Cannexus is Canada’s largest bilingual National Career Development Conference and will take place on January 25 & 27 and February 1 & 3, 2021 online. This year the conference will bring together more than 2,000+ professionals from across the country and around the world to reimagine career development, refresh skills and renew hope in 2021.
Registration will close on Friday, January 22 at 5:00 pm ET.
10 reasons why this is your year to attend Cannexus:
Great rates are still available. Regular registration is $375. You can save 25% for Groups of 5 or more (a very popular option this year for team-building) or if you are a member of one of 40 supporting organizations. Full-time students pay only $50
Participate in big-picture conversations about the role of career development in the pandemic recovery and in social justice movements for equality, decent work and climate sustainability
Your registration provides 100+ hours of learning where you’ll gain practical skills and understand current LMI to help you adapt and serve your clients
Learn directly from leading researchers and practitioners nationally and globally: Jim Bright, Nancy Arthur, Jim Stanford, Tristram Hooley, Spencer Niles, Norman Amundson, Gray Poehnell, Roberta Borgen (Neault), Rich Feller, Mark Franklin, Sareena Hopkins, Lisa Taylor and so many more
Access all the recordings for a full year, providing 12 months of continuing professional development on-demand
Connect with your peers and expand your network through our virtual networking activities including a unique online cocktail party
A flexible and relaxed conference schedule – up to five hours of sessions each day over four days – where you can customize your experience
“Find your flock,” as past attendees have described joining together in a community of like-minded professionals making a meaningful difference in people’s lives
Discover empowerment and motivation at a time of tremendous flux
Without travel, hotel and time away from work, attending the virtual Cannexus conference will be much more convenient and cost-effective than ever before and allow you to experience Canada’s largest bilingual career development conference
If you already registered for Cannexus21, here is some helpful information:
All registered delegates who have paid their registration fees received an email on January 4 with login details. The sender is from “Cannexus21” with email no-reply@pathable.com. If you have not seen this email in your inbox, please check your spam. If the email is not in your spam folder, contact registration@ceric.ca.
CERIC’s Career Theories and Models at Work: Ideas for Practice will be breaking new ground this year, with plans to translate the popular book into Japanese, Latvian and Estonian. Once published, career service professionals around the world will be able to access the book in five languages, with a previously announced French edition slated for release in spring 2021.
The original English publication was released in 2019 and was edited by Nancy Arthur (University of South Australia), Roberta Borgen (Neault) (Life Strategies) and Mary McMahon (University of Queensland). It includes 43 chapters on the theories and models that define the practice of career development today, with contributors from four continents and nine countries.
A desire to equip career professionals with the latest counselling theories helped drive the translation project in Japan, which is being co-ordinated by the non-profit Institute for Japan Career Counseling.
“We have found that career theories introduced in the book, such as social constructivist theories including narrative, life design, systems theory and sociodynamic approaches, are practical and useful to career counselling in Japan,” says Shujiro Mizuno, Licensed Career Consultant, who is editing the translation.
The Institute for Japan Career Counseling plans to organize study sessions for career consultants to learn more about Career Theories and Models at Work. It also hopes to digitize the book, to increase accessibility for Japan’s more than 40,000 licensed career consultants.
In Latvia, plans to translate the publication came about through “a story of networking and co-operation,” says Ilze Jansone, Euroguidance Programme Manager for the Career Information and Guidance Department of the Euroguidance Network. Through the IAEVG (International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance), Jansone learned that some of Euroguidance Network’s members had participated in the development of Career Theories and Models at Work.
“Bringing theory and practice together in educational and vocational guidance is an approach that the IAEVG is championing, and the book published by CERIC is a great tool in this respect,” Jansone says.
Career counsellors and career counselling students in Latvia will receive the book for free.
In Estonia, 300 copies of the translated Career Theories and Models at Work book will be distributed free to career specialists working for the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund, which is co-ordinating translation and distribution, as well as to career professionals working with partners such as the Association of Estonian Career Counsellors.
“In order to serve clients and develop career services, it is necessary for career specialists to be familiar with the most important and latest theories and models in the field,” says Lana Randaru, Methodology Consultant of Career Services, Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund. “The collection provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical approaches currently underlying career services and provides examples of their use in practice.”
