#TheWeekInCareers - Episode 66

Welcome to #TheWeekinCareers! If you are a first-time reader (and congratulations if so, you are now part of a 3600+ strong community!), this newsletter is my attempt at summarising some of the key #Careers-related news from across the #Careersphere each week, along with some of the talking points I feel are worthy of further debate amongst the #Careers community! So, without further ado, on to the news!

Unless you've been living under a rock that is particularly impervious to career development related news, you've probably already guessed what the lead item of this week's newsletter was going to be - it is of course a focus on the triumphant return of the brilliant #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs campaign, which was once again enthusiastically led by Bella Doswell CCDP, RCDP and Katherine Jennick RCDP on 1st February, the official anniversary of the inaugural online flashmob. Today's newsletter recaps the origins of the campaign and how careers professionals were spreading the good word this year, as well as a cheeky nod to next week's newsletter, where I'll be musing what the future may hold for this campaign and others like it. We've also got the second part of Charlotte Langley 's 2-part series on sustaining 'hidden professions', in which Charlotte details the work that IOSH are doing to support the employability of their members, and we round off proceedings as always with a jam-packed #BestOfTheRest, with a nod to the upcoming National Apprenticeship Week 2024...

I hope you enjoy this week's newsletter and thank you as always for continuing to subscribe, read, comment on and support #TheWeekInCareers! 😁

#SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs 📣

Unbelievably, it's been one whole year since I first wrote about Bella Doswell CCDP, RCDP and Katherine Jennick RCDP 's brilliant online flashmob campaign, #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs - what made the campaign so unique was its coordinated approach (the pre-arranged social media posts, from careers professionals based all over the world, dropped between 09:00-12:00 on Wednesday 1st February 2023, with coordinated PR also coming through the Career Development Institute , the Learning News publication and sites like Tristram Hooley 's Career Guidance for Social Justice blog site) and the consistent and catchy message behind it, with CDPs sharing myriad examples of why the work that we do is #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs. This not only led to some fantastic photo opportunities (see below!) but also ended up in the campaign reaching a whopping 190,000 people in total via press coverage and an absolutely astonishing 880,000 people on LinkedIn via the #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs hashtag! 👏

[You can check out a number of the posts shared by careers professionals who took part in last year's #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs campaign by heading to #TheWeekInCareers archives and reading Episode 21 of the newsletter, which contained an extended write-up of the campaign!]

Far from being a flash in the pan, Bella Doswell CCDP, RCDP and Katherine Jennick RCDP were not done with #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs, and were keen to build on the momentum generated by last year's inaugural campaign to create something sustainable and enduring, which they talk about in more depth in this recent piece written for the Careers Writers Association (our new website is dropping Monday 5th February, just to get that shameless plug in!):

And just yesterday, we finally got to experience what Bella Doswell CCDP, RCDP and Katherine Jennick RCDP had in store for Year 2 of #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs, with careers professionals around the globe sharing posts to tell the world one great quote/piece of feedback they’ve previously received from a client, a powerful reminder of the difference they make to people’s lives. You can see my offering below, for posterity! 👇

The results of the campaign were, once again, both inspiring and far-reaching, with #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs posts dropping throughout the day from CDPs all over the UK, the EU, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Qatar and other locations around the world! There are WAY too many posts for me to spotlight in one newsletter, so I wanted to share some of my favourites below (for the full collection, simply search for the hashtag #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs on LinkedIn!) 👇

What happened next?

First up, a heart-warming post from my OG careers mentor, John Paley , who recounts a wonderful story about running into a student he had previously supported when she was in sixth form (providing her with the guidance, strategic planning and confidence to pursue her dream of studying Midwifery), only for them to meet again whilst John was waiting in the hospital following the birth of his 2nd child. Much like the example in my post above, when clients take the time to go out of their way to find or contact us and let us know what they are doing, it not only shows the type of people they are but demonstrates just what an impact our work can have on the lives of the individuals we support.

Validation Matters

It's over to Australia next, with a video from Lucy Sattler of Study Work Grow , who shares a lovely story regarding a young person who had completed the Career Clusters quiz as part of a workshop that Lucy was running, and felt excited to have her results align to the Maker cluster, as she was interested in potentially taking up a trade in the future, something which her family had expressed reservations about. As Lucy notes in the video, this simple interaction of taking the Career Clusters quiz and talking through the result and her interests with a careers professional, gave the young person the permission and validation she needed to move forward with her career idea, a hugely valuable gift that many CDPs often give their clients in different ways.

