BCCAT Education Planner

Career Developer

Facilitator Tips

Purpose of Career Developer

Today a career is something that you grow into through years for work experience and personal transformation.  It is unrealistic as a facilitator to think you are responsible for helping learners find ?THE? perfect career.  It is your responsibility to help learners become skilled at helping themselves manage their ongoing career development.  This is where Career Developer can help.

Using Career Developer

If you are a counsellor, advisor, career coach, teacher or parent the resources in Career Developer will cover almost any topic in the field of career and educational planning.  Career Developer is like having a resource library that is organized and kept up-to-date for you. An added advantage is that the resources are available anywhere there is access to the internet. Both you and your participants can access Career Developer any time.

Ideas for Using Career Developer

There are a number of ways to put Career Developer to work.  Some of these are:

• Enable learners/clients to explore career development topics on their own.  There is often a lot of information that is exchanged during a counselling session and it helps clients if they have supplemental materials or additional resources to help them once they have left the session.
• For group or classroom activities use Career Developer to assign self-directed projects on topics such as self-assessment, labour market issues, financial planning, or work search techniques.  Participants can use Career Developer to locate the resources they need to research these topics. Help the participants become self-empowered for their own career development.
• Small group activities work well using Career Developer.  Participants can be divided into small topic working groups and asked to ?test drive? some of the resources in assigned areas.  Following the ?test drive? stage, groups could share their learning with the larger group.  The end result will be that everyone gains an understanding for what Career Developer has to offer.
• Use Career Developer as reference material or a supplemental resource during a training session.  For example if you have a favourite assessment test you like to use during a session try having participants use a couple other assessment tests in Career Developer and then discuss how the test results are similar or different etc.  Lots can be discovered by looking at a variety of resources.
• Use Career Developer to help participants build a portfolio.  See Note Below.

Facilitating Portfolio Development

The creation of a portfolio serves as a tool to provide learners with an opportunity to reflect on their accomplishments throughout their education or training, share their achievements with others, and assist them with following the action steps needed for further career development. 

The end result of a portfolio is to provide learners with a better sense of what they have to offer the world of employment and to gain greater self confidence.  No one learns very well when they are feeling the pressure of being judged ? especially when being judged for their life?s accomplishments.

As a result, it is the facilitator?s role to create a safe learning environment where learners can get the support they need to explore and document their acquired skill sets.  Facilitating a portfolio building exercise should be a relaxed and fun project for both facilitator and learner. After all, it is all about helping some one put their best foot forward.

Career development is an ongoing process and so is the creation of a portfolio.  Many individuals are uncomfortable with documenting their achievements.  Some may feel they have nothing to offer, others may think it is too much like bragging, and others will be overwhelmed by the process alone.  As a facilitator you need to keep in mind the needs and fears of your participants.

Because a portfolio is never really finished and it continues to change as more skills and personal insights are gained, it becomes a developmental process.  As a result, the facilitation of effective portfolio development should not be prescriptive. 

The importance of a portfolio is not based on prescribed competencies or predicted outcomes. Judging the value of one person?s life experience in comparison to another person?s life experience does not promote self confidence or strong self-directed career management skills.  Ideally portfolios should not be graded or judged.  The value of the portfolio is based on the learner=s ability to produce a product that will serve their individual needs.

Final Tip:  If You Must Grade Portfolios

If it is essential to assign a grade to the production of a portfolio then work with the participants to develop a portfolio check list outlining what they agree will be helpful to include in their individual portfolios. Participants should value each item that goes into their portfolios. Participants that follow through and produce a portfolio as agreed upon should be assigned full marks (Grade or No-Grade situation).  Grading one portfolio over another portfolio can be a discouraging process for many learners. Try to make portfolio development a positive experience for everyone.