Career Buzz

Career Month is an international celebration of careers!

Each November, Canadians and Americans, celebrate the importance of accessing meaningful work and all those who help in connecting people with preferred futures.  We speak to 2 Canada career month organizers, Ali Breen and Judy McKinnon to tell us more about, in the second half of today’s show.

But first, Career Buzz goes to Houston Texas for the National Career Development Association conference. NCDA provides professional development, publications, and advocacy to practitioners and educators who – in turn -  inspire and empower individuals to achieve their career and life goals. Today we speak to 2 presenters from the conference bringing you insights into career development.

Dirk Matthews is a Career Development Leader and Educator at Columbia College Chicago. His work helps students find and build thriving careers in the arts and media fields. Dirk’s work is influenced by experience as a counselor, a filmmaker, photographer, and a faculty member. At Houston NCDA, he presented on Integrating Technology into the Career Development Process.

Dr. Susan Barclay is a licensed professional counselor, with a specialization in career counseling and enjoys collaborating with individuals in learning how to live an authentic life. She serves on multiple editorial boards for professionals journals, and her research interests include life transitions, career counseling and interventions, identity development, and counseling related to existential concerns.

Judith McKinnon has been a counsellor with the Career Education team for over fifteen years. During this time she has had the privilege of working with thousands of students in the process of making important career and educational transitions in their lives. Judith uses a strengths approach to counselling combined with solution-focussed goal setting strategies. She believes in developing the “leader within”, and uses self- awareness and career testing to find the best fit for educational programs and for providing ongoing career and student development strategies.

Millennials Career Coach Ali Breen, believes that your career can and should be a reflection of who you are and how you want to be in the world. She uses story-based, narrative coaching to help people get clear about what they want and how & when they can actually get it. As a past corporate recruiter and bilingual career practitioner in non-profit employment centres, Ali has experience from both sides of the Career Management table. With 9+ years in the career development and human resources fields, Ali is certified as a Holistic Narrative Career Professional. She offers a refreshing break and realistic divergence from the cookie-cutter career advice and tools that are often outdated.

This week on Career Buzz, Mark goes to Houston Texas for the National Career Development Association conference. 

He first sits down with Pam Fillmon, who has a hunger for the stories of people. Pam brings insight into the complexity of change and the struggle of fitting passions and skills together. As principal of Fillmon and Associates, Pam offers people development programs that equip organizations, education, and military clients with best practices, tools, and training.

Collaborating with Pam is Hyung Joon Yoon. He’s Assistant Professor of Education, in Workforce Education and Development at the Pennsylvania State University. Hyung is also on the Board of NCDA. 

Mark sits down with Pam and Hyung to discuss their presentation on Impact of a Corporate Career Development Program, that they gave at NCDA2019. 

Later in the show, Mark gets a chance to connect with Tim Clark.  Tim Clark’s personal business model approach evolved over 30 years doing 40 jobs, from washing dishes and tending bar to starting and running a professional services venture — and later selling it in a multimillion-dollar transaction. Tim conceived the Business Model You methodology while pursuing doctoral studies at Stanford, and cocreating the book Business Model Generation, by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. 

And bonus!

Mark gets a chance to speak with Angela Chisholm.  Do you want to know what’s it like to have a pendulum career that swings between freewheeling and finance?

Angela Chisholm spent over 10 years leading adventure travel with Freewheeling Adventures then with Walking Adventures. She swung in business admin and finance and is now Operations Manager at Copernicus Studios. 

Copernicus Studios in Halifax is an entertainment content development and production company based.

How can we reduce bias in recruiting and improve hiring?

Knockri is an AI video soft-skill assessment tool, that helps reduce unconscious bias. It shortlists the best fit job candidates to interview. Mark Franklin talks to Rija Choudhry, HR & marketing strategist at Knockri about how her company merges video intelligence, machine learning and science, to quantify soft skills, and conduct early candidate assessment.

Also, learn from Danielle Smith‘s whirlwind career spanning tech-startups, public service, nonprofit, and higher education. (Interview at 26:19) Danielle Smith’s wheelhouse combines external relations, marketing, business development, and operations

Who controls space? What is rocket science, and is it really leading edge like the cliché suggests? And if more and more industrial players – think SpaceX and others – are going into space, how should their activities be regulated?

On today’s episode of The Thoughtful Technospain, we look at technology tensions around – space science and satellite technology. 

How can we make space and its use beneficial for all?

To help us answer these questions, I’m joined by Franz Newland, he’s assistant professor in Earth & Space Science & Engineering at York University. Before joining York, Franz worked for 15 years in the space industry. He worked for COM DEV as Mission Engineering Manager in Cambridge, Ontario, and Terma as the lead training instructor and simulation team manager for the ATV Control Centre in Toulouse, France as well as providing spacecraft simulation development and support for Terma to the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. 

His research interests include:

Franz is a Professional Engineer in Ontario, and a Chartered Engineer in the UK. 

In the near future, when job changes will be even more frequent, and technology will disrupt even more industries, What skills do people need to thrive in the future economy? How can we FUTURE PROOF Canadian youth?

Through RBC Future Launch, RBC is investing $500 million over 10 years to help young people prepare for the Future Of Work.

In 2018 they published their inaugural report, Humans Wanted. It was followed with Bridging the Gap What Canadians Told us about the Skills Revolution. Lead author of the report, Andrew Schrumm joins us in studio.

We’re also joined by Mark Beckles Senior Director, Youth Strategy and Innovation. Mark leads this RBC Strategy. Which will help fuel the new economy by improving access to practical work experience and career development support. It’s aiming to improve capability in critical skills, improve the strength of networks and networking skills, increasing successful career outcomes.

