The Maine Legislature supported and passed into law two innovative education programs in 2007 aimed at educating and retaining Maine’s workforce; The Competitive Skills Scholarship Program and Opportunity Maine. At the same time, the Maine Development Foundation was spearheading the Employer’s Initiative, with an ambitious goal of increasing the number of working adults going back to school by several hundred over the next 3 years. In this workshop you’ll have the opportunity to learn more about these exciting new programs, how they are working together to support Maine’s employers and employees and Maine’s future workforce! The Competitive Skills Scholarship helps Maine residents who need skills for jobs in growing sectors of the Maine economy. The program is sponsored by the Maine Department of Labor.

Most of us know clients or students who seem to rely on us for the answers to their career questions. They may want us to tell them what to do or what to be. Others seem to require very little from us other than guidance. Why do these differences exist? The answer may lie in people’s level of cognitive development. This workshop will explore how clients’ and students’cognitive development impacts the career development work we do with them, and help you develop counseling and teaching strategies that can help them rise to higher and more productive level of career success.

Leigh Gronich Mundhenk, PhD, Assistant professor and Director of Field Experiences, University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College, Bachelor’s degree from Duke University, Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. from Temple University. Dr. Gronich Mundhenk directs the University’s highly innovative internship program and is the founder of Work Concepts, a consulting firm specializing in career and group development. She has been a consultant for Drake, Bean, Morin, an international human resource consulting firm, and was in management with Johnson & Johnson for 15 years. She brings her diverse work experience into all facets of her teaching, consulting and coaching work.

Do you want to improve upon your “Cultural Competence” in the work environment? Within this session you will gain knowledge on working with individuals from diverse backgrounds. As refugees are arriving in the US, there are many challenges/barriers for them to overcome and learn to adapt within the new surroundings. With the many challenges to confront it is essential to have social service agencies, schools, non profits, and foundations armed with knowledge on how to work with individuals from these diverse backgrounds.

This workshop will present strategies to deal effectively with the job interview. The discussion is designed both to assist professionals in working with clients and to provide useful approaches for professionals seeking to advance their own careers. Topics include interview preparation, interview structure, dealing with standard and difficult questions, questions to ask, and follow-up. Participants will receive a list of sample interview questions.

Jim Elkins has operated Career Planning Services in Scarborough since 1985 to provide career planning assistance to individuals and organizations. Jim holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in Personnel Counseling from Miami University and has completed advanced graduate work in counseling at The Pennsylvania State University. Jim has over 30 years of counseling experience with a specialization in career planning and previously held career planning, counseling, and administrative positions in higher education, government and the public schools. He has served as an organizational consultant and trainer concerning career development, educational planning, and employment interviewing. Jim is also one of the original staff members of the New Horizons Academy and has served as its Coordinator of Career Planning. In this capacity, he designed the Academy’s Proactive Career Planning Model and has provided training on the model to the staff of the Bangor and Loring Job Corps Centers and Houston Works. He is a member of the American Counseling Association and National Career Development Association, and is a National Certified Career Counselor, Master Career Counselor, and Certified Rehabilitation Counselor. Jim is the author of several nationally distributed career planning publications.

The primary purpose of giving career assessments to students and clients as part of the career development process should be to engage them in a conversation about how the assessments might contribute to their self awareness and ultimate decision-making. In this workshop, examples will be provided of conversations that address several facets of the assessment process. Participants will then engage in a process of framing their own conversations to align with their use of assessments for career counseling.

Zark VanZandt, Professor Human Resource Development, University of Southern Maine University of Maine, Ed.D and Michigan State University, B.A., M.A. Dr. VanZandt’s prior positions were Dean of USM’s Lewiston-Auburn campus in July 2003 and served as Interim Director of the USM Libraries, Associate Dean of the College of Education and Human Development, and Chair of the Human Resource Development Department at USM. His academic interests are in the area of Career Development, Group Process & Procedures, and School Counseling. He has co-authored two books ( Lessons for Life with Simon & Shuster and Developing Your School Counseling Program: A Handbook for Systemic Planning with Brooks/Cole-Thompson Learning). He is also the creator of the Get a Life Career Planning Portfolio, a resource with worldwide distribution through the American School Counselor Association.

