I am particularly interested in working with at risk youth. It has been identified that youth unemployment and underemployment is in fact rising and is, amazingly, higher than during the recession! This article talks about medium and large companies getting on board to help young people gain skills during high school and/or post-secondary in order to add practical experience to their resume, along with their debt-inducing education. It will be interesting to see what happens over the coming years.

I found going through the Shift Workbook very insightful and it inspired me to look around for some additional quizzes that assess your areas of interest. For me, in the past, I have always been very analytical, interested in lab testing, anything in the sciences really, and have shifted toward a more person-focused career journey. It's so interesting to me to do these little quizzes and see that my results have completely switched to the "helping" profession! It's just 15 questions and I feel it's a nice and easy quiz for the younger population. It gives results for the following categories: helping, people, administrative, creative, technical, practical.

"For career skills, the focus is on performing well enough to produce a result that's meaningful to you. For personal skills and hobbies, the focus is on enjoying the process and having fun. In these instances, the "10,000 hour rule" and the idea of "mastery" can actually serve as barriers to sitting down to practice - if you believe it takes that long to see results, you're less likely to start in the first place. The real priority is to practice enough to get the results you're looking for, not to attain a certain level of status or competitive performance."

This is not a test! Looking ahead to 2020, the U.S. proportion of the global talent pool will shrink even further as China and India, with their enormous populations, rapidly expand their secondary and higher education systems.

This site supports Friedman's three convergences of horizontalization, using new technologies with new ways of doing business, and the world now having access to plug-in and play. The article talks about outsourcing many services (especially within manufacturing) all over the world. In 2012, China was the 18th fastest growing economy in the world, with a real GDP growth rate (constant prices, national currency) of 7.8 percent. Although the figure is its slowest growth since 1999, it is also representative of a maturing economy as it gradually transition from a developing to developed nation.

In reading Friedman's three convergence story of Rajesh Dhruva, I decided to look up his company. I was impressed! His company partners with Disney, SEGA, Microsoft, Sony, and probably many other well-known gaming companies that I'm just not familiar with! Just a fun link... Dhruva Interactive is a experienced game development company in India located in Bangalore. It is one of the top game development firm and art studio in Bangalore, India.

This is part of The Globe's Wealth Paradox series , a two-week examination into how the income divide is shaping Canada. Income levels for most Canadians haven't changed much in recent years, but for one group: The wealthy are pulling away from the pack.

This week I started on JobBank.gc.ca and searched my local market, York Region (as listed under "Basic LMI Resources - Where to Start" in our course notes). As I typically work with students, this particular site www.betakit.com and an article about funding for youth entrepreneurs was a great source of info to share with my students! Reza Moridi, Minister of Research and Innovation, was at Communitech this morning in Waterloo and announced a partnership with the Campus-Linked Accelerators (CLA) and On-Campus Entrepreneurship Activities (OCEA) to help students interested in building their own business gaining skills to succeed. The CLA is investing $5.8 million and the OCEA providing over $650,000.

Now that we know what the "economy" is...what is Canada's Economic Action Plan all about? Small businesses across Canada are engines for job creation. They employ roughly half of the private sector labour force and represent about a third of Canada's gross domestic product. Economic Action Plan (EAP) includes many initiatives to help small businesses succeed including the Small Business Job Credit.

This resource is great for entrepreneurs. More specifically, check out the "Planning" section. Topics covered include: learning how to conduct market research, finding stats and analyses related to your chosen field, read up on economic trends in your industry, learn about where to find your target demographic audience across the country, and a site selection tool to help you find the best location for your business to start or grow.

Assessing our mental health is not as simple to do as measuring our physical health. There are no scales or endurance tests that rate mental fitness. But with the help of the Canadian Mental Health Association's Mental Health Meter, you can reflect on your unique strengths and identify areas where your level of mental fitness could be improved to help you cope with all of life's up and downs.

As a volunteer for the CMHA, I am an advocate for their website and useful resources! As part of this week's readings on what we are looking for in our working lives and what trade offs we will need to make, I feel that these resources are a helpful read. Take the time to see where you can make improvements to your mental fitness! I like to schedule "Christina time" every week :)

This website is from the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities and provides labour market information and trends in Ontario.