badgerworks

Last week I mentioned that I was planning to attend a recession-proofing workshop. I did attend it and got a good bit out of it. Many thanks to Patrick Madsen, Director of Programs & Education at the Professional Career Services at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School for the great programs he offers. While the workshop was geared primarily toward my peers who have been laid off or are in jeopardy of being laid off, there were a number of more genarally applicable takeaways:

Portfolio Development
This is a skill that I have not yet developed. We discussed keeping very close, real-time track of professional achievements in a portfolio and in a resume. I find this challenging for two reasons. The first is simply formatting: how and where should I track all of the portfolio information and how should that be formatted to be accessible and portable? I have looked at some sites like Visual CV in the past, but have not yet done the deed. The second challenge for me is the actual quantification of achievements. I suggested that the career center should do a workshop on that skill — I need it.

Network and Reference Building
Dr. Madsen is great at teaching us the finer, nuanced points of networking. He steers us well clear of brazen networking techniques. These are transparent, superficial, and not terribly effective. He instead teaches us to build up a substantive, authentic, and strategically positioned network. This is great advice and I can attest to its effectiveness (although I have on occasion caved to the more brazen techniques).

Balancing Job Development and Career Development
This is a sometimes subtle difference. We discussed best practices around balancing those activities that best serve your current job — taking on new projects, offering to explore new areas (i.e. filling in after lay-offs), being the first in and last out of the office, etc. — and those that best serve your career goals — attending networking events, immersing yourself in your target industry, going to school, etc. We see that it can sometimes be nearly impossible to do all of these things well, so we face decisions about which to slack and when. That is a tough call in a recession, so, balance is a useful skill to develop.

It was a helpful and interesting workshop with an informal networking happy hour afterward. I have a number of new career development tasks to fit into my rapidly filling summer schedule. We are all looking forward to this year’s programs at the career center — it looks like there are some excellent events coming up!