Jim Peacock, Kennebec Valley Community College

Many facilities, schools and institutions have purchased the Choices software to assist with career exploration, but all too often, Choices is not utilized effectively. This session will focus on the Career Finder section of Choices Planner. Using two of the assessments in Choices (interest and work values) within the Career Finder option and one other criterion, we will narrow down a listing of occupational choices that most closely match the student or client. We will demonstrate and discuss pitfalls, areas of concern, and how to “fix” a bad list. The goal is to produce a list of occupations for our student / client that is realistic for them to begin their exploration.

Jim Peacock is currently the Career Counselor for Kennebec Valley Community College and the Director of the Advising & Career Center. He also has 15 years experience as a high school guidance counselor. He was President for the Maine School Counselor Association in 1997. Jim owns his own business, Peak-Careers, as a career development consultant and is a nationally certified Global Career Development Facilitator Instructor through the National Career Development Association. He is currently the Past President for Maine Career Development Association (MCDA) and was instrumental in making MCDA an official chartered state association of the National Career Development Association in 2005. He has delivered career education and recruitment speeches to over 4000 high school students in the central Maine region and has presented at numerous conferences throughout New England on various career related topics.

As counselors and educators, our work involves helping other to become whole and to be healthy. Each of us is a – “a once sung song” – “a once read poem” – “a once danced dance” – a once sung song.” The present moment is the only time there is. It is up to us to use it. HOPE Groups, Soul Circling, and LifeWork Imaging constitute work that engages individuals to recognize that their lives have meaning, value, and purpose. This presentation takes the best from each approach and creates a model and process for helping individuals with their LifeWork decisions.

We begin by asking these four questions: Who are you?

• Who are you>
• Why are you here?
• How are you going to get what you came for?
• What are you going to do with it when you have it?

Stephen D. Thompson , M.Ed., Career Development Consultant, Concepts to Action. Stephen Thompson is a life-long career educator, served as Maine’s State Career Education Coordinator from 1978 through 1982. From 1984 until 1996, he worked as part of the team that brought Maine’s Career Information Delivery System from its infancy to a statewide network that included public schools, higher education, vocational rehabilitation, and employment and training programs. In 1996, Stephen became the Managing Editor for Chronicle Guidance Publications in Moravia, New York. In the year 2000, he returned to the State of Maine working in several professional capacities. Now retired, Stephen is working on a variety of projects including the expansion of HOPE Groups throughout the State of Maine, the Maine Farm Family Journal, and designing a web site that includes storyboarding and other strategies that will help organizations bring concepts to action.

In this workshop, Michael Shannon will facilitate participants through the process of creating their personal career toolkit. Michael will introduce strategies that will use Internet search engines, career development theories, life stage theories, and community resources. Strategies will include the Stages of LifeWork Imaging, the structure of K-5, 6-8, 9-12, and adult learning populations, and a broad mapping to Maine’s Career learning results.

Michael D. Shannon, Ed.D Career Information/Career Development Consultant
Originally from Eastport, Maine, Michael earned his doctorate from the University of Maine in 1981. Throughout the years, Michael’s work has involved counselor training and education, vocational counseling, public school counseling, career education research studies, and research and product development related to career guidance programming and career information delivery. His ability to integrate theories into practice leads his workshop participants to deeper understanding and appreciation for the how’s and why’s of what counselors do within the context of their jobs and organizations.

The discussion begins with an overview of Maine’s labor force and the predominant industries, with a focus on what’s growing and what’s not based on our 2004 to 2014 industry and occupational employment projections. From there we look at occupations likely to exhibit employment potential, both due to growth and to meet replacement demand. We look at occupational needs based on educational requirements, followed by a discussion of occupational wages reported in Maine and elsewhere. Next, we present an overview of several web sites useful for obtaining the latest occupational information and other statistics.

Merrill Huhtala, District Manager, Central Maine Labor Market Information, graduated from USM, 1989 with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Economics, and began working for the Maine Department of Labor in March of that year. During that period have worked in the capacity of Occupational Wage Programs Manager, Occupational Employment Statistics and Occupational Projections Program Manager, and Southern Maine District Manager for Labor Market Information. Current position is Senior Employment Dynamic Analyst for Center for Workforce Research and Information (which includes the counties of Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln, Somerset, and Waldo).

An experiential workshop exploring the O*NET On-Line web portal and all it can do as a tool for the entire workforce development community.