Since the release of the English version of Career Theories and Models at Work in 2019 at the annual Cannexus National Career Development Conference in Ottawa, the book has been adopted in career counselling courses and used by practitioners globally. To further disseminate knowledge, CERIC has hosted free webinars with authors from the book over the past two years. CERIC will be offering another free webinar series starting March 29 with author Judi Miller, University of Canterbury New Zealand, presenting in English on the Solution-Focused approach, and authors Patricia Dionne and Audrey Dupuis of l’Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec delivering a French webinar on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.
Visit ceric.ca/theories for information about how to purchase the publication in English.
CERIC is announcing its 2021 webinar calendar and will be offering a variety of webinar series in the next few months to support the career development community on a range of timely topics. Register now to plan ahead for your professional development in the new year.
Career Theories and Models at Work: Ideas for Practice (FREE webinar series with English and French webinars): Helping Clients Take Control of Their Career Future with the Solution-Focused Theory presented by Judi Miller | Monday, March 29, 2021; Advocacie et projet collectif et communautaires menés par des personnes immigrantes : une entrée par la théorie culturelle-historique de l’activité presented by Patricia Dionne & Audrey Dupuis |Monday, April 12, 2021
COMING SOON! Designing Feasible, Focused and Flexible Experiential Learning in Challenging Times presented by Lorraine Godden & Carolyn Hoessler | Thursdays, February 25, March 4 & 11, 2021 (More registration details will be available in January 2021)
For paid webinar series, registered participants will receive a password-protected video recording of each session. The recordings will remain available for one month after the final webinar of the series to allow you to catch up if you miss any weeks. For free webinar series, the recordings will remain available indefinitely.
A total of 27 applications for the Young Professionals Bursary were submitted. Recipients of the bursary come from across the country, including British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Bursary winners represent professionals who work in areas related to career development such as experiential learning, youth support and Indigenous careers.
The bursary was launched to ensure the diverse voices of the new and up-and-coming generation of employment and career practitioners are being represented and that young professionals can benefit from the extensive professional development and networking taking place at the virtual conference.
Eligibility for the bursary required that applicants be:
30 years of age or younger;
Primarily engaged in career development or employment work;
A resident of Canada.
Preference was given to individuals from equity-seeking groups and regional representation was taken into consideration when awarding the bursaries.
CERIC has announced the recipients of this year’s Graduate Student Engagement Program (GSEP) Award, providing support for four graduate students to attend the Cannexus21 National Career Development Conference, January 25 & 27 and February 1 & 3, 2021 online.
The recipients are:
Roxy Merkand, PhD Candidate, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, University of Waterloo
Gabrielle Beaupré, PhD Candidate, Education, Université du Québec à Montréal
Janet Payne, PhD Candidate, Education, University of Prince Edward Island
Walaa Taha, MSc Candidate, Educational Psychology, University of Calgary
The award, presented annually to select full-time graduate students studying career development, provides free registration to Cannexus – going virtual in 2021 – and $1,000. The Cannexus conference promotes the exchange of information and explores innovative approaches in the areas of career counselling and career and workforce development.
Eligibility for the award is based on participation in CERIC’s Graduate Student Engagement Program (GSEP) and submission of a one-page article on any career development topic. Read the award-winning articles and all the thought-provoking submissions on CERIC’s GSEP Corner.
Many GSEP members will also be presenting student posters at Cannexus – a great opportunity for attendees to learn from the next generation of career researchers.
GSEP encourages the engagement of Canada’s full-time graduate students whose academic focus is in career development and/or a related field.
A new CERIC-funded study has found evidence to support that career education in high school changes students’ career choices and pathways. The research by Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) uncovered that career interventions particularly help lower-income students in clarifying their career plans. The research project, “Role of career education on students’ education choices and post-secondary outcomes” aims to understand when, where and how youth initiate and craft their career aspirations.
The report generates new evidence from unique Canadian data to support decisions of policymakers and practitioners on a) how and when to intervene to assist youth in their career decision-making, and b) for whom supports are effective yet currently lacking. This builds on an earlier literature review from SRDC published this spring. Overall, the analysis equips the career counselling profession to respond authoritatively to increasingly urgent policy questions about how optimally to structure career education for young people.
In the research, SRDC uses two rich longitudinal data sources to test career interventions through the linkage of education records to surveys of youth and parents in three provinces. The data document the lives of 7,000 young Canadians over 10 years, including their occupational aspirations as high school students at age 14, their post-secondary education and their employment outcomes. The interventions tested very different types of prompts to youth that might influence their careers.
