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How Does Your Career Contribute to a Sustainable Future?How Did I Get into Career Development?
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Featuring: Raza Abbas- Multi Award-Winning Cross Cultural Career Specialist
This meaningful exposure laid the foundation for my cross-cultural career development work. Upon graduating, I returned to Pakistan in 2006 with curiosity and passion to learn about career development from global career: luminaries, scholars and practitioners as we had an acute need of career development interventions in our Asian context. As a novice career practitioner and social entrepreneur, I started my career journey with a beginner’s mindset. I pro-actively identified premier global career development forums and was fortunate to get selected to present on meaningful inclusive career development interventions in South Asia at annual Career Development conferences & symposia i.e. IAEVG, UNESCO- Chair on Lifelong Guidance and Counseling, APCDA, ARACD, NCDA, ICCDPP, CANNEXUS, OECD across 6 continents. In the process of continuous learning and client service, I contributed to and initiated many innovative career development interventions at schools, colleges, universities, vocational institutes, foundations, NGO’s, Business Incubation Centers and Government Ministries of Youth & Education and inspired countless lives in my country and globally. With humility and gratitude, I was blessed to be recognized by eminent global professional career development associations:
Nominated for Pride of Performance - Pakistan’s Highest Civil Award - 2014, 2020 Areas of Work
Me and my clients: in delivering services, what are my approaches/interventions and results? I am privileged to work with diverse clients locally and internationally. We have had intriguing coaching sessions on a wide range of topics i.e. employability, workplace readiness, career readiness, career mobility, career conversations with supervisors & employees, career management, leadership development, employee engagement, workplace wellness, pitch deck for aspiring entrepreneurs, identifying gig opportunities, career exploration and self-development. While working with clients, I draw upon and apply a wide range of models: Grow, OSCAR, Action Centered Leadership, and Peer Coaching. Throughout my coaching experiences, I ensure clients are empowered and enabled to broaden their perspectives, continue to believe in themselves, and make a difference in the societies in which they live. What my clients gain: Alignment of purpose, establishing trust, active listening skills, reframing people and challenges, importance of goals and future scenario development and understanding motivation. My personal vision for career development I believe we are at the crossroads of reigniting career development as a game-changer in these fragile times. Never before in the human era has career development been as critical as it is presently. We are on the bridge of human transformation. I practice and advocate in the notion that career development is a civic right for people from around the globe. Career development interventions must start early in schools to ensure they have a sustainable impact, and they must be integrated into the school curriculum. In universities and vocational institutes, career development is a rising need for students so it is vital to incorporate it as a required course. The role of social media and electronic media is key in educating and enlightening both citizens and policymakers about the increasing significance of career development to societies at large and how it contributes to employability, well-being, and job creation. Over the years, we have quality evidence, reliable data, and best career development practices from career scholars and career practitioners globally that have significantly contributed to UN Sustainable Development Goals. As a careers sector we are united to collectively advocate and take action for a UN Careers & Livelihood Day in collaboration with multi stakeholders around the globe promoting that ‘Career Development is the change we wish to see in the world’. I passionately urge the careers sector to be Bold & Brave. Join us in the global careers movement by contributing to our blog for UN Careers & Livelihood Day: https://www.undcl.org/ . In closing, I want to share a valuable resource from the OECD on ‘Investing in Career Guidance’ https://www.oecd.org/education/career-readiness/Investing in Career Guidance_en.pdf Greater collective synergy, cooperation, and co-creation are “the need of the hour’ Let’s make the world better through championing career development in a world that sorely needs more of it!
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Career Development has always been my passion. I started with a humble beginning of volunteering throughout my college experience at The University of Arizona, Career Services Center in the United States. It gave me immense purpose and joy to facilitate individual and group career development coaching sessions, assist in our annual university career fairs and facilitate career development workshops for domestic students and international students from 100+ countries on campus. It was truly an exceptional global experience!
