Association News

APCDA Partnering with IAEVG for 2022 Hybrid Conference

The APCDA 2022 Conference just doubled in content and value - twice the number of presentations and keynotes for the same price!

The International Association of Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) has a 70-year history of working internationally to stimulate career development practices and services.  It provides global leadership in and advocates for guidance by promoting ethical, socially just, and best practices throughout the world so that career, educational and vocational guidance and counselling is available to all citizens from competent and qualified practitioners.  Sharing an interest in Asia and Singapore, they are happy to join our APCDA conference and add their own expertise.  We are excited to add their events to ours without changing the cost for our attendees. 

During the week of May 16-20, which is entirely virtual and devoted to presentations by members of either association, all proposals will be collected by APCDA.  The Research Sessions and Posters will be sent to the IAEVG Scientific Committee for selection.  The Practice and Skill-Builder sessions will be sent to the APCDA Selection Committee. We will have an equal number of time slots for each of these sets of proposals.  Posters will be displayed in the “Exhibitors” area for the full conference. 

During the week of May 23-27, APCDA will be primarily responsible for events scheduled between 9 am and 1 pm Singapore Time, and IAEVG will be primarily responsible for the events scheduled between 2 and 6 pm.  For those who are attending virtually, this makes sense because people in the Americas are more likely to be awake during Singapore’s morning hours and people in Europe are more likely to be awake during Singapore’s afternoons.  People living in Asia or the Pacific should be awake for both.

Right now, IAEVG is focused on its upcoming conference in Riga, Latvia (which will be totally virtual) on October 19-21.  After that conference, they will have time to develop their part of the schedule for the May conference.  Announcements of keynoters and other events in their part of the conference will be coming soon.

Please remember that all APCDA members are also members of IAEVG.  We invite you to read the newest IAEVG newsletter.

President’s Message

by Satomi Yaji Chudasama

As we embark on the new year for APCDA, I am honored to serve you as President along with the new leadership team. Before thinking ahead, I would like to first thank Sing Chee Wong who will serve APCDA as Past-President and outgoing Past-President Woongtae Kim as well as the entire leadership team from the past year for their outstanding leadership and contributions to APCDA. Some of those examples include: 

APCDA hosted a successful virtual conference in 2021. The most highly rated 2021 presentations are now available free to members on the APCA website. The 2022 conference planning team has been working hard to prepare for a hybrid conference. 

The Program Committee coordinated two quality webinars each month: one free to members and one for a small fee. This effort will continue in the coming year.

APCDA has developed useful tools for the Asia Pacific region, such as the Ethical Guidelines, Competencies for Career Services, and Glossary of Career Development terms which is available in several languages on our website.  This coming year, we will be working on about 60 new glossary terms. 

We continue to gather information about career development in the Asia Pacific region and facilitate communication and cooperation among member countries.

All of these are a sample of hard work from the leadership team and committee members as well as idea contributions from APCDA members. We all come together to make APCDA an amazing, international organization that has earned a 4-star approval rating from our members. As we look ahead this coming year, I invite you to share your ideas and interests with us and get involved! APCDA offers a number of professional development opportunities. And one of them is to become part of various committees. This is a great way to not only reflect your ideas and contribute to the organization but also get to know other APCDA members on a different level. As you can see in the new Local Organization Educational Program (LOEP) Accreditation Project as an example, APCDA continues to grow and make stronger impacts in the region (and beyond), you can be part of the movement! 

Alongside the stellar staff of APCDA (Executive Director Gulnur Isparova, Financial Administrator Marilyn Maze, and General Administrator Emily Lizada), I am fortunate to have a strong leadership team including our Past President Sing Chee Wong (Singapore), President-Elect Momoko Asaka (Japan), Secretary Dr. Jose Domene (Canada), Treasurer Dr. Constance Pritchard (USA), Committee Leaders and Country/Area Representatives. I look forward to a great year with all of you!

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Leadership Changes: New Country/Area Representatives

We are very exciting to welcome several new leaders to our Country/Area Council.  We are grateful to these talented leaders who have accepted leadership roles on our Country/Area Council to help us keep in touch with our member countries. 

Our new Cambodia Representative, Ms. Somaly Leap, is a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and Performance Management Coach and professor at National University of Management (NUM), Phnom Penh.

Our new East China Representative, Dr. Brian Schwartz, is the founder of Suzhou Success Partners Consulting Company and has developed online tools to assess career fit and talent management strategies for individuals and organizations.

Our new Macau Representative, Ms. Jacinta Ho is the Founder and Managing Director of JC Human Resources Consulting and Vice President of the Association of Macau Philippines Employment Agencies.  

Our new North India Representative. Mr. Arun Mittal founded established the National Program on Career Awareness (NPOCA), a social initiative to encourage career education in Indian schools. NPOCA impacts over 600 schools and 30,000 Indian students.

Our new Malaysia Representative, Mr. Baktiar Hasnan is President of the National Career Development Centre Association (NACDA Malaysia) and a Career Advisor at Multimedia University (MMU) Career Connect in Malaysia.  He connects APCDA to NACDA and we excited about the growth and energy for this new career development association in Malaysia.

