Association News

Thank you Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev University

This slideshow is provided by Nazarbayev University

May 16-19, 2023

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2023 NCDA Global Conference and APCDA

By Dr. Marilyn Maze and Emily Lizada

APCDA is grateful that NCDA has again provided a room for an APCDA meeting at the NCDA Conference in Chicago.  The NCDA conference will be held June 28 through July 1. We scheduled our meeting on the first day, June 28, just before the First-timers Meeting, so that members and friends of APCDA who are attending the NCDA Conference can meet each other,.  We will also provide a bit of orientation to the NCDA Conference. 

Many of the plans are still being formed and the calendar below will be updated as we learn new information. We have highlighted in yellow a few events that are of special interest to APCDA members and friends. We will continue to update this schedule with more details as the NCDA Conference approaches. 

We hope to see you there!

Tentative NCDA Agenda

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Call for Nominations for APCDA Treasurer

By Dr. Constance Prichard

The APCDA Treasurer holds a unique position. This role will allow you to gain experience in budgets and fiscal management. At the same time, your expertise in the field of career development will be invaluable for guiding the association and will grow as you become familiar with the many people who make APCDA strong. As an Officer of APCDA, you will meet monthly with APCDA staff and other Officers to guide and grow the organization. Your fiscal responsibility will include reviewing financial reports produced by APCDA staff, advising fiscal decisions, and explaining fiscal issues to the Board. Becoming treasurer of APCDA is an excellent way to gain that experience and work with a team of leaders in planning the future of this important organization. 

Interested in this leadership role? Contact: Info@AsiaPacificCDA.org.

Questions? Contact Treasurer@AsiaPacificCDA.org.

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Call for Nominations for APCDA Secretary for 2023-2025

By Dr. José F. Domene

Over the past two years, I have had the privilege of serving as the Secretary of APCDA. Although the role of Secretary has specific duties associated with it, the primary role of Secretary is to contribute as one of the Officers of our Association. Together with the President, Past-President, President-Elect and Treasurer, the Secretary plays a vital role in making the fiscal, personnel, and policy decisions for the APCDA.  In my experience, the opinions of the Secretary matter as much as the opinions of any other Officer, and I really felt like I was making a contribution to the future of career development in the Asia Pacific.

The specific duties of the role include attending and contributing to monthly meetings of the Officers and the Board of the APCDA. The Secretary also takes responsibility for the minutes of these monthly meetings.  However, APCDA staff members do the actual work of creating a draft version of the minutes from the recording, and the job of the Secretary is simply to collect corrections sent in by other people who attended the meeting, review the content of the minutes, and make sure the minutes are ready for posting within about a month of the meeting. To be honest, the APCDA staff do such a great job with preparing the draft minutes that my role in maintaining the minutes has been relatively minor, compared to my role as part of the leadership team of the association, contributing to decisions that are helping APCDA grow and thrive. 

With my term in the office of Secretary coming to an end, I have begun reflecting on the friendships and international collaborations that I have made, as well as the new skills I have learned about managing a small international not-for-profit organization, and navigating issues related to promoting career development across a diverse range of countries. I am very grateful for this opportunity that I have had over the past two years.

If you are interested in a leadership role in APCDA but do not feel ready to take on the challenges of President-elect, if you have a passion for contributing to the growth of the profession of career development in the Asia-Pacific region, and if you enjoy working with staff and colleagues who truly care about the future of the APCDA, I strongly encourage you to stand for election to the office of Secretary of the APCDA for 2023-2025.

To nominate yourself or a colleague, email info@AsiaPacificCDA.org (but if you plan on nominating someone else, please discuss the nomination with them first).

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Call for 2023-2024 APCDA President-Elect

By Satomi Chudasama

I am excited to share my experience of the 3-year APCDA president term and why you should also consider this opportunity.

As a founding member, I have always considered APCDA to be a special place. The organization has offered an opportunity to meet with industry colleagues around the world, learn about career development activities and evolution in the global space, and exchange ideas and future aspirations with like-minded individuals. Interacting with APCDA members and learning from them really opened my eyes and continues to inspire me. Although I had wanted to give back to this special organization, raising small children while working in a busy full-time position prevented me from accepting multiple nominations to run for leadership for years. I can imagine this sounds familiar to some APCDA members; many of us juggle multiple priorities in life. However, I am glad that I finally took a plunge and forever grateful for the opportunity to serve this wonderful community. These past three years have been a precious part of my career.