From the Future to Discover project:
Learning Account (LA) – A promise made at the end of Grade 9 of an $8,000 grant automatically payable upon enrolment in post-secondary education over two years
Explore Your Horizons (EYH) – These expert-designed career education workshops support participants in preparing for career development through a carefully constructed developmental sequence of classroom-based activities
LA+EYH – Encourages engagement and preparation with more certainty around the availability of financial aid, by combining the supports in the above two interventions
From the BC Advancement Via Individual Determination (BC AVID) project:
BC AVID – Promotes and supports academic engagement with specially trained educators and counsellors intended to change the high school experience of students with as-yet-untapped potential to succeed in post-secondary education
The literature review established youth are often in their career exploration stage until age 20. It follows that youth can have low clarity on their career aspirations as well as less information or knowledge about the program requirements, which hinders matching their career aspirations to a program of study. Because the interventions provided additional support or focus (or both) to prepare or engage youth in their career development, students could be helped by them in clarifying and realizing their career interests. The analysis was designed to detect 1) what intervention made a difference and 2) to whom, in either switching from their initially unclear career aspirations to a clearer career plan OR maintaining their career aspirations and being able to identify the steps they need to realize their aspirations at an early stage. At this point, the researchers did not assign a positive or negative value to the changes observed.
The report draws the following broad conclusions:
The LA early guarantee of a post-secondary grant and EYH offer of career education workshops appeared to directly impact lower-income students, switching them away from their early career aspirations. BC AVID had similar impacts.
There is evidence that the effect of EYH workshops for students from higher-income families was more often indirect, inducing them to increase volunteering activities. Among this group, more tended to change career paths as an effect of the volunteering.
Career education typically increased the number of other career-related activities students engaged in, which appeared in turn to delay some disinterested students from entering the labour market via easy-to-obtain jobs straight after high school.
Having a LA increased participation in career activities, academic engagement, parental valuation of post-secondary education and volunteering for students from lower-income families, pointing to the importance of addressing the financial barriers to further education.
Notably, the interventions decreased the likelihood that students from lower-income households carried out their early career aspirations, suggesting that career programming is effective at changing the focus and choices of youth with more disadvantaged backgrounds.
The study also found evidence of career teachers/counsellors, parents and peers influencing the impacts of career education.
What was apparent from the research is that there are differences in career pathway decisions between socioeconomic groups. Students with a lower socioeconomic status start with less clarity in career aspirations or less often have firm career plans than their counterparts from families with higher socioeconomic status. Career education interventions seem disproportionately to help those without post-secondary-educated parents and from lower-income families clarify their career plans (and thereby result in more changes for these youth to their intended program of study at Grade 12 relative to their intent at Grade 8/9).
According to the report authors, led by Research Director Reuben Ford, while this large set of findings sheds important light on a poorly understood yet key stage of youth career decision-making, much more needs to be done. They will be seeking to apply the research approach to consider how career education affects outcomes beyond career choices, to:
improve life chances of the youth involved (health, well-being, earnings);
improve the functioning of the labour market or economy, including minimizing disruption in future, adult career transitions; and
reduce the time spent out of work or NEET, underemployed or in occupations where their skills are misaligned with the tasks they must perform.
The authors state that “Career decision making is, by definition, a long-term endeavour of critical importance to the life chances of individuals and the functioning of economies.” Therefore, they recommend further investment in data that can help youth, those who advise and support them and policymakers, understand the consequences of those decisions and the environments that support optimal outcomes. They also flag that there is a need to consider gender, language and racialized dimensions of career decision-making. Additionally, they highlight the need to project the results onto the labour market and educational realities of the 2020s, to ensure further recommendations are relevant to an era transformed by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, automation and artificial intelligence, other influences on labour market precarity, new online learning as well as diversity and inclusion.
School counsellors play a pivotal role in supporting Black students’ sense of connectedness to their school community, and in setting students up for academic and professional success beyond their elementary and secondary school experiences. By attending this webinar series, current and prospective guidance counsellors as well as other educators and career practitioners, will learn how to approach guidance using an anti-racist, healing-informed approach.
