Look In The Mirror. What Do You See?

by Kendell Brown, Associate Director of Alumni Career Services
Kelley Graduate Career Services

Kendell Brown

Often alums and clients contact me wanting to initiate a job search but they’re at a loss as to where to start. All that they know is that they want to start now! So to jumpstart their thinking, I’ll have them assess where they are today. Self-evaluation is a great way to inventory who you are, what you have to offer and where you want to go. Here are the six areas I encourage someone to consider and the order to consider them. 

Strengths – What do you do well? 

I encourage people to start here.  It’s typically an easy assessment to make. If you’re stuck or too modest to reflect on your strengths look at old performance reviews. Or think about what you like to do best and/or what comes easiest to you. 

Transferrable skills – What will you leverage?

This is a natural next step from strengths. Transferrable skills are those skills that you have that can be applied across a variety of positions. Meaning if you’ve got a strong drive for results in your current role – you’ll have a strong drive for results in your next one. Typically, there’s a high degree of overlap between transferrable skills and strengths. Although, you should be aware that it’s not necessary for a transferrable skill to be a strength.

Kelley Alumni Receive Free Career Support for Life

by Kendell Brown, Associate Director of Alumni Career Services 
Kelley Graduate Career Services

Kendell Brown

At the Kelley School of Business, the Graduate Career Services staff considers alumni career services to be about lifetime career support. We are here for Kelley alumni at all stages of their careers. On-campus career services teams focus on understanding a student’s values and interests to help with a job search and getting off to a good start. Alumni career services marries that initial knowledge with the knowledge that comes with experience and being “in the real world” to set and achieve career development goals.

For short term planning, almost all of my conversations are about the next career step—a promotion, an external job search or a career pivot (“I’m in finance but I’d like to get into marketing.”).

When it comes to mid-term planning, those discussions are more about having a broad career goal and the moves necessary to achieve it. We talk about expanding an alum’s responsibility scope, enhancing and expanding strengths and building visibility.

Kelley’s alumni career services support is free and unlimited. This is a testament to how much we value our alumni. I’ve talked with my colleagues in other schools' alumni career services offices and they are stunned that I meet with each alum as often as he or she likes and at no cost. In this respect, Kelley is truly singular.