During the first year, as the president-elect, I learned so much from both officers and the Board. I witnessed not only how the organization was run but also different leadership styles influenced by personal and cultural nuances. While learning and preparing myself for the year two as president, I constantly explored various ways to contribute to APCDA. One of the beautiful aspects of the APCDA leadership team is that, if you have some ideas, you are surely heard and, often, encouraged to test them out.

In the year two as the president, the responsibilities expanded further; collaborating to prepare for/preside over the conference, represent APCDA in different places, consider new initiatives along with officers, staff, and Board members, and review policies, to name a few. Partnering with officers, staff, and the Board, I enjoyed developing multiple-year goals for APCDA that will ensure continuity of our efforts beyond one president term. My time as the president-elect and president was significantly impacted by Covid, which posed unique challenges operationally but ended up offering me an opportunity to learn how to make important decisions under globally ambiguous circumstances. Although the annual conference was fully virtual during my presidency, moreover, it was a wonderful experience to get to co-host it with IAEVG for the very first time.

As the Past President this year, besides contributing to officer and Board meetings, my main roles include confirming the next president-elect and treasurer and selecting award winners with the Awards Committee. These are unique opportunities to get to know individuals who possess strong leadership skills and potential as well as those who are doing amazing work. I truly enjoy learning about the fantastic work APCDA members are doing and seeing them recognized through awards. It is a privilege to serve in these capacities.

Juggling my day-to-day work, family, and APCDA leadership, my life has felt hectic at times. But I can assure you - this experience is totally worth it. I know there is never a “perfect” time to dive in and give back to APCDA through a leadership position. If you are interested, the time is now, and you can find a way to manage multiple priorities.

Having celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, APCDA is in an ever-exciting stage as the organization and has great potential for growth. Every APCDA member has the potential to successfully serve in the 3-year term presidency. The leadership team, including very experienced, hard-working staff, works very collaboratively and supports each other. You don’t need to have “perfect” leadership experience or skills - what is “perfect” leadership anyway? Each of us possesses what it takes to be a good leader in our own way. You don’t need to be nominated. Nominate yourself. I strongly encourage you to consider running for president-elect. I would be happy to share more of my experience and answer any questions you may have.

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The Future is Now: Career Services in a New Digital Era

By Sini Parampota

In the last few months there is a lot of discussion in private settings and in social media platforms alike around new AI technologies and their impact in education, workforce and career development domain in specific. AI is one of the fastest growing areas in ICT; it already permeates and transforms every aspect of our lives. Depending on our personal and professional circumstances, there are divided views presenting its’ application as disruption, innovation or both.

Some of the recent examples that caught my attention include the ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), a chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched late in 2022, GTPZero -another application designed by a young Princeton University senior student to counterfeit AI plagiarism in education that was released in January 2023, as well as CiCi, a careers chatbot developed by CareerChat that was rolled out for free earlier this year in the UK. 

Careers Services evolved since the late 1960s, with the introduction of computerized career planning tools that previously career counselors were applying manually. Pioneers like the late JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey who was responsible for the development of the first Computerized Vocational Information System (CVIS), that later became what we know as the ACT Profile DISCOVER under the leadership of Marilyn Maze who carried the torch, helped change the landscape of career counseling and paved the way for the application of new technological interventions in the field of career development, decision-making and capacity building.

Over the last decade technological advancements and social media applications revolutionized career-related activities around the world, including the provision of lifelong learning opportunities, career guidance and employment. These fundamental shifts in the way clients, service providers and employers connect is becoming increasingly important and their impact is critical in providing ethical and equitable services to youth and adults around the world.

Another crucial aspect is career practitioners’ - and those in related helping professions -  competence and confidence in using new technologies, that may vary significantly from traditional face-to-face interactions. Global disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic supported increased demand for online mediums and alternative technological approaches in the way of delivering career services and recruitment processes.

In this light, APCDA is proud to present a set of important and exciting webinars in the coming weeks:

1. The Future of Career Development Services, by Dr. Jaana Kettunen

2. The Latest in AI for Career Services & Hiring by Marie Zimenoff

These webinars are offering complementing perspectives from academia and practice, drawing on the vast and rich experience of the speakers. They also come as a forerunner of this year’s APCDA conference themed "New Look at Careers in a Rapidly Changing World."

Dr. Kettunen will be speaking from a counseling perspective on technology skills related to career development services and the application of Information and Communication Technology interventions with clients as they evolve.

Ms. Zimenoff will shed light on how technology, like ChatGPT, impacts our work and our clients, how career service providers fit into this new world and how to keep our skills marketable in the future of career work.