Our new Nepal Representative, Mr. Mohit Jain is the  Founder of Discover Within and is an International Certified Career Coach. We are grateful that this 2019 Scholarship recipient has continued his involvement with APCDA and is now share his leadership skills with us. 

Our new USA Representative, Ms. Jenn Leard, is a certified Counselor and Coach at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School and a Consultant with Rich Feller & Associates.

We welcome all of these new leaders and look forward to their reports, which will be posted on our Country/Area Information pages.  Bios and photos of these talented leaders and be found on our Leadership page.  Please help us to welcome them to APCDA!

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Leadership Changes at APCDA

New Officers and New Committee Co-Chairs

We are about to being a new Fiscal Year, and that means a lot of new faces.  Most positions in APCDA Leadership have two-year terms.  Those holding these positions are encouraged to renew once, so they have a limit of 4 years.  Although we love our old friends and do not want to lose touch with them, we want to widen our circle of friends and continuously make space for new friends.  This time of year feels like Spring, with many new faces and a fresh sense of hope and enthusiasm. 

Of course, we have a new President. Ms. Satomi Chudasama (USA) steps into the role of President on October 1.  Ms. Chudasama is one of the founders of APCDA and held the role of Treasurer in our 2012 Articles of Incorporation.  She has served in many roles over the years while balancing her work as a Career Counselor at Princeton University in New Jersey, USA.  We are excited to have a president who knows APCDA so well and has nurtured APCDA since it was born.  Ms. Sing Chee Wong (Singapore) moves into the role of Past President and will serve as our Host for the 2022 Hybrid Conference in Singapore in May. 

Ms. Momoko Asaka (Japan) will transition from Secretary to President-Elect and will help plan the 2023 Conference.  We will say goodbye to Dr. Woongtae Kim (Korea) who has been a strong President and provided very valuable service in many roles, especially in the presidential roles for the past 3 years. 

Filling the role of Secretary will be Dr. Jose Domene (Canada) who previously served in a variety of positions such as Membership Chair and Treasurer.  We are happy to again have his wise voice among the Officers, who control the Budget and Personnel.  At the most recent Officers Meeting, he contributed to the passing of a Budget for the new Fiscal Year and approving a new staff person for APCDA.

Continuing as an Officer is our Treasurer, Dr. Constance Pritchard (USA).  She completed one 2-year term and agreed to continue for a second term. 

Committees are asked to have 2 Co-Chairs.  This means that our busy volunteers have a person who can fill-in when work or home concerns suddenly demand all of their time.  A co-chair also provides continuity when a committee chair steps down.  Now that most committees have co-chairs, these co-chairs are listed on the Leadership page.  Note that emails sent to a committee will be received by both co-chairs.  This makes it less likely that your concerns will not be overlooked on a heavy-email day or lost in a junk folder.

The Membership Committee recently changed both Co-Chairs.  Mr. Kunimitsu Kuki (Japan) brings many years of experience in marketing management to his role as Co-Chair.  Ms. Natalie Kauffman (USA), our former Newsletter Editor, is the other Membership Co-Chair, bringing years of experience working with APCDA.  Both are committed to continuing the great work of the Membership Committee and look for new ways to grow APCDA.

Our Past President, Ms. Carla Siojo (Philippines) is moving from committee member to News Committee Co-Chair, along with Dr. Catherine Hughes who has serve for one year as Co-Chair of the News Committee.  Ms. Siojo has been instrumental in encouraging our members and friends to write articles.  We are delighted that she is continuing to build the News team through her relationships and knowledge of our needs.

The Research Committee welcomed Dr. Poh Li Lau (Malaysia) as Co-Chair last year, working with Dr. His-Lan (Shelley) Tien (Taiwan).  We are grateful that both Co-Chairs are now working on the Special Edition of the APCD Journal which will focus on Chaos Theory and its applications during these turbulent times.

Please visit our Leadership page to learn more about all of our leaders.

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Summary of the 2021 Member/Friend Survey

By Dr. Marilyn Maze

We are grateful to all who responded, which included 106 Members and 151 Friends.  Your preferences will guide us in the year to come. THANK YOU.

The largest number of responses came from ASEAN Countries, East Asia, North America, South Asia, and the Pacific (in that order).  There is a significant change in the most popular work settings.  Higher Education (University, College, and Technical Schools) has dropped to less than one half of the responses (previously two thirds), with Private Practice next, followed by Government/Non-profit Agencies.  Less than 10% of the respondents work in elementary and secondary Schools.

We are in the process of planning the 2022 APCDA Conference, which will be Hybrid (both in-person and virtual).  We received some great ideas for innovative techniques to offer in 2022.  At the 2021 conference, the software told us that few attendees used the networking options.  On the survey members reported using networking options more than Friends in 2021. The most popular features were the Event Feed, Lounge, and Chat.  It looks like we need to keep those features, add discussion groups facilitated but APCDA Leaders, and improve the Chat function by using a cell phone App so messages do not get lost in email junk/spam folders.  We also plan to work on better explaining how to use the conference software.  In 2022, members are more likely to attend in person, and friends are more likely to attend virtually.

