Written by Crystal Kyabaggu
Crystal Kyabaggu is a CPA and graduate of the Richard Ivey Business School at Western University. Crystal has a deep love for music and works as an Accountant and Business Manager within the Entertainment industry. Want to know more? Connect with her!
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I’ve been to my fair share of career management workshops.
Nine times out of ten, the sessions are focused on ‘beefing up’ your resume or LinkedIn profile, with promises of giving you the keys to unlock your potential as “the ultimate candidate”.
So, when I heard about the idea behind Oh the Places You’ll Go – applying Design Thinking to career management – I was intrigued about this refreshing take on a well-known topic. In other words, I launched myself towards online registration so I could define the term ASAP.
When I arrived at the Centre for Social Innovation, I was greeted by a friendly, relaxed atmosphere echoed by the melody of Sade’s ‘Smooth Operator’ playing in the background.
That’s when I knew, this workshop would be exceptional.
The course was designed and facilitated by Stephanie Rosinski, a service designer who shared her experiences navigating through the workforce as a self-proclaimed “jack of all trades and master of none”. Her honest reflection set the tone for the day and introduced us to our first lesson:
- Career Management is not only about focusing on the future. It’s a continuous cycle that begins by assessing where you’ve been and where you are now. Ultimately teaching you how to use those insights to map out the road ahead.
To guide our understanding, Stephanie introduced the Career Toolbox: a collection of Design Tools and Career Theories to help kick-start our personal assessment. Our goal was to complete exercises that would help us understand our current state and future state, and to develop our personal stories. After an explanation of the objectives, she set us loose to gather and distill our skills and experiences.
The exercises were simple, yet thought-provoking, and through them I learned several additional lessons:
- Skills I had previously viewed as competing are actually complementary and work together to make me the unique individual that I am today.
I’ve always felt that I had two distinct sides. One being the technical, analytical mind that drives my accounting, and the other being the relationship-building, team-oriented, mentoring mindset that influences my volunteer work. For a long time, I used work and volunteer experiences to separate those states with minimal crossover. So, the idea that I could design a career that featured both was eye-opening. This led to my third and fourth lessons:
- Passion is not found, it is developed.
- Future planning means more than just defining your next job title or workplace.
It dawned on me how important it is to take ownership in the design of your current role. To get the most of your current position, you must take the opportunities to reshape your role to develop your desired skills and experiences and create a state for your passion to flourish.
I took away a lot from this session and am grateful to have participated. I’m glad to say that I have walked away with tools that I can continuously use throughout my career and in my journey to develop my ultimate self. Which, if you ask me, is way better than a new resume.
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Missed the evening? See what other ELN members had to say here.