THE FUTURE IS NOW! Will you take advantage of these golden opportunities to embrace technological changes in the way you deliver your services or resist and be forced to change in this new digital era? As the dilemma of fearful vs. fearless approach emerges, the decision lies within you.

Tech savvy or not, one thing is for sure: knowledge is power. Whether as career professionals we decide to incorporate now or later certain tools and innovations, we all need to continue developing a strong set of attitudes, knowledge, and skills to navigate present and future complexities that will allow us to ensure the quality of services delivered, maintain a lifelong learning orientation, grow reflective analytical mindset, and incorporate situational adaptability in our practice sphere.

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Revised Scholarship Eligibility Policy

The Board of APCDA has approved the following inclusion to the scholarship eligibility. Board Members of the associations for career professionals within our member countries are eligible to apply for the scholarships available to attend the Annual Conference. Recipients will be addressed as Scholars, which is same as other winners. This is effective immediately and applies to the 2023 conference and all future conferences.

Objective: This inclusion is intended to recognise the efforts of board members/office bearers of local volunteer associations in supporting society to improve career choice and job satisfaction. It assures that the people who are organizing local programs for professional development of career practitioners have the latest knowledge about our field and strengthens ties between APCDA and the grassroot level in member countries.

Application Process: The applicants should submit the regular application form.  Instead of a letter of recommendation, submit a letter from the association confirming your work with them.

Note: The deadline for receiving these applications will be extended until the openings are filled.

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Committee Council Report for November, 2022

Allan Gatenby (Australia), Committee Council Chair, and several committee co-chairs were not able to attend this Council meeting, but those that were present have been very active and productive.

Mr. Tuan Anh Le (Vietnam) has recently accepted the position of Co-chair of the Awards and Scholarships Committee in charge of Scholarships.  He started the process of enlisting the help of past scholars and recommenders to encourage new students to apply.  So far, this campaign has generated significant enthusiasm and postings on social media.  This year the number of scholarships will be limited to 30, less than half the number that were offered last year, but we are still hoping to have many countries represented.

Research Committee represented by the co-chairs, Dr. Poh Li Lau (Malaysia) & Dr. Shelley Tien (Taiwan), elaborated on the new research project entitled "Growing a career development professional community: A study on membership engagement indicators." Our President-Elect, Dr. Serene Lin-Stephens (Australia), is in-charge of this research project.  This research team met once and a literature search has been conducted.  Dr. Lin-Stephens has been transitioning to a new job in a new city but will soon be sharing this information with the project team.  This team welcomes anyone who would like to join. Email PElect@AsiaPacificCDA.org to join this research team.

Ms. Tam Nguyen (Co-chair, Canada) represented the News Committee and introduced the new Co-Chair, Ms. An Le (Vietnam). Both the co-chairs elaborated in the steps being taken to facilitate APCDA's 2023 goals on member engagement.  They are hoping to inspire more members to write articles, analyzing data available about who reads our news blog, and looking at ways to improve the design and content of the News Blog.

Ms. Natalie Kauffman (United States), co-chair of the Membership Committee, presented member statistics showing that our membership has been stable for the last quarter. The committee has six new members and has developed a new on-boarding process in which an on-going committee member onboards a new member of the committee.  They reported excellent results using this method.  The full committee meets monthly to review its goals and plan for upcoming new and prospective member services.

Dr. Elisabeth Montgomery (United States), co-chair of the Program Committee, informed us that the Podcast now has a new home.  Rather than producing a podcast related to our APCD Journal as Dr. Brian Hutchison has done for several years, the Podcast will now be a service of the Program Committee and will share voices from Industry with us. Ms. Ruchira Tripathi (Singapore) has taken over the production of the Podcast and will release her first episode in February. The Program Committee has planned exciting webinars up to the Conference and will now turn to selecting speakers for the second half of the year (beginning in June).   

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Area Council Summary, January 2023

By Arun Mittal

The first area council meeting for the year 2023 was conducted on January 4/5, 2023. The board has advised that henceforth the country council be referred as Area Council because our association has no relationship with country governments, but rather our representatives report on challenges and changes related to career development in a specific area.

Many of us have followed with interest the COVID experience in China. The East China report provides valuable insights into that issue. The South China report focuses on environmental issues which are also affecting China in crucial ways.

Demographics, Employability and the economic conditions were highlighted by members from areas such as Taiwan, East China, and Pakistan.

Skills and Career Development are the focus across most of our region and a priority in Azerbaijan, Australia, and Pakistan.