We were delighted that over 60% of the respondents said it was OK to send Event Announcements as a separate email.  You should have already received at least one of those. We apologize to those who wanted fewer emails. 

Preferred meeting times are quite diverse.  Using the demographic regions, we can see a dramatic variety of preferences. All regions want to avoid Mondays.  Some regions totally avoided Saturday while others preferred Saturday.  Overall, Thursday was the favorite, with Wednesday also strong.  When choosing topics for webinars, Workforce Trends was the favorite, with “hot topics” second.  It looks like we will continue to look for “hot topics” for paid webinars and skills enhancement for the Member Mentoring Workshops.  We are always looking for speakers on Workforce Trends, but have often been disappointed by the response to these webinars.  We received many suggestions for specific topics and speakers, which we hope to use in the near future.

We learned that our audience seldom listens to podcasts, but we got some great ideas for topics. For the News Blog, the most popular frequency for reading it was “Occasionally,” with members tending to read it more often than friends.  We learned that tips and techniques from our members are the most popular kind of article.  Calling all members – please share your ideas by submitting articles to the news blog.

Overall, our members gave us four stars.  Thank you! Many volunteered for committees.  We want to give a big THANK YOU to those serving on committees.  Committees move the association forward, as well as helping each of us to get to know each other better.  APCDA is all about you, and can’t be great without you!

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Country Council Report, August 2021

By Hector Lin

At this meeting, most of our country representatives again talked about COVID and most reported a new wave of COVID cases.  It seems that our region is being severely impacted again and those countries who were spared in the past are now experiencing a surge of cases.  Progress is being made on vaccinations throughout our region. 

Australia reminded us of the Nowcast of Employment by Region and Occupation (NERO) which is a website that offers information about employment by region and by occupation within Australia.  This sounds like a useful tool for anyone interested in emigrating to Australia.

Cambodia reported on training events for Young Women Entrepreneurs as well as coaching skills.

Canada is proud to announce the brand-new National Competency Profile for Career Development Professionals The Framework has been 3 years in the making, and replaces the previous CPD Standards and Guidelines (2004).

Japan reported that the large group of Japanese who attended the 2021 APCDA Conference and enjoyed it.  The Japan Career Development Association plans to hold its conference in October.

Kazakhstan reported on efforts to improve the mismatch between skills and jobs by implementing an Atlas of Emerging Jobs. Many colleges and universities in Kazakhstan have implemented new programs as a result.

Nepal is the newest country to be represented on our Country Council.  Nepal reported on the state of career counseling in Nepal, and the challenges and hopes for improvement in the future.

New Zealand reported on exciting accomplishments and future plans for CDANZ (Career Development Association of New Zealand).

The Philippines reported on opportunities for career practitioners to help people make better use of online learning and work-from-home processes which the current pandemic surge has forced them to continue using.

Singapore reported that People & Career Development Association (PCDA) is offering training in Career Construction and webinars on “The Talent Revolution,” Conversation Matters, and Manpower in Singapore.

The report from South China includes an informative discussion of the stresses Chinese college students experience when studying in the USA.  Focusing on the cultural issues experienced by this one large group of students may also be helpful to those from other countries because the issues identified may help others identify similar though different issues.

Taiwan reports on coping with the pandemic by providing training programs in the skills needed for online learning and working.  The Taiwan Guidance and Counseling Association will hold its annual conference in October.

Vietnam reported on its cooperation with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to research the state of occupations in Vietnam.  It has also developed and is developing competency frameworks for various aspects of career development.  And it is offering a free online course for high school students in career planning.

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Committee Council Report for July, 2021

By Allan Gatenby

The Awards and Scholarships Committee is eager to raise the visibility of these two efforts.  They have since met with the Country Council to ask that each country nominate at least one applicant for a scholarship.  They are also looking for ways to stimulate interest in nominating professionals for the awards.

The Ethics & Standards Committee was happy to offer webinars on ethical dilemmas in the first part of this year and to have released a new version of the Glossary.  The next project this committee has been working on is to develop an accreditation process for local organizations which offer educational programs in our field.  As an international association with 22 member countries which speak a variety of languages and provide training in different ways to address local issues, it is difficult for us to develop standards that work for every member country.  But it is possible for a team of our members to review an educational program and see if it includes the competencies we believe should be covered in that setting and has sufficient controls on quality.  The new project is beginning the process of reviewing an educational program offered by the first local association that applied for accreditation.

The APCD Journal is looking forward to a September issue which will contain 3 articles and editor’s notes. They are also planning a special issue on the use of Chaos Theory in Career Development.  Dr. Poh Li Lau will be the guest editor of this special issue and will soon be putting out a call for papers.

The Membership Committee reported that we now have 291 active members.  This is a slight decrease since April, but this may reflect seasonal variations and the lack of an in-person conference this year.  The Membership Committee is considering ways to reverse this trend.  The Membership Committee has consistently hosted New Member Orientation and Potential Member Meetups in alternating months.  It has also provided Member Recognition articles consistently. One of the Co-Chairs, Dr. José Domene of Canada, is stepping down as Co-Chair to take the position of APCDA Secretary on October 1, so he has been replaced by Mr. Kunimitsu Kuki of Japan.  The other Co-Chair is Ms. Soonhoon Ahn of the USA.  Committee members include Ms. Urja Acharya (Nepal), Ms. Jennifer Nguyen (Vietnam), Ms. Natalie Kauffman (USA), and Dr. Lisa Raufman (USA).