I started attending the APCDA Conference in Hawaii. This was my first time to meet theorists and authors of career development books. The first APCDA Conference I attended made me fall in love with my work as a Career Counselor and the Career Development field. The people who attended the conference were warm and welcoming. The second conference I attended was in Japan. It was a blessing because I really love Japan and plan to visit again someday. I met friends from the Hawaii conference. The place and food are amazing. My Journey into Career CoachingBy Prof. Dr. N.K. Chadha
In the year, 2006, I met Dr. David Reile during his visit to India through a network of my close associate Prof. Robert B Slaney, Chairman, Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, Penn State University, PA,USA. It was Prof. Slaney who introduced me to Dr. Reile and my journey started in the domain of career coaching. I would like to share some thoughts on my journey in the domain of career coaching with my commitment to initiate the profession of career development in India and to make the presence of NCDA/APCDA visible in this part of the world. The profession of career development was also unknown to the educators in India as well as South Asian countries. I am instrumental in the formation of the Indian Career Development Association (ICDA) and I am the founding president of ICDA. Before the formation of the ICDA, Dr. David Reile (NCDA Past President) presented workshops at the prestigious Delhi University to young professors and researchers to discuss the various dimensions of career development and planning. He conducted training/symposia sessions (May 2008 and January, 2010), which helped in the development of ICDA. Subsequent to that, ICDA organized its first International Career Development Conference “Colors of Career” in March 2013 under my leadership which was attended by over 300 participants from India and abroad along with several Indian government officials. David and his wife/business partner, Dr. Barbara Suddarth, funded much of this work personally, without thought for personal gain, but out of a genuine concern for helping the people of India and advancing the career development profession here. During 2016, I along with David conducted career development sessions in different parts of the country to teachers, principals, and administrators to make them aware of the career development needs for school/college students. In 2017, I convinced Mindler India to initiate the International Certified Career Coach Program (ICCC)(www.mindler.com), where the motivating force was David Reile/Barbara Suddarth. We extended this program at the Pan India level as well as in Middle East. Today ICCC is a very popular and well-known program in the country as well as Middle East and has been featured in leading newspapers in India. This is three step program ICCC (Foundation: Two full days), ICCC (Advance Level: Three months online mode)) and ICCC (Master level: 3-4 months online). The ICCC master level is approved by the NCDA as CCSP. The course material has been developed with input from many leading career advisors across the globe and is highly in demand in India. Every month, a new cohort is started with 35-45 participants in each cohort. I also had the honor of taking the responsibility of President of Asia Pacific Career Development Association (2016). During my tenure as President, APCDA, I initiated the idea of starting with APCDA journal and published my first article in the first volume of the journal. I have attended a number of NCDA annual conventions in the US and have developed network with leading academicians and practitioners in the area of career development. Seeing my efforts in shaping the landscape of career development in India and other part of the world. NCDA conferred me with Global Practitioner award of the year in 2015 and NCDA Presidential recognition award in the year 2017.Subsequently I was awarded with Life Time Achievement award in the year 2019 by Asia Pacific Career Development Award. Prof. Dr. N.K. Chadha
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I started teaching as a full time faculty member in the Department of Psychology, University of Delhi, India in the year 1981. During my these years, I published large number of books/articles in psychology, conducted many training programs and was involved in development and conduction of a large number of psychological assessment tools used widely by the corporate sector for recruitment, selection and career planning for their employees.By Sing Chee Wong
I was a Student Counselor at the Singapore Polytechnic in the 1990s when the then Polytechnic Principal asked me to set up a courses and careers guidance center for students. He had just returned from visiting several overseas polytechnics/universities and was impressed how the career centers they had to assist students on their choice of courses/majors and careers. Since I was a student counselor, he reckoned that I could be a “career counsellor” too. Neither he nor I had any information on what a “career counsellor” does, and the knowledge, skills and training required to perform this role. At that time, career coaching/counselling was almost unheard of in Singapore, and there were no career centers in any local institutes of higher learning that I could visit to learn about career services. Fortunately, the Singapore Polytechnic was generous in sponsoring me to attend overseas conferences, ie. NCDA annual conferences to learn more about career development and to meet the “giants” in this field. Among the experts whom I met was Prof Norm Gysbers who later became my mentor. He also introduced me to several other experts in this field, ie. Dr Sunny Hansen who is known for her “Integrative Life Planning Theory.” My interest in career development grew as I interacted with these experts. I also realized that there was so much more I needed to know if I wanted to become an effective and efficacious career professional in Singapore. So, I packed my bags and headed for the University of Missouri (Columbia), USA, to pursue my graduate studies. I studied under the tutelage of Profs Gysbers and Mary Heppner. Whilst there, I had the privilege of meeting Dr John Holland who was a good friend of another professor, Prof Joe Johnston. Dr Holland was a regular visitor at the University (also known as Mizzou), and had donated his collection of career development materials to Mizzou. With such expert knowledge and rich materials surrounding me, my passion in career development grew! And as the saying goes, “the rest is history….”
