In this post, Raza Abbas, discusses why it is important for career development professionals to advocate for the importance of the field at all levels. He also takes the time to introduce a new series of interviews that he has been conducting on his YouTube channel to help to raise the profile of career development. Raza is a Knowledge Management Adviser and Careers professional in Pakistan and international leader in the field.

Career development and career guidance matters. Recent work from the OECD argues that governments around the work should be Investing in Career Guidance. As Anthony Mann from the OECD says ‘Never before in human history has career guidance been so important’. These inspirational words provide us with real hope and remind us that as professionals we have a collective responsibility to serve and inspire the diverse communities that we live in.

The need for advocacy

Pause for a moment and reflect how frequently you proactively advocate for career development, career counselling, career guidance and career education work within your local, regional, national, and global organisations, associations and institutions. As professionals working in the career development field, we deliver meaningful career initiatives and interventions every day, but we can’t reach everyone. To broaden our impact, we need to proactively amplify our advocacy efforts. Some valuable strategies follow that can strengthen and enhance our collective efforts to advocate for career development.

Consider which of these advocacy strategies you or your organisation could use to create impact and improve wider stakeholders understanding of the value of career guidance. Then, consider what else you can do to enhance your advocacy efforts.

Publish

Does your organisation publish career development, career counselling, career education and career guidance research relevant to its vision and mission? It is important that we remain visible in the pandemic and engaged with our stakeholders; publishing research leads to dialogue and broadens access to career knowledge among diverse communities, leading to new career thinking.

Lobby & legislate

Has your organization lobbied effectively with policy-making institutions in your country and lawmakers to influence career development, career education, career counselling and career guidance legislation in your region? Does your organization work to help draft and propose new legislation on career development?

As an organisation, have you worked to develop a holistic youth or career development policy in your country and advocated for career development, career counselling, career education and career guidance as a civic right for youth in your respective country?

As career professionals, how are you addressing the gaps between industry and academia? We can urge governments in our respective countries to approach career development specialists to establish a national standard for youth career education.

Capacity development

How does your organisational leadership manage succession planning? Does the field provide sufficient support and services to encourage people to become career development practitioners?

Speaking and raising awareness

Do you and other representatives of your organisations pursue speaking engagements to raise awareness and share knowledge at educational institutions, non-profits, conferences and vocational programs? If so, are the engagements local, national and/or global? How frequently does your organization and association organize conferences or offer virtual learning on career development, career counselling, career guidance and career education?

Does your organisation implement media campaigns to raise general awareness about career development?

Advocacy in practice

I would like to share one example of advocacy work that I was fortunate to initiate during the pandemic: a global digital careers advocacy series on YouTube. Covid resulted in many changes affecting work and education, from lockdowns to digital service delivery to new societal norms.

This series came out of my reflection on the critical importance of career development services to people around the world. Taking inspiration from the 2021 IAEVG International Conference where the main them was Maximizing Career: Guidance & Development I initiated a global digital advocacy series for our careers and livelihood profession. I created the series with the following objectives:

1. Invite leading career influencers globally to share best career practices.
2. Ensure that even during the pandemic, careers work remains a priority.
3. Bridge our career community digitally via collective advocacy.
4. Increase impact and outreach of our meaningful careers work.
5. Proactively communicate and encourage dialogue with policy-makers.
6. Provide keen stakeholders with valuable perspectives on the significance of career development from leading global career influencers.

So far, I have released 17 interviews on my YouTube channel, including conversations with NCDA President Seth Hayden; international career development specialist Deirdre Hughes and IAEVG President Gert Van Brussel and many others.

These inspiring interviews by leading career influencers have already started creating an impact. It has increased visibility for the careers profession on social media and ignited an increase in career conversations and dialogue by keen stakeholders in respective communities globally. It has encouraged global community engagement that is essential in these times. It has also advocated for the cause of an International Careers & Livelihood Day by leading career influencers and working committees have been formulated to develop an inclusive proposal for the United Nations.

As a collective advocacy measure, we have started a blog in which an international group of committed career development volunteers write a post on diverse UN Days and link it with career development. I will invite you to join the group and contribute.

Final thoughts

I sincerely hope that this advocacy article helps your organization strategically identify additional techniques to strengthen and enhance collective advocacy efforts. If you would like to further discuss one or more advocacy strategies, let’s schedule an engaging career conservation.