The Public Relations Committee has continued to encourage its members to support other committees by promoting webinars, the nominations process; and news blogs on Social Media.

The Research Committee planned and held a recent webinar on Researching Career Development Issues and is collaborating with the Journal to encourage those who presented research at the 2021 APCDA Conference to submit to the Journal for publication.

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Congratulations to Our New Officers!

We are very happy to announce the newly-elected Officers. Starting on October 1, our new President-Elect will be Ms. Momoko Asaka, who has been our Secretary for the past four years.  Taking her place as Secretary will be Dr. José Domene who formerly served as our Treasurer, so we are looking forward to welcoming him back as an Officer.  President-Elect is a one-year term and Ms. Asaka automatically becomes President in 2022, then Past President in 2023. Secretary is a two-year term, with the option to renew for a second term (maximum total of 4 years).

President-Elect:  Ms. Momoko Asaka, CEO, Veriteworks, Japan

Momoko Asaka, CEO of Veriteworks and Secretary of APCDA, graduated in Arts in Library and Information Science from Keio University, Japan. JCDA Certified Career Development Adviser, JPA Certified Psychologist, Mental Health Legal Advisor, Health and Productivity Management Advisor. Started an independent business after working as a medical corporation staff, HR staff of a large company, an HR director of a private IT company. Incorporated as Veriteworks in 2014. Utilizing 20 years of experience in the counseling field, provide career and mental-health counseling for corporate clients, seminars, article writing, book publishing, and media appearances. She has participated in all the conferences since 2013 and presented four times. She has served on the board member since 2016 (Japan Country Director, Secretary, and News Committee Co-chair). Through the years, she felt that APCDA is a great concept that has grown into a vibrant organization for career specialists. It’s brought a friendly atmosphere to all the members, even first-time participants. Carrying this strength forward, APCDA must continue to be flexible in uncharted situations and continue to face new challenges to build the organization. 

Goals:

As President-Elect, I will increase the number of activities in order to attract more members, both academics and practitioners, from different cultures and backgrounds. These new people will bring new opinions and ideas to the organization. I will work on vitalizing the committee activities. I will plan and organize high-quality webinars to enhance the value of APCDA and increase awareness of this outstanding community. Great webinars will increase the number of APCDA members and lead this organization to have more influence in the Asia Pacific region. 

As CEO of my company, I created a business entity from scratch and I have been developing the company. In my company, people from Nepal, China, the Philippines, and Bangladesh work together. I’ve known and experienced how better a community with diversity works and communicates with each other. In this sense, I’m confident in myself to contribute to APCDA’s global community. 

Secretary:  Dr. José Domene, Professor, Counselling Psychology Program, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada

Dr José F Domene lives in Canada, and has a Mexican and Chinese cultural heritage. He is a Professor in the counselling psychology program within the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. He has nearly twenty years of experience teaching students to become counsellors and psychologists, focusing on courses such as career development/counselling, professional ethics, and research methods. José is also a Registered Psychologist in the province of Alberta. His counselling work includes a focus on the intersection of career-life and mental health concerns.

José is an active researcher whose primary focus is on exploring the relational contexts of career development, particularly for young people from marginalized populations. Over his career, he has published over 50 scholarly journal articles and presented over 180 papers, sessions and posters at conferences, including regularly presenting at conferences of the Asia Pacific Career Development Association.

José is a lifetime member of the Asia Pacific Career Development Association, and over the past six years has served in numerous leadership roles within our organization, including: Country Director (Canada); Treasurer; Associate Editor of the Asia Pacific Career Development Journal; Board Member; and Co-Chair of the Membership Committee.

Goals:

Ever since I became involved with the APCDA in 2015, I have found our organization to be among the most welcoming of professional associations that I have known. In the few years that I have been involved, I have seen our association grow in both size and diversity, taking on new projects to advance career development and career practice in the region. During this time, I have enjoyed interacting with colleagues from all around the Asia-Pacific and have a genuine desire to continue serving the association as it pursues its mission.

In October, the new team of Officers will be:

• Ms. Satomi Chudasama, President (USA)
• Ms. Momoko Asaka, President-Elect (Japan)
• Ms. Sing Chee Wong, Pas President (Singapore)
• Dr. Constance Pritchard, Treasurer (USA)
• Dr. José Domene, Secretary (Canada)

We also want to thank the other excellent candidates.  We believe it is very important for our members to have a choice of leadership and we are grateful to these candidates for making this choice possible.  We hope you will run again.

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What Did We Learn from the 2021 APCDA Conference?

By Dr. Marilyn Maze

The 2021 APCDA Conference was our first planned virtual conference and we eagerly reviewed the evaluation data and data supplied by Hubilo (our conference software platform) and Google Analytics to learn how our members and friends experienced this event.

