Teaching Resources and Research Archives

Posted on February 10, 2021February 10, 2021 by Bev Johnson — Leave a comment

5 Steps to being a leading career educator

Career education isn’t social work and it isn’t psychology, although it could be a bit like fortune telling if you don’t keep up with the changes to career development.

These 5 clear steps will help you to build your capacity to confidently lead students to their best career.

Be an expert

You can’t wing it as a career advisor. People believe you are the expert. People believe what you say. A flippant comment or ill informed advice from you can change the direction of their lives.

Don’t do computer programming. Computers are a passing fad.
1990’s Phys Ed Teacher/Career Advisor to high school student in Geraldton

You have a personal responsibility to be the expert, to KNOW where to look for the right information.

STEP 1: Get a qualification. Join professional organisations. Make sure your skills are current.

Listening

Moore’s Law says the capacity of computers doubles every two years. I think the pace of change is doubling every two years. I look back on 2019 and it seems like ancient history.

You can’t keep up with the changes that every student is experiencing. What they bring to the table in 2021 is going to be vastly different to what you would have expected from a similar student in 2019.

If you bring a deep appreciation of how much things have changed to the table, you will be more able to listen, empathise and question until you understand.

STEP 2: Appreciate the world view of your student.

Research

Everyone, from the OECD and World Economic Forum to teachers writing to parents, is trying to help people to make rational, data driven career decisions.

There is so much change flickering into view. Career advisors must be able to discriminate between the latest bright, new, shiny thing, and a substantial initiative that could deliver a lifetime of career satisfaction.

STEP 3: Do the hard yards. Study the research. Go to conferences. Keep up with professional developments.

Tech Tools

I love tech. The latest gadget, app, block chain initiative sends me down rabbit holes for hours.

If you don’t love tech, you need to figure out how to keep up.

COVID has made video job interviews common. (See How to Build Your Career Online)
To get to an interview you need to know enough about algorithms to get your application seen by a human. (See How to get your application through to the Keeper.)
Decide how you are going to manage your micro-credentials online. (See What’s the best way to record your micro credentials?)

STEP 4: Find out about digital career tools at meetings, conferences and workshops.

Collaboration

When I worked in Arnhem Land the whole community worked to support students to find their best career.

We had NorForce (Defence) taking on cadets, unionists working as Master (Electrician) Mentors to would-be apprentices, the principal’s sister in Cairns providing accommodation to an interior design work experience student. Every business in town was willing to take people for work experience. Ex students and community members were mentoring students.

Throughout Western Australia, there is significant goodwill on the table waiting to engage with and support students who want to explore career opportunities and develop knowledge and skills.

STEP 5: Reach out and collaborate with your community, with industry or with the In Focus Careers network to expand the opportunities available to your students.

Deliver Insanely Great Career Education

Keep up to date with the latest career news in Western Australia. Subscribe to the Infocus Careers Newsletter as your first step towards linking to a world of insanely great career ideas.

Infocus Careers is an independent organisation which is solely supported by insanely great subscribers who share information with me, support each other and help me to pay my bills.

I can talk about careers under water so if you would like to chat about how I can help you to improve your career or the services you deliver, give me a ring on 0434056412 or email me at Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au

Become part of the network of West Australian professionals who are working to deliver the best career support in the world.

I come across careers information for adults every month as I am putting together the In Focus Careers News for schools. I have collated it in this monthly supplement because so many people have no idea what is available or where to start looking.

I hope it helps you to create a better life for yourself.

Infocus Careers is an independent organisation which is solely supported by insanely great subscribers who share information with me, support each other and help me to pay my bills.

Posted on January 4, 2021January 4, 2021 by Bev Johnson — 1 Comment

Is it time to become a butterfly? My commitment as incoming WA President of the CDAA

Since I took on the In Focus Careers Resources Centre, I have been cocooned in my home office, endeavouring to set up the world’s best career education support network right here in WA.

2021 is my time to break out of my cocoon and spread my wings.

I have stepped up to take on the role of President of the WA Division of the Career Development Association of Australia (CDAA) for 2021.

The more I work with the CDAA the more I appreciate their professional commitment to:

Collaboration
Excellence and
Empowering members

They are a cool group of enthusiastic leaders that I wanted to support in the best way I can.

My Commitment

I will be a visible leader who works to build the profile of our industry.

Career services are frequently seen as a “nice to have” luxury by people as they pursue their ad hoc and busy work of getting a qualification and getting a job.

I will:

advocate for collaboration between career professionals and with government, industry and community to build our authority in strategic and operational endeavours
enthusiastically share ideas, engage with others and influence the professional development services to achieve excellence in our industry
raise awareness of our power to boost educational achievement, focus career aspirations, and improve quality of life.