Amy Rubin is a yoga therapist (C-IAYT) and has worked with hundreds of clients suffering from anxiety, depression, addiction, and chronic pain. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Counselling. Her session was, Yoga Therapy: Basic Frameworks and Therapeutic Techniques for Counsellors and other Professionals.

Christina Gentile holds a M.A. (Counselling Psychology) from the University of Victoria and a BFA (Music) from Concordia University with a minor in religion. She is also a voice and yoga teacher. Her session was called, Pranayama: Yogic Breathing Practices as Forces for Transformation in Counselling Psychology.

The Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association is a national bilingual association of professionally trained counsellors. CCPA’s members work in diverse fields of education, employment and career development, social work, business, industry, mental health, public service agencies, government and private practice. The 2019 conference was jointly presented with the Int’l Association for Counselling. It was held May 13 – 16, 2019 at the Delta Beauséjour Hotel in Moncton, NB.

Look at technology tensions around our cities. Does anyone understand what it’ll take to build a smart city? More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. But, What makes a city livable? How should cities evolve, to become more sustainable, inclusive and just? 

New interdisciplinary thinking is required. One person Leading the charge is Mark Fox. He’s Associate Director of School of Cities at U of Toronto. Professor of Urban Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Computer Science. He’s also Founding Director, of Centre for Social Services Engineering and Head of Enterprise Integration Laboratory. 

Join us as we discuss Mark's work along with the technology tensions he focuses on, related to what it will take to build smart cities and the related tension around his work to broaden the scope of engineering to the social services sector.

I headed out to McClintock’s ski this summer, near Cambridge Ontario, to compete in the 2019 Ibuprofen Open. Me and 30 other skiers all aged 35 and up, competed for glory, and a chance to earn our Ibuprofen. 

While there I brought my recorder and was once again your Career Buzz correspondent, interviewing the cast of characters I met. 

Today, you’ll meet Teresa Wiwchar who just recently opened the Greater Niagara Ski Club, first of its kind in the Niagara region. Not only is she an amazing waterskier, and competed in the ibuprofen open, but she’s in the business. She bought a farmers field and dredged the small pond to create a long narrow ski lake on her 29 acres near Port Colborne Ontario. Stay tuned for Teresa’s interview. 

Also, meet Steve Collins. 20 years ago when his son got involved in the sport, well, so did dad Steve. He’s been volunteering in the sport for decades, and now is a chair within the Water Ski Wakeboard Ontario.  Now retired, Steve dedicates time to the sport, and was our trusted scorekeeper at the Ibuprofen open. 

But first, what’s it like to have an athletic gift, and to make a career out of that gift? Just ask Jason McClintock, at 32, his life’s work has been elite waterskiing and ski  competition. Jason is Canadian National Water Ski Team member, and the Ontario, Water Ski Team head coach. He holds the Canadian national record in slalom ski. Not just a competitor, Jason also runs the family business McClintocks Water Ski School which hosted the Ibuprofen Open. Now a husband and father of 2 young kids, Jason wears many hats in his career. Here’s my interview with world champion, Jason McClintock. 

 The Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association is a national bilingual association of professionally trained counsellors.

Working through trauma is always challenging but seeking help as a queer, Indigenous person is often so complex that many people don’t reach out. Stel Raven deconstructs the Western view of gender and weaves in elements of minority stress theory. Stel’s keynote was called Queering and Decolonizing Trauma Work: A Path for Two-Spirit Wellness.

There has been an explosive growth of technology in recent years, and with it we’ve seen an equal growth in the use of technology in counselling and psychotherapy. Sherry Law is active on the CCPA’s Technology and Innovative Solutions Chapter. She presented on the IAC Ethics Round Table.

Rebecca Hudson Breen is an Assistant Professor in Counselling Psychology at the University of Alberta. She is the current President of the Career Counsellor’s Chapter of CCPA. Breanna Lawrence is an Assistant Professor in the graduate counselling program at Brandon University. She has worked with children and their families for 10 years in educational and clinical settings. Their session was called, Career Matters: Exploring Social Justice in Career-Life Counselling Across the Lifespan.

Amy Rubin is a yoga therapist (C-IAYT) and has worked with hundreds of clients suffering from anxiety, depression, addiction, and chronic pain. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Counselling. Her session was, Yoga Therapy: Basic Frameworks and Therapeutic Techniques for Counsellors and other Professionals

Christina Gentile holds a M.A. (Counselling Psychology) from the University of Victoria and a BFA (Music) from Concordia University with a minor in religion. She is also a voice and yoga teacher. Her session was called, Pranayama: Yogic Breathing Practices as Forces for Transformation in Counselling Psychology

Simone Lambert is president of the American Counseling Association and Dione Mifsud is outgoing president of the International Association for Counselling and Valentina Chichiniova is a Canadian Certified Counsellor and the North American representative in the International Association for Counselling.

CCPA’s members work in diverse fields of education, employment and career development, social work, business, industry, mental health, public service agencies, government and private practice. The 2019 conference was jointly presented with the Int’l Association for Counselling. It was held May 13 – 16, 2019 at the Delta Beauséjour Hotel in Moncton, NB.

Sam Burton is the Director, of Insights at the Mozilla Foundation. Her team leads projects, such as the Internet Health Report, that help us better understand and shape our relationships with technology. Sam has worked at the intersection of technology, culture, and human rights for over a decade. She’s worked with diverse organizations including Engineers Without Borders Canada, the Aga Khan Foundation, and the International Freedom of Expression eXchange.