As we approach our next free remote conference on 8th May (Future Proofing Career Development), we reflect on what our conferences are about, who are they for and where they originate from.
Complete-Careers Partners (Janet, John, Mark and Ron) initiated an annual conference back in the early 2000s as a local conference for Careers Leaders (then Coordinators) as part of their role within Lincolnshire County Council. The conferences soon grew to include surrounding areas before austerity measures hit hard and the team were made redundant in 2015. Complete-Careers was created as an entity, and we have maintained annual conferences ever since.
Starting in the county council days and maintaining throughout the lifespan of Complete-Careers LLP to date, our team continue to work in and with schools and colleges every day. We therefore see, hear, feel and understand the barriers young people face with transition, as well as the constant challenges careers staff are face. With board roles at both the CDI and Careers England, our staff are also connected to policy creating a bridge therefore for our conferences between policy and practice. Our conferences always place the individual learner at the centre, providing practical hints, tips and resources to help Careers Professionals in their roles.
The conferences are free, but most significantly, we provide them without asking for external sponsorship, ensuring Careers Professionals are not bombarded with advertising, sales and marketing.
Over the decades we have welcomed all the ‘who’s who’ of the careers world to keynote at the conferences. These include Professor Bill Law, Tony Watts, David Andrews, Anthony Barnes and more recently Tristram Hooley, Liane Hambly, David Morgan and Nicola Hall. We are delighted to announce that Deirdre Hughes will be providing a keynote address at our next conference on 8th May 2024 (online).
As we were preparing for our spring conference in 2020 we had a central venue booked, 1000 plus pens ordered, as well as name badges, conference folder packs etc. The pandemic then struck and we had to rapidly experiment with Zoom, before accepting as our preferred format moving forward. Remote is closer to our values as a more sustainable delivery method and it also fits better in a more flexible world, where people can be flexible with their time and, and even register and access the recording later. We still have all the pens and name badges and hopefully one day we will get to use them again for a more traditional conference, but for now we are committed to high quality biannual remote conferences.
Many Career Leaders are regular conference attenders and some have been there since the very start!
Why not join the community and register for our next conference HERE – Future Proofing Career Development, where we will be exploring the big issues in the careers sector now such as AI, green and skills?
Can’t wait until May? Check out a whole variety of past conference themes, with the recordings available free of charge HERE under the conferences tab.
Like our conferences – please do leave us a Google review or provide us with some feedback via admin@complete-careers.com.
John Ambrose
March 2024