Annual Conference of Careers Development

Claire Pech – Careers Advisor

Two weeks ago I attended the Annual Conference of Careers Development Practitioners in Brisbane.

This is where a lot of the private practitioners in the Careers sphere come together. Many are from schools, but also many come from private practice, and are working in all realms, from disability services, retirees, return-to-work clients, just to mention a few.

I like attending these days as it keeps me in touch with other practices in the Careers space, not just what is happening in schools. I went to two fascinating workshops looking at having “transferable skills” (the buzz phrase for 21^st Century success in careers), and also differentiated careers delivery into schools.

Dr Peter McIveen, from University of Southern Queensland, gave an outstanding talk on the future of work and evidence-based research. Three areas of career success were attributed to:

• A sense of self-efficacy (the ability to think “I can do it!”)
• Conscientiousness (a trait most valued in employees)
• Tailored careers work – getting tailored advice throughout your career

He looked at long-term unemployment and found it caused:

• Poor mental health
• Poor physical health
• Suicidal behaviour
• Disrupted cognitive development in children
• Changes in personality.

Being out of work for more than six months resulted in changes in personality, including anxiety and depression. ANU (the Australian National University) has done some research and found that a ‘bad’ job is as bad as being unemployed! This takes away from the old ideology that ‘any’ job is as good as ‘a’ job.

Some of the evidence that was presented showcased leading research in the area of careers including:

• 93% of companies will make organisational changes in the next two years. That structure will flatten with lower services being eroded (Mercer, 2017).
• Collaboration and Innovation were what was wanted and needed (Mercer, 2017).
• Interesting work, well paid and a work-life balance were important  (Trilemman, 2016).
• “Conscientiousness” was seen as the most important indicator of being a good employee – looking at “can you learn this”? (Rottinhaus & Miller, 2013)

Dr McIveen then looked at what helped in the careers space, based on research (Whiston et al, 2017):

• So what really makes a difference? Self-efficacy – this has a huge impact. Believing you can do it.
• What makes it work? Finding out work information, a counsellor for support, career interventions.
• What careers focus works best? Individual counselling, group counselling, interpretive counselling. The least effective careers help was career tests with no evaluation at the end of it.