Webinar #1: Enough is Enough: Disrupting Marginalizing Practices within Guidance – presented by Nicole Baxter-Lyn, Wednesday, November 25, 2020 | 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm ET
Webinar #2: A Focus on Inclusion – presented by Kamilah Clayton, Wednesday, December 2, 2020 | 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm ET
Baxter-Lyn is the co-founder and Vice-President of The Canadian Multicultural LEAD Organization for Mentoring or Training. Currently, she is a Provincial Equity Leadership Facilitator and she is also the Equity Teacher Facilitator Co-ordinator who oversees a team of anti-racist, anti-oppression consultants within the York Region District School Board. Clayton is a Registered Social Worker and psychotherapist, with over 10 years’ experience working with children, youth and families in multiple settings. She utilizes an Identity Affirming approach to mental health and wellness for people of African descent/heritage, and her practice areas include: anxiety, depression, stress and racial identity.
This webinar series is generously sponsored by the Ontario School Counsellors’ Association (OSCA). Thanks to their contribution, the series is offered at a discounted rate for non-OSCA members ($99) and for free if you are a member of OSCA.
In recognition of Marilyn Van Norman’s valuable contribution to the career development field, CERIC is awarding 13 bursaries to community-based counsellors for Cannexus21, courtesy of The Counselling Foundation of Canada.
CERIC received a total of 21 applications and wishes to acknowledge all the organizations that applied. Recipients of this year’s Marilyn Van Norman Bursary (formerly the Elizabeth McTavish Bursary) come from across the country, including British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Bursary winners this year represent organizations that support newcomers, youth, Indigenous peoples, and people with disabilities.
The bursary is given in recognition of Marilyn Van Norman, the recently retired Director of Research Initiatives at CERIC. Known as a collaborator, visionary and expeditor, she is widely respected for her more than 40 years of leadership in the career development field.
A bursary provides a full registration for the Cannexus conference. The Cannexus21 conference takes place in January 27 & 29 and February 1 & 3, 2021.
CERIC’s Career Superpowers issue of Careering magazine highlights the many ways career professionals can help clients and students become the heroes of their own career journeys. Authors provide tools to help get you and your clients through tumultuous times, and offer guidance on navigating barriers to career success, such as discrimination.
As we all continue to make our way through COVID-19, it is easy to focus on the challenges. We can’t escape them. However, the strengths, skills and tools described in this issue are ones that anyone can use or develop. Career development is a superpower, and we need it now, more than ever.
Careering magazine is Canada’s Magazine for Career Development Professionals and is the official publication of CERIC. It is published three times a year both in print and as an emagazine, including select content in French. Subscribe to receive your free copy. You can also access past issues for free online.
The Winter 2021 issue of Careering magazine will be on the theme of “Social Justice.” New contributors are welcome, and can submit in English, French or both languages. Please review our Submission Guidelines and send a 1-2 paragraph proposal outlining your topic idea to Editor Lindsay Purchase, lindsay@ceric.ca, no later than October 9.
Being able to deliver a compelling career story will help jobseekers identify their value and communicate it to employers
Alastair MacFadden
Contemplating a path through an uncertain future can be agonizing. For students and workers, it can be particularly uncomfortable. They are bombarded with information and advice. From the future of work to the impact of COVID-19, the labour market context is noisy.
In the face of uncertainty, many will seek refuge by just getting by; focusing on the short-term horizon and making choices that can undermine their preferred future.
Short-term thinking comes naturally in times of stress. A job applicant might relay the chronology of their resume rather than reveal their ambition or true self. A university student might choose more education over a leap into the job market. The impulse is to survive the immediate threat. It is an instinct that comes at a cost. By avoiding risk, we also foreclose on opportunities.
How can a person shape a career plan in the face of uncertainty? How do you excite strangers about your fit for a new opportunity? How can you become the hero of your own story?
These questions are fundamental for anyone engaged in a career journey. To help a client find their way, an essential superpower involves helping them master their story.
Why storytelling matters
We’ve all overcome difficulties, stumbled and learned. This personal narrative includes the stories we tell ourselves and others. In that sense, they define who we are. (Other leaders in career development have also described the importance of a personal narrative. Lysa Appleton (2018) offers another angle on storytelling in career development based, in part, on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. )
Here’s why storytelling is so powerful in career management:
Our minds are built to share and remember stories. Our physiology drives us to link fragments of information in patterns (Gottschall, 2012). When something is unclear, it is automatic to jump to conclusions, fill in gaps with assumptions and make up stories (or even conspiracies).
Arranging the story arranges the mind. Research has proven that knowing and applying your strengths leads to better engagement, productivity and well-being (Seligman, 2002). Stories integrate emotions, sensations and events into meaning. You can find confidence by exploring patterns and themes that reveal talents and resilience (Dingfelder, 2011).