By LÊ TUẤN ANH, Career Consultant & EducatorI started working as a career consultant after graduating from RMIT University, majoring in Communication. After 4 years of studying Communication and experiencing jobs in this industry, I realized that the environment and the nature of the media industry did not match my personality. During my time in college, I participated in supporting career events for students and I really enjoyed this kind of support activity, so after graduating, I registered to become a trainee at the Career Department of RMIT University. During my 3-month internship, I got in contact with many excellent brothers and sisters such as Phoenix Ho, Michael Healy and Mita Das and experienced jobs such as one-on-one counselling, internship program organization, mentoring, and networking with enterprises. After finishing my internship, I decided to choose the path to becoming a career professional. From 2018 to 2020, I work and study at Song An Career under the guidance of Phoenix Ho. During these 2 years, I have learned a lot of knowledge about career theory, the practice of one-to-one counselling and codes of practice ethics. From 2021 until now, I have been working as a professional manager at TopCV Vietnam, a leading recruitment platform. The time I made the choice to start a career was 2015, career guidance is still a new concept in the Vietnamese market. Up to now, in 2022, career guidance has become more popular and more people pay attention to it, however, ‘career consultant’ is still a new job and not many people do this full-time job. However, I believe that career guidance in Vietnam will grow stronger and more and more people can live fully in this profession. My methods and target audience approach in career guidance My focus is on high school and university students who are wondering about choosing a major, choosing a school and job seekers who are having difficulty in finding the right job to match their passion, do not know how to find effective jobs, or do not how to build outstanding job-hunting profiles. I approach big to small groups. For the majority, I reach out through the creation of career-oriented content on social networking platforms. For example, I have the blog anhtuanle.com that where I write about career guidance with 4 million reads, the 130K Tiktok channel shares how to write CVs and methods of finding effective jobs, and the Podcast channel with 250K views about the development of sharing yourself in career guidance. These contents appear with a frequency of once a week. Next, I guide a Workshop on self-discovery, job-hunting methods, personal branding methods and CV writing methods, and interviews for people in need. These workshops are usually between 50 and 200 people in size, taking place every week. Finally, I provide one-to-one personal counselling services on personal discovery, choosing a school, choosing a major, changing majors and other career issues. My approach in career direction is that everyone has their own strengths, finding strengths and knowing how to promote and spread those strengths at work is a way to help us become happier. For those who are wondering about choosing a major, or choosing a career, they do not have to find the best choice, just try to avoid choices with as many negatives as possible. Ultimately, each individual should take time to develop good habits, and meditating is a way for us to be happier in life and at work. Future career goals My first goal is to build a solid and systematic career guidance organization, to provide full and specialized career-related services, connecting career professionals across Vietnam. My second goal is to actively participate in international vocational associations such as APCDA, NCDA, to learn from teachers as well as to bring the Vietnamese career image to more international friends.
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My interest and involvement in career development may be described as “Happenstance.”
I guess it was destiny. I have an aunt on each side who were career counsellors. But my journey to career development was full of twists and turns and took more than 20 years.