Invitation to You

My ask of you is that you….

engage with the CDAA with courage and creativity to become leaders of change with new approaches to the problems of today and tomorrow.

We need experienced, visionary career professionals to be at the core of decision making, advocating for the human and financial value that career services deliver.

You can join the CDAA HERE or support our efforts by attending CDAA events, forwarding your ideas and actively promoting career professionals in Western Australia.

Next Steps

The West Australian CDAA Committee is coming to my place for lunch on Thursday and we will set priorities and add to the CDAA calendar that has already been planned for 2021.

Lisa Liang has already planned the first network breakfast for February at Dome in East Vic Park and it is up on the CDAA Calendar. I will publish that information when it is ready.
Career Connect Rob Palmer has been working for months with Notre Dame to organise the Career Connect seminar for 12 February.
Rob is also the organiser of the Community of Practice meetings which happen on the 4th Tuesday of each month. Rob has suggested that we start these meeting with a short presentation from an expert before we move onto our informal chat.
CEAWA has agreed to work with us to build on the efforts put in by Robyn Ekberg, CEAWA and Rebecca Herbertson CDAA that were stopped due to COVID in 2020.
Janine Blake (nee Kannemeyer) has secured the support of the Food Fibre and Timber ITC which is making its meeting rooms available to our Committee.

brown and white swallowtail butterfly under white green and brown cocoon in shallow focus lens

Bev Johnson

2021 CDAA WA Division President

Posted on November 30, 2020January 9, 2021 by Bev Johnson — Leave a comment

What’s the best way to record your micro credentials?

,Do you have a system for recording your professional development?

Craig Hillman from Helena College recommends that teachers record reading the Infocus Careers Newsletter as PD on the WA Teacher Registration Board. His system has been adopted by a lot of teachers.

I don’t know if unis, TAFE colleges and employment service providers use similar systems to capture their continuous professional learning.

My needs are simple.

I don’t want to track every 2 hour Canva course that I do but I would like to keep a track of career webinars and conferences that I attend.

I would like to be able to record:

The name of each event,
Key learning from each one,
Who delivered the information,
Date, time and a URL.

It would be good to be able to colour code different categories of learning so that I can easily see emerging trends.

The trick to finding the best system is to know how you would use it

I would:

See what is trending from speakers in Australia and around the world.
Attach a copy of the data to job applications if it was able to be seen as a snapshot
Go back and check on notes for speeches and articles.

Figure out what functions you want your system to deliver as a first step, then start searching for options that deliver them and compare to see which one is the best fit. Be wary of the biggest and best available as it may do a lot of things that you don’t need.

After doing my simple analysis of what functions I need, I think a simple Excel spreadsheet will do the job.

Become part of the Network of West Australian professionals who are working to deliver the best career guidance in the world.

Subscribe to the Infocus Careers Newsletter as your first step towards linking to a world of insanely great career ideas.

EMAIL: Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au

Infocus Careers is an independent organisation which is solely supported by insanely great subscribers who share information with me, support each other and help me to pay my bills.

Posted on September 23, 2020September 24, 2020 by Bev Johnson — 1 Comment

Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Infographic

Career ideas for West Australians.

This infographic supports Step 2 of the Year 10 Magic Happens Handbook.

To subscribe to the insanely great Infocus Careers Newsletter for West Australians email Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au

Posted on September 13, 2020September 25, 2020 by Bev Johnson — 1 Comment

How to Get Employability Skills – Infographic

You can’t get experience if you don’t have a job. You can’t get a job if you don’t have experience.

Employers constantly complain that young workers do not have any idea about how to work. They complain that doing employability skills in a classroom setting does not prepare them for the workplace.

The How to Get Authentic Workskills infographic suggests 5 ways that Year 10 – 12 students can develop employability skills through authentic workplace learning.

Read Are You Nice Enough to Win That Job for more information and tips on how to develop workskills.

Subscribe to the In Focus Careers Newsletter for monthly updates on what is happening in Western Australia.

Email: Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au

Posted on September 6, 2020October 13, 2020 by Bev Johnson — 1 Comment

Do you know who to call? Career Websites

The number of useful websites keeps growing, so I have updated this Coggle Map. It is useful for career advisors, school leavers and job seekers.

Many of the government sites are duplicate services. You do NOT need to go to each of these sites. You MAY choose to get frustrated that government departments don’t collaborate!!

You can find the Coggle Map of Useful Sites HERE. I have put links to each of the sites so that you don’t have to look up each one.

If you can’t get in, email me and I will send you the link: Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au

Subscribe to the In Focus Careers Newsletter

You can save time and improve the quality of career advice you give. Subscribe to the In Focus Careers newsletter that is supported and shared by 100s of West Australians.

