and apply for scholarships. Please connect with MacDonald on LinkedIn. 

When I was 5, if you’d asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said an artist. By middle school, I had my eye on a career as a veterinarian. Back then – and through university – I thought of my career options in job titles. While I didn’t expect to do the same thing my entire life, I thought my initial choice would carry a lot of weight and determine which doors were open to me.

After several years of being immersed in the career development world, I can see how short-sighted this was. People pivot in their careers constantly, by choice and by necessity. Skills matter more than titles – and the skill of being able to continuously evolve may be the most important one. It’s both a freeing and an intimidating idea.

The Brookfield Institute’s 2021 report Yesterday’s Gone, which highlights trends expected to affect employment in Canada, captures this tension. Change will bring challenge – but also opportunity. The report authors state, “It is critical to understand the breadth of potential changes ahead so we can better prepare workers for the future of Canada’s labour market.”

This digital-exclusive issue of Careering, on the theme of “Career Pivots,” comes at a time when the workforce is navigating immense shifts. Articles explore the impact of COVID on a Grade 12 student’s career plans and on Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s class of 2020, as well as the experiences of entrepreneurs suddenly thrust into job search.

The broader takeaway, however, is a reassuring one: with the support of career education and career professionals, Canadians can develop the skills to thrive amid change. Careering authors examine theories that support client engagement and the development of a change-ready mindset; they offer strategies for employee career conversations, dealing with employment gaps and supporting lifelong learning; they present effective K-12 career exploration approaches, and much more.

How have you supported students, employees and clients in pivoting over the past year? Are you taking steps to futureproof your own career? We want to hear your Career Pivot stories and strategies! Tag us on Twitter or LinkedIn, or use #Careering to share your stories.

Keep calm, and pivot on.