US/UK Career Discussion: Career Resilience and Self Efficacy

Taking ‘post-it’ as an imperative, here’s the fifth in the series of transatlantic discussions generated with the help of UC Berkeley’s excellent Career Counseling team.  Giant post-it #4 briefly touched on the theme of self efficacy, but here it is examined in more detail…

Comments on career resilience and self efficacy, following tweet from Naeema Pasha – thanks Naeema!

Giant post-it #5: Career Resilience and Self Efficacy

Initial comment from Naeema Pasha:

Can you ask if they’re doing anything on building career resilience and self efficacy with students?

Notes from UC Berkeley Career Counselors:

US/UK Career Discussion: Labour Market Resources

It started with comments and tweets from careers professionals in the UK and my attachment* to adhesive stationery. A huge thanks once again to the UC Berkeley Career Counselors who commented, annotated and discussed the difference across the Atlantic.   We’ve covered Internships, Student Involvement in service delivery and International Student Needs. Now on to…

Giant post-it #4: Labour Market Resources

Comments on US labour market information resources, following comment from Tahira Majothi – thanks Tahira!

Initial comment from Tahira Majothi:

Do they have ready resources that cover the country similar to Prospects or Target Jobs?

US/UK Career Discussion: International Student Needs

Continuing my homage to oversized stationery, the third in the series of write-ups from discussion with UC Berkeley Career Counselors, centered around tweets or comments from UK careers staff.  We’ve covered Internships and Student Involvement in service delivery, on to…

Giant post-it #3: International Student Needs

Comments on meeting the needs of international students, following comment from Tahira Majothi – thanks Tahira!

Initial comment from Tahira Majothi:

Do they have issues re: meet needs of international students, visas etc?

Notes from UC Berkeley Career Counselors:

New position of Career Counselor for International Students – meets exclusively with international students…

US/UK Career Discussion: Student involvement

Thanks to everyone who tweeted or commented questions for my professional exchange to UC Berkeley! In a recent Career Counselor team meeting here, the counselor team were kind enough to add their thoughts and comments around those questions to giant post-it notes (which are awesome).  Giant post-it #1 was on internships. Now let’s look at…

Comments on using students in service delivery – following question from Anne Delauzun – thanks Anne!

Giant post-it #2:

Initial comment from Anne Delauzun:

…I’m particularly interested in hearing more about their use of students in service delivery. We currently have a small student team involved in different aspects and this is an area we’re looking to develop…

US/UK Career Discussion: Internships

Thanks to everyone that’s tweeted or commented to let me know what you’d find useful from my job exchange here at UC Berkeley.  Thanks too to all my fantastic colleagues here at Cal, who let me take over a bit of a Career Counselor team meeting a couple of weeks back, where I used those tweets and comments as the center of discussion, annotating some giant flip chart sized post-it notes.  Incidentally, flip chart sized post-its are the Best Stationery Item Ever.

Comments on internship question from Jo Hutchings – thanks Jo!

Giant post-it #1: Internships

Initial comment from Jo Hutchings:

Would be great to hear more about the internship differences. I know here in the UK (and at Bristol – where I am a Careers Adviser) the request for internships seems to be more each year. My understanding of the US, is that it is very common for students/graduates to carry out internships – but is this after their degree? Are large graduate recruiters tending to recruit more from their pool of interns, which seems to be the way things are going here in the UK. Any insights in the US model would be gratefully received!

Solution-focused counseling

I’ve been learning so much here in California – and so during my last month here on exchange at UC Berkeley, I’m planning to blog more as I write up and share all the great things I’ve learnt.

Here in Berkeley, the majority of career counselors have a two-year MSc in Counseling (usually with a concentration in careers work), which means that I’m learning so much from colleagues that have a much broader toolkit to draw on.

De Jong and Berg, Interviewing for Solutions (2nd ed), Brooks/Cole, 2002

One approach recommended to me by my supervisor, Sarah Backes-Diaz (who’s also a Master Career Counselor) has been particularly useful: solution-focused counseling, which I’ve been learning about via a great text - Interviewing for Solutions…

Features of solution-focused counseling

1) Much less of a focus on diagnosing the ’cause’ of any issues.  This is not about us as lofty ‘professionals’ applying scientific expertise, but treats the client as the expert about their own life (which appeals to me following my reading about non-hierarchical reflective practice, as well as new directions for careers work following Phil McCash’s concept that ‘we’re all career researchers now’)

Social Media: Oxford and Berkeley

Jessica Henderson at the University of Leeds kindly asked me if I could provide input for an AGCAS training event on social media and this is the result!

Many, many, thanks to Assistant Director Suzanne Helbig here at the Career Center at the University of California, Berkeley for sharing with us her social media strategy too.

This is our 20 minute chat about all things social media, comparing Oxford and Berkeley’s approach – we hope it’s helpful (you might need to turn the volume up!)

*My spelling’s now just half way between the US and UK; I’m lexically in the mid-Atlantic. Which is to say, that I’m lexically in the Azores, I guess. Isso não é bom?