There are many imperfections in these data.  For example, Hubilo tells us that 156 people clicked on the Join button for the brief Opening Remarks and 85 people clicked on the Join button for Dr. Savickas’ Keynote on May 25.  Since most of the people who came to the Opening stayed for the Keynote, should we add the 156 to the 85 to get 241 attendees? Also, on our evaluation form, we failed to ask the basic marketing question: “How would you rate the conference overall?”  So, we have no overall measure of satisfaction with the conference.  This is a summary of what we think we can conclude based the data available.

The keynote by Dr. Mark Savickas was well attended and the recording was played far more than any other recorded session.  While the ratings for all of our keynote speakers were highly rated with only tiny differences between them, the Savickas Professional Development Institute (a 3-hour session) was the most highly rated event at the conference.  On the Open-Ended question asking for the “most valuable aspect of the conference,” the 3rd most common response was “Savickas” and the 4th was “Amundson/Fruhling.”  We believe this means that our keynote speakers and their longer Professional Development Institutes where well appreciated.  We also believe we should ask Dr. Mark Savickas to provide a follow-up 3-hour virtual webinar.

Networking was the most highly rated reason for attending the conference and was the 2nd most valuable outcome of the conference, but several people wanted networking to be easier.  This challenges us to understand what would make networking easier. According to Hubilo, the information about Attendees and Speakers was well used, with 1826 Attendee Profile Views and 1434 Speaker Profile Views. 1133 Messages were sent, with 51 requests to meet.  Only 3 meetings resulted. Clearly, the “Meet” function did not serve us well, likely because of the many different time zones.  Some people who sent other attendees messages complained about the low response rate.  I found emails to me from the conference website in my Junk folder after the conference, when I had time to look, and I am guessing several others had a similar experience. Although every one of the 48 presentations ended with the words “the presenter(s) will now move to the Lounge and we invite attendees to join them there,” and there were also Sponsor tables, Work Setting tables, and Open tables available, the Lounge was used for only 79 meetings and involved 110 participants.  In the cases where there were two or more presenters for the same session, the presenters were counted as a meeting.  Several presenters told us that they did not have attendees join them in the Lounge.  The less-than-expected usage of the Lounge causes us to wonder If we need that feature next year?

Hubilo provides an “Interaction” score for each attendee, which increased with every action an attendee took, such as attending a session (10 points), reading someone’s profile (3 points), etc.  The most common interaction score was 8 (did not attend any sessions?) and the median interaction score was 23 (e.g. attending 2 sessions and reading one profile?).  This tells us that over half of the people who registered attended at most 2 sessions and made very little use of the other features offered by the conference platform. While the Interaction Score does not tell us which features attendees used, it appears that of the 342 registered for the conference, perhaps 70 engaged in the multitude of features offered by the conference platform (Contests, Event Feed, Sponsors, Lounge, Meet, etc.).

According to Google Analytics, we had almost 8000 visitors to our website in April, May and June.  Of those 8000, 86% were “new visitors” and the biggest number visited in May.  We conclude that having a conference is a very effective form of building market awareness of our association.

We plan to hold our 2022 conference in Singapore, if possible, and hold an in-person conference with a virtual option.  We are intensely studying the available data to understand which features our virtual attendees need and use.  We are committed to recording as many presentations as possible so both in-person attendees and virtual attendees can learn equally well from the presentations.  While it is likely that the in-person attendees will enjoy convenient networking and sightseeing, we hope to provide a meaningful experience to our virtual attendees as well and include as much networking as possible.  We hope our next conference will take the options available virtually to a higher level, while also meeting the needs of the in-person attendees.

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APCDA Conference Wrap-up

By Allan Gatenby, Committee Council Chair

The 2021 APCDA Conference, Walking on Uncharted Career Paths, was a real success.  Attendees said:

• remarkable event!
• great conference experience!!!
• the most fun, diverse community in the world!
• great energy and synergy
• best online conference I have attended.

Like baking a great sponge cake, you need to start with the highest quality ingredients.  This conference included a tremendous amount of planning and care in construction.  The organizing committee and leadership gathered the best ingredients.  The keynote speakers and presenters gave us inspiring presentations on a wide variety of topics that we will now have a month to savor.  The special events such as the contests, committee and country meetings, and product presentations by sponsors added to the special flavor.  The participants brought their energy and eagerness to learn.  The sponsors contributed their support and gave us new insights into products in our field.  These ingredients were mixed with love and baked at the optimal temperature and time providing a unique experience.  And it has been consumed with gratitude.

What did we learn at the conference?  We focused on the changing nature of our practice. We learned to focus on meaning not matching and to listening for the story.  We learned to appreciate liminal space and encourage clients to accept the sense of being “between” without panicking and allowing clarity and destiny to emerge.  We learned to think of career planning as a hero’s journey, to appreciate the seasonality of life, and to seek talent from within.  Through diversity we have a greater opportunity to find resolution.  Our connectedness to our community adds value to all that we do. It is now our responsibility to absorb the messages of this conference and let them shape what we do.

Looking toward the future, we need to maintain the connections and continue to explore the new learnings.  Please share your stories through the APCD Journal and the APCD Newsletter.  Let the new order and destiny emerge in our work and individually and collectively soar like an eagle.  In Singapore in 2022, let’s celebrate further greatness.

