Concurrent Workshops 1A-1E

PAYING IT FORWARD - WHY VOLUNTEERING MEANS THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS BE SUCCESSFUL IN YOUR CAREER, BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO GIVE TO GET, IT’S A UNIVERSAL LAW

Ms Helena Steel FAHRI

Career Values Pty Ltd, Victoria

 “Paying it Forward” is a beautiful concept defined by a recent movie in the same name. This movie received notable attention, because of the concept that giving does not need to be conditional. In fact most people think of giving as a very open process. Helena Steel explores with the audience the above concept in relation to volunteering and the relevance to our careers. As a Human Resource practitioner she uncovers the power of volunteer jobs of all types, and the use of mentoring to grow and add value to our careers.   “Paying it forward” means that you will receive for the rest of your life, whatever you need or want. It’s a universal law that says “what goes out must come back!” Also “what goes up must come down”, “what goes around comes around” and the universal laws continue! Everyone wants to have “good luck”! So to ensure you keep “paying it forward” you need to understand these universal principals. Then you will not only be giving, but you will be receiving as well for the rest of your life! Volunteering and mentoring is a beautiful way of “paying it forward”.    

FIVE SELECTION CRITERIA RESPONSE STRATEGIES TO HELP CLIENTS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Dr Ann Villiers

Mental Nutrition, ACT

Based on over a decade of demystifying selection criteria for thousands of government job applicants, this session explores five key practices that make a difference to the quality of selection criteria responses, resumes and interviews. ‘Making a difference’ is a popular marketing slogan in attraction strategies, particularly job advertisements. We will explore what this means and how job applicants can make their case as a ‘difference maker’. Enabling clients to adopt these strategies will help them appreciate and articulate their potential, and give them job search practices that will sustain them into an uncertain jobs future. Career practitioners assisting job applicants face ethical issues that reflect on themselves, their clients and the profession. We will explore these issues along with how practitioners handle them, promote their services, and manage client expectations. Discussion will be directed to addressing the question: Given these issues, do we need to reconceptualise our work in any way?

CAREER PASSPORT:  THE CAREER ESSENTIAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Ms Jenni Proctor, Ms Jenny Ryan

Career Clarity and Creative Industries Skills Council, Queensland

An ePortfolio enables young people to track their skills development, document their achievements, make applications and better articulate their competencies in a contemporary online environment. This session will demonstrate an ePortfolio product development innovation -

A flexible and responsive tool to manage a portfolio career
A repository and record keeper for all career development activities
A multimedia approach enabling easy linkages with employers, further education and industry network activities
A tool for collection of RPL evidence and VET Unit results
Applicable to all industries and ages

Participants will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using an ePortfolio in today’s career environment. The participants will create and send an ePortfolio. They will then see the result when the receiver opens the ePortfolio and can send some feedback.  They will learn how to verify artefacts.  

The group will discuss the use of ePortfolios in different contexts. 

 WEB BASED CAREER DEVELOPMENT: BEING EFFECTIVE AND GREEN

Bob Bredemeyer ¹, Yvonne Warnick

¹ JIIG-CAL Australia, ² Queensland Studies Authority

Career practitioners

Using Web based career resources efficiently, effectively and in environmentally sensitive ways, career practitioners are able to make significant contributions to their clients and beyond them to the wider world. In fact the Internet enables an extended reach – to clients anywhere and at any time. While the Web is the biggest library the world has ever seen, there is also much misinformation, many hoaxes and useless resources, as well as criminality. Sourcing and effectively using reliable and appropriate resources can be a challenge. Career seekers need the support of well informed and proficient career practitioners. This workshop will show how the use of reliable Web based career guidance resources can extend the reach of career practitioners while providing good outcomes for their clients in environmentally sensitivity ways.

Clients

In this fast changing world, clients have higher expectations regarding the nature, mode and speed of service delivery, as well as outcomes for them personally. Young people in particular are technologically savvy and increasingly aware of environmental issues.

This workshop will show how appropriate Web based career resources can assist in meet these challenges.

DOTS - HOW GREEN IS THAT?

Mr Michael Hastings

RMIT University

Despite the introduction of the ABCD, and the many obvious merits of the new framework, many if not most practitioners and agencies continue to work in a manner that reflects the DOTS model.  It’s easy to see why – DOTS is institutionalised to the point that it seems intuitive and simple where the ABCD is complex.  Like an old lover, it is proving difficult to let go. Appealing though Bill Law and Tony Watts’ model is, it is now over 30 years since DOTS was first proposed.  With all due respect to the authors, and notwithstanding a number of subtle changes in recent times, is it possible that the model used to describe career development in 1977 also describes 2010 and beyond, despite different work, different workers, and very different views of what constitutes career?  How green can DOTS be?  How long can we sustain the idea that applying DOTS is sound practice?

If Law and Watts started afresh today, would DOTS look like DOTS or something completely different?  Would they, for example, put so much emphasis on information gathering (Self-awareness and Opportunity Awareness) in an age of information overload?  Would they propose the notion of Transition (or even Transition Learning) while we move towards an age of integrated work and learning? I think not and in this workshop am bold enough to reconceptualise the model formerly known as DOTS in order to take account of issues such as globalisation, the environment and technology .  As brilliant as DOTS was, it is time to move on.