It's The Little Things...

Campaigns can naturally often focus on loud, memorable announcements, but as Suzanne Steel CMgr MCMI identifies in the post below, much of the work that careers professionals do is not necessarily big or loud, but is nonetheless vital to the clients that we work with, whether that is listening and making space for an individual to explore their career ideas, or instilling a sense of belief that can allow a client to take forward their plans for the future. As Suzanne notes, behind each of the post-its in the image below there is a person, and if our legacy as careers professionals is even making one small, positive ripple in another person's world, we will likely consider that a job well done.

If You Don't Know...

Next up, it's back to Australia with Liv Pennie , Co-Founder and CEO at BECOME Education , who shares a quote that many careers professionals may have experienced hearing in their interactions with clients - 'Whaaaat?! I didn't know that was a thing!' This post perfectly surfaces one of the most valuable aspects of careers work - opening someone's eyes to new pathways, possibilities and opportunities. This is exactly why our work is about empowerment, not being directive - we want to light a fire in our clients that motivates them to explore what might come next, not simply present them with a rigid set of options to choose from. Cracking post, Liv Pennie !

The 'A-Ha' Moment...

We often talk as careers professionals about facilitating those 'lightbulb moments', where everything clicks for a client and they start to see their world differently (whether this is by recognising a skill they didn't feel they possessed, noticing a pathway that they had once assumed was closed off to them or not of interest etc.) and this post from Rish Baruah is a great example of how a simple point, well delivered (in this case, encouraging students to interrogate why they might want to study a Masters degree) can have a profound effect on an individual's career thinking - great work, Rish Baruah !

How Do We Measure It?

As Anne Wilson SFHEA notes in her post for the campaign, if we want to celebrate our impact as careers professionals, we must capture it first - Anne's post provides a useful overview of how her team of L7 qualified CDPs capture their feedback from clients, focusing on both 'Hard Outcomes' (e.g. students securing a job, internship, interview etc.) and 'Soft Outcomes' (e.g. increased self-confidence, self-awareness, clarity over direction of travel etc.) It feels like a nice way to categorise what can sometimes feel unquantifiable (in terms of our impact on clients) and the quote examples really bring it to life!

A Client's Perspective

Understandably, the majority of #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs posts are the work of qualified careers professionals but it's always nice to have a different perspective on the impact that CDPs make - enter David Morgan , Chief Executive of the Career Development Institute , who reflects on his experience as a client of a qualified careers adviser and the impact the support he received had on his career journey. Thanks for sharing your experience, David Morgan - it's fair to say more client reflections/impact statements like this are sorely needed when it comes to promoting the value of our profession!

The Importance of Reflection

Finally, we return to Australia, and a really creative #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs post from Anna Sidoti RPCDP , which surfaces the importance of CDPs helping clients to reflect on what they may have taken away from a guidance appointment - it can sometimes be easy to forget that realisation of the impact of careers support doesn't necessarily happen by accident and in this example, by asking her client to reflect on her session, Anna was able to gain some fantastic feedback regarding the impact she'd had on her client's motivation and energy, even months after their session!

Of course, it would be remiss of me to finish this round-up without highlighting the posts from the individuals who kicked this all off, Bella Doswell CCDP, RCDP and Katherine Jennick RCDP - both posts are brilliant in their simplicity, surfacing the difference that careers professionals can make to their clients in helping build confidence in their direction of travel, or simply providing a compassionate sounding board to help them work through career ideas and what might be holding them back:

Hats off once again to Bella Doswell CCDP, RCDP and Katherine Jennick RCDP for spearheading this super engaging campaign and giving careers professionals around the world a platform to really shout about the impact they have (as James Ainsworth sagely noted in his campaign post yesterday, it's something we're not often that good at doing, as individuals or as a collective!) - the collection of posts serves as a brilliant archive of evidence to share with any external stakeholders who remain unconvinced as to the value of high-quality careers guidance, and the #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs campaign remains a vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to the longer-term campaign for raising the profile of the career development sector and challenging outdated stereotypes about our profession (more on that in next week's newsletter...)