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APCDA Conference Contest Winners

46%	Singapore
6% to 11%	Japan, USA. Australia, Vietnam
2% to 5%	Canada, India. China, South Korea, Philippines
1% or less	Malaysia, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Netherlands, South Africa, Turkey, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Italy, Macau, New Zealand, Pakistan, Qatar

We had 342 registered attendees, a new record for APCDA.  The table shows the percentage of attendees from each of the countries represented at the conference.  You can see that we are a diverse group, spread across many cultures and time zones.  About one fourth of the registered attendees have not yet visited the conference website, so they may be planning to watch the recorded sessions on their own schedule.

Contests are new to us.  We added seven contests to facilitated networking in an online environment and build a sense of community.  Many who engaged in the contests felt that we succeeded in building a sense of community.

Leaderboard Rahul Nair Svetlana Eghterafi Danita Redd	The Leaderboard is a built-in feature for a virtual conference because the software tracks the actions of attendees while on the website. We were allowed to assign points to those actions.  Points were awarded for posting on the event feed, attending sessions, reading profiles of attendees, sending Chat or Meeting requests, visiting sponsor booths, and participating in contests. Anyone who logged into the Conference Website earned some points. Check your points on the Reception page where the Leaderboard is displayed.  The number of points earned by each attendee ranges from 8 to 9057.  The median of 42 points. The top 3 point earners were awarded prizes, but we hope their biggest prize is in the relationships they created.
Virtual Tour Contest Kazuyo Ikeda Hector Lin Rahul Nair  Tuan Anh Le	Virtual Tours were created by dedicated members to give us insights into places we might visit.  Only 37 people voted, and your preferences may differ.  Please watch all of the 9 virtual tours (each is only 3 minutes) and consider which places you would most enjoy visiting in the future.
Favorite Music Contest Yoshichika Iida Kunimitsu Kuki Hilary Flanagan Mohamed Faizal	Favorite Music selections were submitted by members, and we attempted to play them at the end of the first 2 days.  But the first day we had technical difficulties, so only the second set were played for all to hear.  Favorites were “Gentle Lies” by Yasashii Uso, “Just the Way You Are" by Billy Joel, "Hope" by Shaggy, and “Imagine” by Pentatonix.  The people who submitted these pieces are the winners.
Program Contest Danita Redd Li Fern Tong Han Kok Kwang	The Program Contest checked our ability to read and retain the information in the Conference Program. It included 20 multiple choice questions.  Those with the most accurate memory of what they read are the winners.
Conference Attire Contest Natalie Kauffman Elisabeth Montgomery Danita Redd	We asked attendees to submit photos of what they might wear to the conference.  Since our videos were off while attending sessions, it was impossible to know if we were actually dressed as pictured. The most liked photos are the winners, but all of the photos were wonderful.
Fun Facts Contest Dennis Chan Jenikko Quinto Danita Redd	We asked you to tell us a bit about yourself, with a photo to illustrate.  The most liked fun facts are the winners, but we applaud all who submitted entries and participated in this fun contest.
Social Media Contest Leonila Urrea Kunimitsu Kuki Raza Abbas	We asked attendees to use the hashtag #2021APCDA in comments on our 4 social media platforms.  Those who posted the most comments using this hashtag are the winners, but we are grateful to all who posted comments about our conference.  Surely your posts will inspire others to join us in the future.

The contests have ended and the winners have been selected, but their entries remain available, together with the recorded sessions.  These will remain on the Conference Website through June 29.  Please enjoy them while you can.

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Greetings to APCDA Members and Friends!

By Sing Chee Wong, APCDA President

As April begins, it is hard to believe I am half-way through my presidency.  The past 6 months have been packed with activity and progress.  APCDA has offered two webinars a month, one free with members mentoring other members, and one paid. We have planned an exciting virtual conference with a great balance of interesting presentations, fun contests to build relationships, and other activities to enrich the experience while being virtual.  We awarded 24 conference scholarships this year and struggled to select Award winners from an amazing array of nominations.  We are listening to a new Podcast each month and just received another issue of the APCD Journal packed with great articles.  We are excited about the articles our members and friends have been contributing to our weekly news blog.  We are adding new members and holding regular meetings to welcome newcomers.  Our Country Representatives have kept us up-to-date about the exciting events in member countries. Whew, that’s a lot.

With all of this activity, there is a lot to keep track of and many challenges to overcome.  We are still eager to hear from our members and look forward to hearing feedback at the Member Meeting in May.  We are excited about the many nominations for wonderful people in our field who deserve awards.  The choices are difficult. And we are very happy that we were able to offer conference scholarships to 24 people who are beginning their careers in our field.  I am looking forward to seeing all of you on May 19 at our Awards Ceremony and Member Meeting, which are open to all, whether or not you have registered for the conference.

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Discovering What People Value about APCDA

By Dr. Marilyn Maze

At the beginning of November 2020, we added Google Analytics to our website at the request of the Qatar Foundation, because they wanted to know how many people download the Arabic version of the Glossary, which they translated for us.  Google Analytics is a free service that counts the number of visits to webpages.  It reports on:

• Views: The number of times anyone looked at a page
• Users:  The number of people who looked at the page
• New Users: The number of unique people who looked at a page (people like staff are only counted once)
• Views per User: the average number of times each person looked at a page
• Average Engagement Time:  The average number of seconds each person spent on a page.

