Approximately 500 Students at this School Used Career Focusing™

Hi – I’m Susan Huvenaars, Career Counsellor at Ecole St. Patrick High School in Yellowknife Northwest Territories. We have been using Career Focusing™ in Career and Life Management or CALM classes at for five years. In total, approximately 500 students have been taken through the process.

CALM is a mandatory class for graduation and we all know that as soon as you tell a student – you must take this class, their interest in it plummets. For many years, it was challenging to engage students. Instructors made the material as meaningful as possible, but something was missing. Students would go through the motions and complete the class, and that was it.

Career Focusing™ changed that. I’m not saying students are racing to get to class, but instead of the eye-rolling and going through the motions, students are asking – when can I have my focusing interview, can I research another occupation I’m interested in, can I spend more time looking up post-secondary options or can I go see my guidance counsellor about my grade 11 and 12 classes?

It’s not just students who are more engaged. When staff used to get their teaching assignments, they dreaded teaching CALM as much as students taking it. We are a small school and several staff are trained in the Career Focusing™ process, and now we have good-natured debates about who gets to teach CALM. And having others able to do focusing interviews and outsiders come in to help with interviews impresses upon students how important Career Focusing™ is.

I hear time and time again from parents how they wish Career Focusing™ was around when they were in school. They support the process and see the value of their student using a concrete tool.

The beauty behind Career Focusing™ is its simplicity. It starts with the student discovering who he or she is with the focusing interview. This is a critical piece that many other career development processes miss. At the end of the process, students have to write a summary report on the Career Focusing™ process. With very few exceptions, students typically write they were not looking forward to the class and thought it would be something they had to endure. With very few exceptions, though they found it is a very meaningful and practical way to make informed and intentional choices for their future work and learning, whatever that may look like.

The final testament to the value of Career Focusing™ is the number of students contacting me well after they have taken Career Focusing™ to tell me about how they applied the process to their current work and learning situation.

Thanks Jobmatics for developing and sharing Career Focusing™ – it’s made a difference!