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Whether involved in research, policy, case management, curriculum design,
teaching, education or counselling, to name but a few, helping clients
and students to choose and attain career pathways, and to support their
transitions through important life stages is a privileged and personally
satisfying role of every career specialist. Just as important is establishing
and consolidating relationships with employers and the community to
assist in guiding the development of targeted activities and programs
that result in effective recruitment, selection and retention practices.
In many ways, career specialists are the knitting that align career
aspirations with opportunities within our social and economic environment.
This cannot be understated since the effects of the knitting that career
specialists undertake will leave impressions and footprints for many
years to come in the eyes, thoughts and feelings of each client and
student. Career specialists are indeed trusted professionals!
It is a fact that very few work experience positions are advertised
in the general press or on commercial job advertising web pages. This
indicates that most placements are located through effective environmental
scanning and connection with targeted community, industry and business
representatives. For a career specialist, this equates to facilitating
knowledge and providing how to resources to all stakeholders, clients
and students.
A large number of penultimate university student and graduate positions
are advertised in targeted resources such as graduate
opportunities and unigrad,
and for international students studying in Western Australia, graduan
and Careers in Asia. A few
professional associations provide mentoring activities and release publications
directly to their student member cohort, promoting work experience within
their discipline area. These include: APESMA
and Engineers
Australia. Individual company web pages are also a good source of
work experience information as many include statements that encourage
ad hoc applications to be submitted. This, of course, requires some
research and knowledge of industry participants!
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