Of course, these data can be misleading.  Staff visit many pages to check/update them, and those views get counted.  When the phone rings or a person gets coffee, the software may indicate that a user “viewed” a page for a long time, when no one was actually looking at the screen.  Everyone lands on the welcome page when they first come to our website (unless they are coming from a link in an email or news blog), so that page is, of course, our most visited.  But this data does give us a way to measure what people care about and how often they visit our website.  The data below reflect 2 months (November and December 2020).

In the table below you see totals by Main Menu topic for each of the statistics provided.  Looking at the “Views” column to see which part of our website had the most use, we see the most views in Webinars (which is called Events to include the New Member and Non-Member Meetings). People looked at large numbers of recorded webinars, as well as registered for six live events during that period.  For the second and third columns, totaling these data is not really correct statistically, because the total counts the same person every time they visit another page. But the New User numbers do give us some idea about the volume of people visiting each part of our website.  The Welcome area attracted the largest number of new users.  During November, a lot of people were looking at our Call for Proposals, so that part was visited by the next largest number of new users, then Country/Area Information and News are tied for 3rd place. 

	Views	Users	New Users	Views per user	Engagement time
Welcome	1558	951	586	1.5	44.3
Conference	1560	1062	576	1.2	35.6
Membership	930	514	98	1.6	37.2
Webinars/Events	1853	860	385	2.3	38.9
News	1066	726	476	1.5	28.7
Resources	349	233	94	1.8	16.6
Country Information	1025	747	477	1.4	40.1
Profile Management	508	195	58	2.2	44.6

What, specifically, were people doing in these sections of the website?  For each of these menu topics, we have selected the most popular pages under that topic.

Under the Welcome topics, we have a lot of information about APCDA as an association.  This table shows which pages in that area were visited by the most people.  We can see that a lot of people visited the “About” page which contains our Vision and Mission, and they visited our Leadership page which contains bios for each of our leaders.  A noticeable number also considered donating to APCDA, although only a couple did so.

Page	Users
Welcome	669
About APCDA	87
Leadership	55
History of APCDA	43
Committees	27
Contact Us	24
Donate	18

Under the Conferences topic, of course the Call for Proposals and the 2021 Conference received the most attention.

Page	Users
Call for Proposals	285
2021 Conference	237
Scholarships	197
2020 Conference	79
2019 Conference Presentations	53

People also looked at past conferences and at other information about the conference such as Scholarships, Awards, Proposal Tips, and Presentations Tips.  They also looked at Past Award Recipients.

In the Membership area, the largest number of people looked at the Join-Renew pages.  But they also looked at the Benefits page, each of our Member Organizations, and our Legacy Partners.  Members who log in see the Member Directory, so that page was well used.

Page	Users
Join-Renew	81
Member Benefits	79
Member Directory	50
Member Organizations	32
Legacy Partners	25

Under Webinars, our November and December live events offerings were, naturally, very popular.  But many people also looked at our libraries of past webinars and watched many recorded webinars.

Page	Users
ReimagineU (event registration and recorded webinar)	138
December APCDA Meetup	132
The Past, Present, and Future of Career Counseling	101
Recorded Webinars	62
Free Webinars	50
Live Webinars	44
Recent Webinars	40
November New Member Orientation	21

Each of our News pages was visited by large numbers of people, including the Through COVID series which, by this time, was old news. And 25 people decided to add their names to our mailing list.

Page	Users
Announcements	232
Career Trends	175
Association News	151
Member Recognition	51
Through COVID	50
Subscribe	25

Our Resources were not visited as often as other topics, but the Journal and each of the past issues of the Journal had many visits.  The Arabic version of the Glossary, which was announced on November 15, drew a substantial number of people. Our other glossaries, ethics, and competencies also were used.

Page	Users
Journal	52
Arabic Glossary	35
APCDJ Sept 2020	23
Glossary	18
Ethical Guidelines	16
Competencies	15
APCDJ Subscription	10

Many people visited our Country/Area Information pages and every country had several visits with people clearly reading several articles on the pages that interested them.

Page	Users
Philippines	149
Singapore	73
Vietnam	52
Australia	48
North India	42

The last section of the webinar is not part of the menu, but rather a service that is offered by the website.  Each person in our database can see their own profile, and while looking at the Member Directory, they can view the profiles of others.  Some people also asked for help with passwords, told our system not to send them any more emails, or looked at invoices (probably in the process of paying). 

Page	Users
Member profile (someone else's profile)	57
My profile (self-profile)	51
Reset password request	20
Unsubscribe from emails	16
Invoice (for payment)	10

In addition, 150 people used the website Search function.

These data provide important information about how our website is used and which parts of our website are valued most.  We plan to continue to study these data over time and see what more we can learn.  Given the amount of work we put into maintaining and updating the pages on the website, we are happy to know people are reading our webiste.