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Announcing the Location of 2024 APCDA Hybrid Conference

We are delighted to inform you that the 2024 annual conference will be held in India. India is an important member of APCDA, and we were very disappointed when the pandemic outbreak forced the 2020 Conference to be held virtually.

The 2024 annual conference will be held in Thiruvananthapuram (also known as Trivandrum), the capital city of Kerala, India's southernmost state. The city is well-known for its historical significance and higher education institutions. Like the 2023 conference, in 2024 we will also hold a hybrid conference.

Lifology, our host, has been an APCDA Organization Member since 2018 and, since 2021, has also been an Affiliate, which means they offer APCDA membership to their Lifologists (career practitioners who work with clients who have used the Lifology software). Mr. Rahul Nair, Lifology’s Director of Technology and Academics, has been our South India Representative since 2021 and actively participates in many of our initiatives.

The theme in 2024 will be Reinvention 4.0.  Following the same format as the 2023 Conference in Kazakhstan, we will hold one week of presentations virtually (which allows those who desire to present to do so without the expense of travel) and we will hold a second week of plenary sessions (available both in-person and virtually). In 2024, we will try a different order of events.  We will offer the presentations first on April 15, 17, and 19, followed by the in-person from April 24-27, 2024.

Because Eid is a major festival in April 2024, the dates were carefully chosen after Eid to ensure that all of our members can attend the conference.

We hope to see you in Astana, Kazakhstan, during our upcoming 2023 Hybrid Conference on May 16-26, 2023.

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APCDA Webinar Feedback

By Arun Mittal

APCDA provides regular training programs for its members as a member benefit. These are delivered virtually in the form of webinars. In this article, we share some of our observations based on attendee feedback.

The purpose of this article is to provide an unbiased view of attendees' enthusiasm for webinars as a source of self-enrichment and development.

General Enthusiasm for the Webinars.

With a median of 39 registrations (minimum of 26, maximum of 126), there was plenty of opportunity for members to benefit from the webinars being held. The live sessions were attended by approximately half of those who register, and this proportion is the same for both free and paid webinars. Given the variety of time zones in which our members live, it is understandable that many prefer to listen to the recorded sessions.

Motivation & Purpose

Attendees were asked about their familiarity with the topics covered before the sessions. On a scale of 4= Expert to 1= Unfamiliar, the average response was 2.3. This average falls just below the midpoint between slightly and very familiar.

Two of the Free webinars (“Using Holland Typology to Quickly Assess Career Personality” and “Dealing with Trauma in Career Conversations”) tied for the highest registration at 126, while the webinar “Design Thinking Principles for Career Development Learnings” received the highest registration for a Paid webinar at 63.

The webinar on “Emerging e-Sports: Gaming, Media and Content Careers,” had a low rating of 1.4 on Prior Knowledge, indicating that members had little familiarity with the topic.  There were 26 registrations and over 80% attended the live session. The webinar registration for this session was one of the lowest, but it had the highest attendance of any webinar held this year and was one of the top five paid webinars in terms of fees collected.

Most of our webinar topics were familiar to members. It is reasonable to assume that the majority of members use these webinars to reskill and keep up to date. Furthermore, based on registration and attendance, member enthusiasm for paid and free webinars appears to be similar. The primary difference in attendance appears to be based on the topic.

The summer survey is a very useful and important tool for the Program Committee in identifying members' interests. It is also critical for members to participate in the survey so that our webinars continue to be relevant to them.

Money-Value Proposition

We asked attendees to rate the webinars on Content, which included relevance, accuracy, and utility The average rating for Content is 4.6. This falls between Very Good and Excellent. The lowest content rating for any webinar was 4.2.

We also asked attendees to rate webinars on Clarity, which included engagement and ease of understanding. The average rating for Clarity is 4.4, and the median is 4.2. This is also between Very Good and Excellent. The lowest content rating for was 4.0.

It is very safe to conclude from the data above that members are very satisfied with webinars as a training source, and the choice of speakers, topics, and their delivery is well appreciated.

Closing Note

As a people-centric organization, APCDA appears to be doing well in terms of helping members to update their skills and providing opportunities for its members to learn and grow. It is also worth noting that there is plenty of room for more members to benefit from such opportunities.

We'd also like to thank the Program Committee and the staff members for all of their hard work and initiative in making these webinars happen.