Did you get involved in this year's #SoMuchMoreThanTalkingAboutJobs campaign? What was your favourite post you saw out and about on social media, in terms of really hitting home the impact that careers professionals make with their clients? Let us know in the comments thread at the bottom of the newsletter! 🤳

GUEST BLOG: Employability Work in Professional Bodies...✍

This week's GUEST BLOG sees the return of Charlotte Langley, Education Engagement Co-ordinator at IOSH, who is back for the second instalment of her 2-part series exploring how professional bodies are working in the employability space to help sustain 'hidden professions'. In Part 1 last week, Charlotte broke down what a career in occupational health, safety and wellbeing really involves, and in Part 2, she digs deeper into how professional bodies like IOSH support the employability of the professionals they represent...👇

The content of this blog are the opinions of the author and not those of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH)

Last week, you heard me wax lyrical about careers in occupational safety and health. This week, I’m going to tell you about how professional bodies like IOSH support the employability of their aspiring workers.

What are professional bodies?

Professional bodies are a weird and wonderful place to work. We represent an industry or profession, (think Institute of Physics, Royal College of Nursing etc.). Typically, we are charities and have aims to:

1. Recognise those working in a profession for their skills, knowledge, and experience – usually though postnominal letters or chartership
2. Maintain professional standards within the profession
3. Showcase the profession as a career of choice

I work in an Engagement Team at IOSH, the global chartered professional body for occupational safety and health (‘OSH’) professionals. Before this I had a long stint at the University of Leicester, in student and academic support roles.

My day job is to engage with IOSH Student Members who are taking qualifications in workplace health, safety, and wellbeing. These range from Level 3 apprentices, undergraduate and postgraduate students, to vocational learners. I keep my finger on the pulse of student trends and what our Student Members want, and to develop initiatives to support them. One of the key areas that they need support with is employability.

Student barriers

From my early days at IOSH, I noticed that like many other professions, there was a Catch-22 situation in OSH. You need work experience to get a job, but need a job to get work experience, and truly entry-level opportunities are hard to come by.

The visibility of the profession was an issue too, as the true breadth of OSH roles are not fully understood by people entering the workforce. Many students simply wanted more information on the kinds of jobs available, and how to break into them.

There were also varying levels of support for them via their qualification. While I’ve had the pleasure of connecting students to careers professionals such as Naeem Amir at Cardiff Metropolitan University (thanks Naeem!), other students struggled depending on their university or qualification provider. This meant many students requested our help with CVs, job applications, or improving their soft skills.

Employability

Of course I was thrilled to lean into one of my passion areas at IOSH! Here are just a few examples of what we’ve done so far to ensure that students have the knowledge, skills, and experience they need to be successful:

• Navigating the jobs market: our recent Student webinar series attempted to offer ‘back to basics’ support to students, including how to find work experience and write a CV. We were joined by OSH professionals and recruitment specialists.
• Promoting the profession: we have worked with organisations like Prospects to enhance the labour market information on OSH, and to promote case studies.
• Bridging the gap: last Autumn I delivered a break-out session at the IOSH Scotland Conference, encouraging our members to create work-experience opportunities:

• Workplace skills: we’ve just launched a competition that will see our students answer a work-based problem, judged by a panel of volunteers and IOSH staff.
• Student Bursary: awarding students funding for their professional development.
• Career Hub: we have an online platform with an e-learning library, CV builder, and interview simulator.

• IOSH Jobs: a dedicated jobs site, with advice for students, graduates, career changers etc.
• Mentoring: we are blessed with generous and talented members who volunteer their time to formally mentor many students and graduates.
• Networking: students have access to IOSH networks, including local branches, industry groups, and a Future Leaders Community. These communities hold events, and many have relationships with their local universities.

I hope this has given you an insight into the way that we are working in the careers space! And remember - reach out to the relevant professional body or association if you have a client who needs more information, either via LinkedIn or on their website.

I get a great deal of inspiration, guidance and insight from being a part of this community, and it helps me ‘line-up’ with the work being done in IAG. Thank you to Chris for inviting me to contribute to #TheWeekInCareers.