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Career Support for Arabic Youth Boosted by QCDC’s Arabic Edition of Career Development Terms Glossary

Initiative part of QCDC’s ongoing efforts to promote Arabic language resources

Doha, Qatar, 15 November 2020: A successful collaboration between Qatar Career Development Center (QCDC) and the Asia Pacific Career Development Association (APCDA) has culminated in the Arabization of the Glossary of Career Development Terms, which will benefit Arabic speakers and professionals around the world. View the announcement here.

Primarily intended to serve as a resource for professionals in the career development and vocational assessment field, the Arabic guide will assist career counselors, academic advisors, career practitioners, human resource professionals, trainers and teachers working with Qatari and Arab youth, across the region and globally, in planning their career paths.

Given the diversity of the field, the glossary is an important step toward establishing a shared understanding of commonly used terms and phrases. The Arabic edition will be dynamic and continue to develop and grow as experts suggest improvements or additions to its contents.

QCDC, a Qatar Foundation (QF) member, has long endeavored to address the gap in Arabic resources in the field of career guidance and professional development, which continues to pose an obstacle to QCDC’s mission to provide support services for Arab youth.

Mr. Abdulla Al-Mansoori, Director, QCDC, said: “Through this latest initiative, QCDC has made an important contribution to the promotion of the Arabic language, offering a resource to Arabic speakers and professionals around the world for creating impactful content and training programs. The achievement will empower career development experts to better guide our youth, not only in Qatar but all across the Arab World, on their ambitious career journeys.”

APCDA is a non-profit association incorporated for educational purposes in the state of Maryland, USA, providing training for specialists engaged in facilitating career development in the Asia Pacific region. Conferences, workshops and networking events enable the exchange of knowledge and collaboration on professional projects.

The initial development of the Glossary in English stemmed from APCDA’s objective for the Asia Pacific region to speak the same language related to career planning and development. The English language glossary was completed in 2017, with the aim of eventually offering versions in all languages spoken by its members.

Gulnur Ismayil-Isparova, Executive Director, APCDA, said: We embrace more than 300 members from over 20 countries around the world under the APCDA umbrella. Association is a wide multicultural and multilingual platform. It is important for us to ensure the exchange of ideas and best practices is communicated smoothly. The Glossary gives us chance to understand each other and effectively serve our clients in various corners of our regional coverage. We are thankful to Qatar Career Development Center for this valuable contribution and opening access to the APCDA glossary for Arabic speaking nationalities.”

As a member of APCDA, QCDC has traditionally participated in their annual conference and the publication of an Arabic edition of the glossary was therefore the next logical step, which enables APCDA to now offer this important resource to all its members.

In recent years, QF has increased its efforts to promote Arabic, the world’s sixth most spoken language. QF has launched several initiatives to address the challenges of modernizing academic programs and incentivizing linguistic institutions to keep abreast of technological advances in a bid to promote classical Arabic, which faces intense competition from colloquial dialects.

In keeping up with that mission and as part of its own efforts to promote career guidance resources in Arabic, QCDC was the first institution to offer the Career Advisor Training Course in both Arabic and English, in Qatar and the GCC region. The program aims to equip professionals with the basic skills and knowledge to offer career planning and counseling services to guide Qatari youth to embark on career paths. More than 150 participants have successfully graduated from the program to date.

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Announcing the New

APCDA Ethical Guidelines

Adopted October 2020 by the APCDA Board

The APCDA Board wishes to express its sincere gratitude to the Ethics Taskforce which has just completed its work of reviewing the original APCDA Ethical Guidelines, questioning every word, comparing our statements to those our other career practitioner associations, and including wording appropriate to the many countries that are represented by APCDA.  This taskforce consisted of Dr. Joseph Chan (Hong Kong), Dr. Vandana Gambhir-Chopra (India), Leonila Urrea (Philippines), Gulnur Ismayil-Isparova (Azerbaijan), and Dr. Marilyn Maze (USA). 

According to Dr. Brian Hutchison, “Upon reflection, this is what makes us a professional body in that we are a band of similar and dissimilar professionals in so many intricate ways that only an agreed upon set of principles, grounded in common values makes us one body.  It does not feel like hyperbole to me to say that today I think APCDA became a professional organization in the truest sense of the word.”

We recommend that each member read these ethical guidelines and think about their implications for practice.  In order to make them come to life for our members, Dr. Chopra has planned a series of Member Webinars in 2021 to review case studies related to ethics and discus our real life examples of time when ethics may get trampled by expediency or financial constraints.  We hope you will join these webinars/

You can find the APCDA Ethical Guidelines here, which is under Resources on our website.

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APCDA Career Services Competencies

April 2020

After months of work, the Standards Taskforce is proud to announce the new list of APCDA Career Services Competencies.  This list is valuable for improving your skills and those of your co-workers.  Find out which competencies you have and which could use improvement.

This Competencies List is intended to be used in conjunction with the APCDA Glossary of Career Development Terms.  The definitions of terms will be helpful in understanding these competencies. 

These Competencies reference the APCDA Ethical Guidelines, which are available here: https://AsiaPacificCDA.org/ethical-guidelines

This list will be revised as needed.  Suggestions for additions and revisions should be submitted to Ethics@AsiaPacificCDA.org.

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