Career Professionals of Canada News Feed
Career shifts can sometimes be tricky. Some individuals proactively and carefully navigate a smooth career shift after thoroughly assessing their current situation and realizing they desire something different. For most of my clients, though, the decision to make a change comes after a long period of feeling uncomfortable, anxious, and sometimes even burned out and depressed. These two scenarios make for two completely different career change journeys. Thankfully, I have learned that it is possible to help clients in the latter group. I’d like to share my tips for guiding…
One of the definitions of empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. In career services, empathy might be defined as putting yourself in your clients’ shoes. It is the first step to forming a productive, trust-based relationship with them and helping them achieve their goals. In an industry that is not strictly regulated by outside bodies, we rely on each other’s professionalism, ethics, and integrity to maintain our clients’ trust in our services and support. While independent career practitioners run their own business models, an empathetic…
How can we make sense of career development theory as it applies today? Globalization along with fast-paced developments in science, engineering, information technology, and communication affect the labour market. These trends call us to constantly adapt and reinvent ourselves. As career development practitioners, it is important to be aware of the strengths and limitations of the theories, models, and approaches we use. Our goal is to identify strategies that will optimally support our clients in a holistic way. We would like to share our 7 tips for navigating career development theory in…
I love trend research because without it we wouldn’t have a clue about where the world is going. As career practitioners, if we don’t know where things are going, we run the risk of sharing outdated information with our clients, leaving them improperly equipped to compete in the marketplace. We need to keep current — especially in the rapidly changing world of work — and be aware of emerging trends so we can position our clients to act quickly and effectively when desired opportunities roll around. At the same time, let’s…
My clients often ask me, “So, exactly how do I approach networking?” In-person networking is on pause at the moment but some of the same concepts apply to virtual networking. I’d like to share the following tips that I provide to my clients. As a career development professional, you may already offer the same advice, but if not, I hope you’ll find these tips useful and adopt them for your own use. If you have some gems of your own, please feel free to add them in the comments below.…
Since the start of the pandemic, career practitioners from educational institutions, non-profit employment services, and other sectors have joined their independent colleagues in working virtually. Even after adapting to the technology, many find it difficult to communicate effectively with others they haven’t met in person. If you can relate, the highlights of a conference session I attended some years ago may be helpful. In “Introduction to Working Remotely – Leading and Working in Virtual Teams,” Susan Gerke explored the issues that can surface when working remotely, how personality type relates to remote…