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APCDA President Momoko Asaka Speaks at ICCN Conference

By Momoko Asaka

I was invited by Indonesia Career Center Network (ICCN), which partnered with APCDA last year, to participate in the ICCN Summit 2022 on October 14. The ICCN is an organization formed in 2016 to strengthen the role of centers in various higher education institutions to enhance the quality of human resources in Indonesia, as well as to improve and develop the quality of their services. The theme of this year's summit was "Leverage Employability of Indonesia's Graduates" and I delivered a keynote speech on "Leveraging Indonesia's Competitiveness Through Stakeholders Collaboration" with an introduction to APCDA. I am happy to hear that it was well received by the 110 audience.

The word "stakeholder" appears in the theme of the keynote has a broad interpretation, but I believe that we, the APCDA, can be considered a stakeholder as well. In Japan, where I live, the birthrate is declining and the population is aging at a rate unparalleled in the world, while Indonesia's population is expected to grow further in the future, and economic growth is expected to be driven by an abundant labor force and vigorous consumption. One of the challenges facing Indonesia is to improve the unemployment rate among young people. Needless to say, it is necessary to enhance employment support for students as one of the measures to address this issue, and the need for ICCN, which is working to build a network among career centers, is expected to increase in the future.

And although this is not limited to Indonesia, it will be necessary for companies and organizations to promote the use of diverse human resources and accept diverse values and work styles. APCDA members, mainly based in the Asia-Pacific region, who are connected through common social issues such as diversity, will share their efforts in their respective countries. We hope that each person's views will expand from such connections and that the need for APCDA as an organization will also grow.

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APCDA Conference and Continuing Education Hours

Each year APCDA provides certificates to attendees who request them, to certify the number of hours of presentations that the attendee watched.  Many credentialing agencies require participation in professional development each year, so these certificates are used to maintain credentials in many different countries and reflect the number of hours that our attendees spend at our conference, either when it was live or watching recorded presentations.

The 2022 APCDA/IAEVG Conference offered 30 Hours of live content over a period of 5 days (plus two optional events totally 6 additional hours).  Of course, those who watched recorded presentations could also learn from events that happened simultaneously, so it was possible to participation is more than 40 hours of content.

In the table above the data from the certificates has been grouped by the number of hours spent participating in or watching conference content. The blue bars represent the number of regular attendees and orange bars represent the number of scholars.  While the most common number of hours of participation is less than ten, a couple of our scholars attended or watched over 30 hours of conference content.  The highest number of hours was achieved by Nina Garcia, a scholar from the Philippines, who participated in more than 34 hours of content. While less than 10% of our attendees, regular or scholars, asked for certification of their participation, we are encouraged to see that our scholars are making excellent use of our conference content and we applaud Ms. Nina Garcia making such excellent use of this opportunity. 

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APCDA President’s Message

By Momoko Asaka

I encourage our members to find out what each of us can do to contribute to APCDA.

This October marks the start of a new term for APCDA. I am pleased to begin this year as President. I will contribute my best effort for further development of APCDA which has been created by the past presidents, officers, board members, committee members, and administrative staff.

As stated on the APCDA website, the mission of this organization is

1. to promote cooperation among career practitioners throughout the Asia-Pacific region
2. to inspire existing and potential career practitioners to deliver exemplary, effective services
3. to promote research in the field of career development
4. to advocate for exemplary workforce policies and practices that foster inclusion and access to decent work for all

Based on these missions, I would like to reiterate the "Goal Statement" that I stated when I ran for President.

• Increase the number of activities that bring together more APCDA members who are scholars and practitioners from different cultures and backgrounds
• Revitalize our committee activities
• Plan and hold high-quality and valuable webinars as an opportunity to make more people aware of this wonderful community, APCDA

Achieving what is in this statement will bring many people to APCDA events and conferences with a variety of opinions and ideas. Also, enhanced content of webinars will help APCDA increase its membership and, in turn, its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Most recently, Dr. Savickas will be hosting a "Career Construction Counseling: A Case Conference" event on November 17/18. Please find time to actively participate and share your impressions in many venues.

There are many possible actions for the development of APCDA, but these need to be prioritized and addressed. In particular, increasing member engagement and the value of APCDA and the membership itself are positioned as mid- to long-term goals of APCDA. To this end, we would very much appreciate your active input.

Under the coronavirus pandemic, the annual conferences were held online in 2020, 2021, and 2022. The next conference in 2023 will be a hybrid of online and on-site in Kazakhstan with the theme "New Look at Careers in a Rapidly Changing World". We hope to have a chance to interact locally for the first time in many years.

I believe that each person's power may be small, but when combined, they can become a great power. I hope that we can share our wisdom together and contribute what we can.

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