Email me for a complimentary copy: Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au

I just wanted to pass on my appreciation and admiration for the work that you do with this newsletter and your website. Every month, there is something in there that resonates with me on the ‘why’ of our job.

Posted on August 3, 2020August 7, 2020 by Bev Johnson — Leave a comment

History Careers Mind Map

The History Careers Mind Map identifies careers supported by the knowledge and skills history students develop.

Download the Mind Map to access the links to the different careers.

Find a history career that suits your abilities — Download the Coggle Mind Map to use the links to more information.

The Good Universities Guide

In most cases the links are through to the information provided by the Good Universities Guide Career Ladders. Where information wasn’t available on the Careers Ladders I have added a link to the most useful information I could find.

MyFuture

MyFuture has videos and great information about careers. It may be worth subscribing as all States and Territories contribute to that central store of information. It costs about $15 a year to subscribe.

In Focus Careers

I wrote a post recently with updated links to all of the key careers sites.

There is a lot of duplication in these sites, particularly in the government ones, so find which ones work best for you.

Please send me a complimentary copy of your insanely great newsletter for West Australian students.

Chief Evangelist for Insanely Great Careers Education in Western Australia.

Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au

M: 0434056412

Posted on June 3, 2020June 3, 2020 by Bev Johnson — Leave a comment

A Robot Will NOT Take Your Job

No no and no.

Robots are NOT taking your jobs.
You will NOT spend your life scrambling for 17 jobs in 5 careers.
Millenials are NOT more focused on meaningful work than baby boomers.

The Career Development Association of Australia (CDAA) is keen to reduce anxiety by debunking these myths.

On their Making Sense of Career Research webinar they debunked three myths.

Robots are NOT Taking Your Jobs

Bad news travels fast and there is reason to be fearful. There are not many chimney sweeps around… even chimneys are disappearing!!

But jobs are NOT disappearing. Since the introduction of IT across industries, the amount of work has actually increased.

Machines haven’t REDUCED housework

Our behaviour will change because of the machines. Before we had washing machines doing washing was hard, and time consuming. Not it is easy, but still time consuming because we wash our clothes more often.

Houses are cleaner, food is more interesting, we stay awake longer.

Machines have changed the way we live, and there are lots of jobs in our new way of living.

Artificial Intelligence Won’t Replace ALL Workers

If a some sauce is spilt on the floor at McDonalds, it takes a person a second to wipe it up. That task would take very sophisticated AI and it would be slower and more expensive than a human.

The same with self driving vehicles. It takes a lot of AI to account for every possible accident. It is more likely that technology will make us better drivers by helping us to park without crashing, showing us which route to take, or warning us when we are about to run out of fuel.

Where will the jobs be?

The Naked Scientist podcast Life in the Year 2100 talks about all the jobs required to create sustainable futures and build smart cities with intelligent buildings. They claim gardeners will be more important as green space makes people physically and mentally healthier.

The Future is Human is an optimistic report with lots of practical recommendations for future success. You can see a Press Club presentation on the report by Deloitte economics Chris Richardson, HERE.

You will NOT have 17 jobs in 5 careers

Since 2000 Australian’s have stayed in jobs longer. We used to stay in jobs for 3 years and now we stay for 4.

It is likely that you will stay in a job for a shorter time at the start of your career, as you work at McDonalds or travel overseas, then stay longer as you go through your career.

On the Making Sense of Research CDAA webinar Jason Brown gave this explanation of how absurd it would be to try to totally change careers and start learning from scratch again.

You can relax. In 2000 we stayed in jobs for about 3 years, now we stay in jobs for about 4 years.

Millenials are NOT more focused on meaningful work than baby boomers

I was pleased to hear this. I have always sought meaningful work and I’m a baby boomer. Claims that young people are more focused on finding meaningful work than me, seemed to be dismissing my life’s work.

In COVID-19 and careers: On the futility of generational explanations, Cort W. Rudolph^, and Hannes Zacher say:

It is common to broadly group people of different ages into “generations” and to speak of distinctions between such groups in terms of “generational differences.” The problem with this practice, is that there exists no credible scientific evidence that (a) generations exist, (b) that people can be reliably classified into generational groups, and (c) that there are demonstrable differences between such groups.

We have already noted an emerging generationalized rhetoric that has characterized how people of different ages have been affected by and reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic. …..We urge researchers to eschew the notion of generations and generational differences and consider alternative lifespan development theoretical frameworks that better capture age-graded processes.

Thanks to career professionals

It is great to have professionals from the CDAA debunking myths that make us feel bad.

Subscribe to In Focus Careers

If your organisation works with young West Australians you can keep up to speed with what is happening on the careers front by subscribing to my insanely great newsletter.

