Graduate Careers AustraliaGraduate Grapevine - Number 11, Winter 2008National Career Development Week 2008 – Get the Life You Love!Celebrations for the second National Career Development Week (NCDW) were held from 2-8 June 2008. NCDW is funded by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, and is an initiative of the Career Industry Council of Australia (CICA). During NCDW there were 254 host organisations coordinating career development events across Australia. As many of these events were held over a number of days during a very busy week, this represented 734 individual activities over the seven days! Leading up to the week of celebrations the three Celebrity Champions actively promoted the campaign and the importance and relevance of career development to Australians of all ages and backgrounds, with ‘skills events’ promoted in the media, community service announcements and career Q&As in community venues. The 2008 Celebrity Champions were:
Video and radio interviews with Field, Bath and Furze, as well as general community service announcements, can be viewed on the NCDW website (www.ncdw.com.au ) and will soon be available for download and use in career development activities. Due to the overwhelming number of events held during the week, 19 events across Australia were chosen as ‘lead events’. Selection of these lead events was based on information supplied, diversity of audience, variety of organising host and array of activities.
Housing NSW and partners showed what communities can achieve when they work together by holding a week of career development events at the Macquarie Fields Shopping Centre. NCDW Ambassador Mark Furze participated in a Careers Q&A with local students and shoppers, hosted by CICA President Mike Geeves. Mark was certainly an inspiration to the crowd providing answers about his career and his plans for the future. A huge crowd of all ages gathered to ask questions and get autographs – Mark was even asked several times to pose for photos with babies! The celebrations are just part of a year long campaign of events to encourage and support Australians of all ages and backgrounds to improve their career prospects. WOW – 556 Registered Events to-Date in 2008! By 6 June 2008 there were a total of 556 individual events registered on the website (www.ncdw.com.au ), a large number of them being held over two or more days. The range of these career development events, activities, seminars and access to resources has been imaginative, diverse and tailored for audiences with different needs, including: young people and students; employed and unemployed adults; women returning to the work force; multicultural and indigenous communities; businesses; and mature age workers. NCDW Isn’t Just for Students One of the focuses of the 2008 campaign has been that career development is for everyone. As part of this message, the NCDW website includes a portal specifically designed for employers, with information and statistics substantiating the importance of investment in career development. The information includes sections on Career Development – What is it and why is it important to my business and Return on Investment of Career Development. So What Happens Now? You can still register your 2008 events as the campaign doesn’t stop in June. Any event being held during 2008 can be registered on the website. Just go to www.ncdw.com.au and complete the online registration form. More activities across all audiences – that’s our mission; getting the career development message to everyone! Work on the 2009 campaign has begun and there is already plenty to do for next year’s event. The date of the week of celebrations for 2009 will be announced on the website in August. It is intended to move the date to a more suitable time to enable universities and Tasmanian schools to participate. To make sure you don’t miss out on the latest news in the campaign, you can subscribe to receive the NCDW e-news – just go to www.ncdw.com.au . The NCDW website will continue to evolve with the addition of new sections for ‘Careers – What’s in the News’ and ‘Great Career Book Titles’, and more photos and career stories sent in by YOU. “This campaign is about assisting Australians, not only students but Australians of all ages, to take responsibility for their own career, and to recognise that just about everything we do, planned and unplanned, can contribute to our goals and aspirations.” (CICA President Mike Geeves) Start planning your events for 2009. If you need any assistance, have any questions or would like a presentation about NCDW or hold an event planning workshop please contact the CICA Project Director – Karen Penrose on +61 7 5530 8990 or email Karen at [email protected] . Look out for the NCDW Team at your next annual conference! Get the Life You Love! Get Excited…Get Involved…Get Results |
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