A personal narrative positions you as the protagonist. When you’re the agent and not the victim of your story, you gain a sense of control and hope for what is still to come (Ibarra and Lineback, 2005). A story forms the context needed for self-compassion. The work of narrative psychology shows that those who find positive meaning in life events express greater life satisfaction.
Storytelling is a way to make sense of our lives. As you arrange the plot points, you highlight what has taken place and frame what is next in your career journey. Turning points gain significance through recall and interpretation, and maturity surfaces as we relate our past to our present and foreshadow possible futures. Your story gives you the words to close one career chapter and begin another.
We communicate and connect through stories. By mastering and then sharing your story, you form relationships with strangers. You can become someone memorable because sharing a multidimensional story creates an associative map across multiple brain regions (Lazarus and Snow, 2018).
There’s value in being able to tell a good story. Good stories transport the audience toward connection. Character-driven stories activate the production of oxytocin in the brain – a hormone associated with feelings of empathy, generosity, trust and co-operation (Zak, 2014). If you want help from others, your story helps them feel they have a stake in your success.
Building a coherent and compelling career story
A random, accidental and incoherent story is a drag. Compelling stories have structure that grabs attention and transports the audience into another world.
A coherent career story also has flow. It identifies plot points and draws connections between them. To help your client explore their story, ask them what has been significant or inspiring in their work life. Try using these questions as a prompt:
As you look back, what are key turning points or events? What are personal experiences that best reflect your strengths, passions and achievement? Describe a time or two when you’ve been happiest in your work – what skills were you using in those moments?
What has been the role of other people in your journey? Who are the mentors, coaches and allies who have influenced you? What advice have you received? What was the impact?
Next, work with your client to create headlines that capture these critical moments and relationships as the chapters in their career story. Encourage them to craft a vivid, concise description of experiences that are most relevant to the impression they want to leave others about their character and story.
Storytelling can serve as a powerful tool to connect with others. (iStock)
Delivering a story that connects
When someone asks your client, “What do you do?” or “Tell me about yourself” they are inviting a short story. Converting career chapters into human connection involves linking past experiences with the present and future.
To arrange the chapters and deliver a story that connects, good stories offer a consistent formula:
Know your audience. The aim is to share a career story that will resonate with the audience. The client should tailor their narrative to the opportunities they are exploring. Scanning a job ad for keywords, for example, can point to elements of the story that should be emphasized in a cover letter or interview.
Start by sharing something that may be surprising, such as a time you embarked on a personal challenge or crossed a career threshold.
To sustain attention, build tension by sharing obstacles that have shaped you, such as a crisis or failure or an unusual project. Describe the insights gained, before leading to …
The present state – a career crossroads – where you are taking a further step toward your preferred future.
Over time, each interview and tailored job application will bring the client clarity and a deeper sense of direction as they master their career story.
Anticipating the next chapter
Heroes don’t just endure difficulty and accept their fate. They exercise their strengths to prepare for the future. If a client feels they are preparing for an uncertain future, help them build their story with scenario planning. Have them focus on what is known:
Theirmain talents, gifts and competencies. For example, what patterns are evident in the interests, experiences and life lessons in their career story?
Trends shaping the future of their work life. What will be the impact on the client of personal and labour market trends over the next 10 or 20 years? Can they envision multiple futures or scenarios? (E.g. technological change or other trends in their profession, changes within their family or their family status, wider economic or social trends such as access to childcare or eldercare.)
Choices in a changing world. How can the client’s talents be deployed in each of the future scenarios they envision? What partnerships or allies will matter? How can their knowledge, skills and attributes best be deployed? Of the tactics that fit each future scenario, which ones appear again and again? Those are the tactics that offer the most robust next steps for any plausible career future, and they should inform the client’s choices and their next chapter.
It is worth reminding the client that they are protagonist of their story. By helping them master storytelling, you are helping them gain a superpower that will build their confidence, form relationships and propel their career forward.
Alastair MacFadden is an Executive in Residence at the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. He has worked in the non-profit sector and government to advance career development practices and to help individuals reach their full potential.
Contemplating a path through an uncertain future can be agonizing. For students and workers, it can be particularly uncomfortable. They are bombarded with information and advice. From the future of work to the impact of COVID-19, the labour market context is noisy.