Join more than 120 schools and organisations that tap into a network of careers experts around the State so that they can deliver the BEST careers information to their students and clients.

Posted on May 31, 2020June 22, 2020 by Bev Johnson — 1 Comment

Getting Your Resume through to the Keeper

If you apply for a job with a mining company, or think you may want to work overseas, you will find yourself writing job applications that go through application tracking systems designed to weed out poor applications before a human sets eyes on it.

You need to know how to get your job application past the application tracking systems.

Nothing Beats a Good Job Application

Don’t turn yourself inside out trying to beat the algorithm. Your application can end up sounding phoney.

Just write a good application. Seek.com provides great advice on writing a good resume, or if you are still at school go to Youth Central for tips.

Key Words

The application tracking system will scan your application for keywords that are in the job advertisement.

If they are looking for a professional tap dancer you need to use the words “professional” and “tap dancer” in your application.

If you do tap dancing but have never worked professionally put in a Career Goal at the start of your document that says that your dream is to work as a full time, “professional tap dancer“.

Then you can talk about your tap dancing qualifications and experience that lead to this dream under traditional headings like:

Qualifications

Just list your qualifications, where you got them and when. A table of qualifications may take on a life of its own in cyberspace and end up a jumble when it is downloaded.

You can put in headings like:

- Academic Qualifications
- Dance Qualifications

Experience

Stick to what is important. If the professional tap dancer is required to work in a team you can talk about your experience working in a team at the local coffee shop where you were required to work under pressure and support other team members. Mention “team” in your answer.

If you can’t make your coffee shop experience add to your story, leave it out.

Referees

It will be best if you have a referee who is a professional tap dancer.

The Prime Minister may be your first best friend but he is not going to have any credibility with employers looking for a professional tap dancer.

Don’t Get Fancy

Pictures of your latest tap dancing performance won’t be picked up by the application tracking system. Leave them out.

Just save your application in Word or as a PDF, attach it and send. Don’t get fancy with Google Docs or Dropbox etc unless they say that is what they want.
Use Grammarly to check your spelling and grammar before you send off your application.
I don’t like pictures of applicants. It is an equity issue AND the application tracking system may not be able to read the picture.

It’s an Online Social World

If your application gets to a human, they will check you out on social media to save time BEFORE you get called in to an interview.

Start building an online profile that makes you look like the sort of person who would succeed as a professional tap dancer.
Set up your LinkedIn profile and start building your reputation as a committed tap dancer.
Join local and world online tap dancing groups. Build your reputation.

The Future of Job Applications

Don’t panic if you can’t get your head around algorithms and key words. Just write your best application. Remember:

In Western Australia most employers own small businesses so they won’t be using application tracking systems, and even some IGA stores just have a form that you have to fill in.

60% of jobs in Western Australia are not advertised. Read Network Your Butt Off to Find a Job.

There are some seriously cool job application apps coming through which will make it easy for employers to find out about you… but probably harder for you to make your application shine. There may be a future in writing seriously cool job applications for these apps.

If you are in Western Australia and want to know about career opportunities subscribe to the In Focus Careers Newsletter.

I work constantly to maintain my knowledge of career opportunities and my careers newsletter is a conduit for information and advice to schools and organisations across Western Australia.

Please send me a complimentary copy of your insanely great and VERY reasonably priced In Focus Careers Newsletter.

Posted on March 19, 2020March 21, 2020 by Bev Johnson — Leave a comment

Agriculture Jobs Available

This new job service is a partnership between Stadium, State government and a number of organisations in the agriculture industry.

Traditionally backpackers and travellers fill a number of seasonal roles across agriculture but with Corona Virus travel restrictions in place we have seen backpackers denied entry into Australia or leaving our shores for home. This has resulted in a critical number of shortages which presents an opportunity to domestic students.

Stadium.work is an online platform that helps you find a job in your chosen field or find casual work while you’re still studying. Simply click below to register for free with Studium and create your student profile.

Register now to take advantage

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and a number of partners in the agriculture space will use Studium to find suitable students and engage them in a range of employment opportunities.

Employers Search for You

Employers actively search the platform to find you. So, no need for you to make countless applications or search online for jobs.

There are just 3 simple steps to put you in front of an employer

Click the link here to register for your free Studium profile

You’ll get an email to complete your profile with anything from videos, upload assignments, and complete a simple profile test so employers know more about who you really are.

Connect with employers. You can then tag and follow the employers you’re interested in, and they’ll see that you’re interested.

Register today by going to studium.work.

Subscribe to the In Focus Careers Network

To find the latest help that government is providing, to find what others are doing to cope or to find job or course opportunities subscribe to In Focus Careers.

For more information email Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au