Association News

Country/Area Council Summary for Nov, 2019

The November meeting of the Country/Area Council included reports from many countries.  Please view our video recording of the meeting here: https://youtu.be/N--d8g_qjpc  

Below is a summary of the written reports submitted.

Australia has joined JobKred from Singapore in using Big Data to help job seekers.  They also inviting us to their conference in Canberra in September.

Azerbaijan: ADA University teams with UK to improve graduate employability and create entrepreneurship hubs.

Cambodia partners with Young Entrepreneur Association of Cambodia and builds a career coaching center.

Canada continues building a Career Development Practitioners Competency Framework to identify the standards and guidelines for competency in our field.

China: Macau is working on a career development curriculum for middle school students and attempting to clarify college entrance requirements for their students now that China has diversified its requirements.

China: South China is working on a career planning curriculum for primary schools and created a database of parent occupations for use in job shadowing.

Korea reports that the second Thursday in November is Soo-Neung (national university entrance exam) and the attention of the nation is focused on getting students to the testing places.  This year, around 540,000 students took the national university entrance exam.

Malaysia: The University of Malaysia just completed a program encouraging STEM (Science, Technology, Engineer, and Math) occupations.

New Zealand, like Canada, has developed Professional Standards and is surveying the needs of members for professional development.  They are also advocating for increased government funding for career development.

Singapore: The People and Career Development Association is partnering with Workforce Singapore (a government agency) for funding of professional development programs and reminds us that APCDA will be in Singapore in 2021.

Taiwan has convened an international Youth Trends Forum to examine changes impacting youth, as well as several other projects.

USA: Our representative Dr. Rich Feller asks how much credentials tell us about competency in career professionals and whether clients actually use credentials when searching for assistance?

Requesting Assistance with Financial Review

APCDA’s new Bylaws, which were adopted in July 2019, established a Finance Council and charged it with conducting an Internal Audit each year.  This means we need members with experience in managing a budget to review the way APCDA spent its money in the past fiscal year and to see if there are any concerns or suggestions for improvement.  In order to assure that all parts of our service region are represented in the financial management process for APCDA, we are specifically looking for non-US citizens for this voluntary service.

Each year we will form a Finance Taskforce to review a yearly detailed Profit and Loss Statement for the previous fiscal year.  The Finance Taskforce will also be provided with budgeted comparative information for the previous two years.

Current officers are not eligible to conduct an internal audit. 

Please volunteer or nominate a person you believe has financial experience.  We need a Taskforce of about 3 people.  This process must be completed by the conference in March, and we would prefer to complete it in January, if possible.  It is a great opportunity to learn how APCDA manages its finances for those who are considering leadership in APCDA. Send nominations to Info@AsiaPacificCDA.org.

Free Member Mentoring Webinar Series

Do you have any questions you would like to ask an expert in Career Development?  APCDA has members with experience in every aspect of Career Planning, Development, and Management.  Please send us your questions.

We will group the questions into general topics and ask our members to let us know if they have experience in the topics identified.  Then we will set up a Question-and-Answer Webinar for each of the general topics.  Those with questions can ask a panel of members with experience.  This new series is FREE to APCDA members. 

In order to kick off this new series of webinars, we have chosen a topic that we hear a lot:  How can I organize a local Career Development Association?  This free webinar will be held on January 21/22 and will cover any question you want to ask about the best way to start or energize a local Career Development Association.  Many local chapters struggle.  Some are struggling to start and others are struggling to start over.  When an experienced leader moves away or gets tired, things can fall apart quickly.  Join this lively discussion if you have either questions or suggestions, or both.

Click here to register. (It is free.)

Please contact us at Info@AsiaPacificCDA.org if you have experience and would like to be a panelist.