A massive thank you to Charlotte Langley for taking the time to put together this 2-part series about the work professional bodies are doing to help sustain 'hidden professions' - some definite commonality with the career development profession (particularly regarding the Catch-22 situation that some student/trainee careers professionals face when it comes to entering the workforce), I think you'd agree! If you'd like to learn more about Charlotte Langley and her work, you can connect with her via LinkedIn or check out her bio below! 👇

I’m an education professional with a passion for supporting students and solving niche problems. I had a long stint at the University of Leicester, where I specialised in academic and student support, especially for postgraduate researchers. I then moved to IOSH, where I advocate for wellbeing at work, diversity and inclusion, and drive our employability initiatives.

I'm keen to showcase as diverse a range of perspectives as possible in the newsletter, so if you are potentially interested in putting together a GUEST BLOG on a careers-related topic of your choice at some point in the future, please just drop me a line! 🤳

The Best of the Rest: My Hot Picks from the wider #Careersphere 🏆

👩🏫 Life's Work: How to get ahead in a career you love - First up this week, details of a interesting collab between Stephanie Rix and James Reed CBE , who've joined forces to create a new online career development course, Life's Work: How to get ahead in a career you love, which is currently FREE to access for a limited time only! Hosted by Steph and James, the on-demand course is packed with videos, activities and resources covering a range of topics, including the fundamentals of career success, visualising your ideal job role, the value of broadening your network and how to uncover your values. Register now to access the course for free, while you still can!

🚉 A unique work experience opportunity... Up next, news of a really valuable initiative from Sherpas , who have been working with London North Eastern Railway to create a report on the importance of Safe Spaces for All when it comes to young people travelling safely on the rail network. It's brilliant to see a big firm like London North Eastern Railway working hand-in-hand with young people on this type of project and the even better news (hot off the press from Jamie Pywell !) is that there are opportunities coming up for paid work experience with London North Eastern Railway for any 13-18 year olds living near an LNER station, so keep your eyes peeled for more news on this front!

🗺 Welcome to SkillsMap®! - As I reflected in our first newsletter of 2024, 'Skills' is odds-on to once again be a candidate for one of the most used words of the year in the career development sector, based on both employer approaches to hiring and the direction of travel for education policy under both the incumbent government and opposition parties in the UK. With this in mind, enter SkillsMap®, a brand-new tool developed by Kate Daubney PFHEA FRSA , which provides users with a unique database of over 250 transferable skills developed through almost 40 distinct subject areas taught in pre-18 education. In Kate's own words, the aim of the tool is to showcase '...the skills that learners already develop through academic curriculum Subjects, and how those same skills might be used in the workplace', providing a practical framework to help educators and students identify the range of skills innate to all subjects, and those that are needed to help solve the complex problems of the present and future. Have a play around this weekend and see what you think!

🤔 What can career-changers offer early talent programmes? - Next up, a nice piece on the Institute of Student Employers blog, written by Rob Fryer from Now Teach , which looks at the benefits that career-changers can bring to early-talent recruitment programmes, and what employers can do to make the most of this talent pool. Using the case study of Lucy Kellaway, a former journalist for the FT who transitioned to working as a secondary school teacher at age 57, Rob breaks down some of the steps employers can take in order to help them secure career changer talent, including considering the language being used to advertise schemes (e.g. terminology like 'graduate', 'early talent' and 'school leaver' can be understandably off-putting to career changers!) and reflecting on whether there are opportunities within organisations to retain career changers, as well as recruit transfers from other sectors.

📅 Are you ready for NAW 2024? - We finish this week's newsletter with a reminder that next week sees the return of National Apprenticeship Week for 2024, with careers professionals around the UK no doubt planning a smorgasbord of activities, assemblies and events to mark the occasion. As always, there are some cracking articles and resources being shared in the build up to #NAW2024, including this brilliant blog for Future First by Victoria Geary (she/her) , which busts common apprenticeship myths, and this online careers fair, brought to you by the Festival of Apprenticeships team! Whatever you're getting up to for #NAW2024, I hope it goes swimmingly for you!

I'm always keen to hear what people think of this weekly newsletter format (e.g. Is it helpful? Does it add value to what is already out there on LinkedIn? What might make it better/more digestible?) so please do drop me a DM if you have any thoughts!

See you all in the #Careersphere next week for Episode 67! 👋