Career Advisory postgraduate studies – after the eleventh meeting
Chatbots, ATS, Smartphoneization, employer branding, upskilling – these are just a few of the emerging trends, that may be an opportunity, but also a threat to HR departments, recruiters or Career Consultants operating on the market. Up-to-date knowledge is needed to manage challenges properly. The subject of the last weekend of the postgraduate studies was “Trends on the labor market and taking care of your own development”.
Taking care of your own development as a Career Consultant
The first day of the 11th weekend was conducted by Sandra Bichl. The day started with the presentation of a group project. Each group could choose one of two subjects:
- The Development of a Career Consultant
- Applying Career Advisory know-how within the organization
After the presentations, Sandra reviewed the competencies of a career consultant and based on them discussed in detail the areas that a Career Consultant should constantly develop:
- Knowledge and tools in the field of Career Advisory
(Career Concepts and Career Motives, a catalog of questions, a set of exercises) - Coaching competencies
(active listening, asking open questions) - Expert knowledge from the selected specialization
(industry, function, geography, demographic segment etc.) - Ability to build and maintain relationships
(especially with people different from us / follow-up!) - Good knowledge of IT tools
(text editor, GIMP / Canva.com, Google Drive, Skype / Zoom etc.) - Knowledge of customer positioning tools
(LinkedIn, Google, Xing, Twitter etc.) - Being detail-oriented
(materials have to pass a “quality check” / strict assessment) - Tracking trends and changes on the labor market
“Bonus” area: business skills if someone decides to develop their own practice.
Job market trends and Career Advisory
During the next part of the day, Sandra presented trends on the job market along an employee’s life cycle in the light of Career Advisory. She listed the following trends, taking into account their opportunities and threats – on the market, for organizationa, and Career Consultants:
- Employer Branding
- Chatbots
- Smartphonization
- ATS
You can read about the details and other trends here:
https://blog.careerangels.eu/nowczesny-rynek-pracy-poznaj-najwazszym-trendy-2021/
Managing the client relationship
The second day of the 11th weekend was led by Anna Zadrożna, who focused on building services inside and outside the organization – of course, after the mentioned earlier team work presentations.
Internal or B2B services were divided into areas such as:
- Career paths
- Internal and external recruitment
- Organizational culture
- Other coaching services
- Employer branding
- Building self-awareness of employees and managers regarding their team
During the lecture, the groups developed a catalog of services that each career consultant could provide on the B2C market. Then, these services were further categorized by career consultants’ preferences in terms of Career Motives. Everyone had a chance to consider how the service fits their own “natural predispositions” and career preferences.
Defining your offer
In the next part of the classes, Anna analyzed the services on the B2C market at Career Angels, where she raised issues such as:
- source of (potential) customers
- segmentation
- range of services
- tips, risks and interesting facts for each of the presented services:
- Documents: CV / CV ATS / Business Cases
- Texts: cover mails, translations
- LinkedIn, incl. optimization for the algorithm
- Channel: networking
- Channel: companies
- Channel: PE / VC
- Channel: headhunters
- Channel: job ads
- Preparation for job interviews
- Additional support / nonstandard services or services that are rarely provided
During that day, we hosted Sandra Bichl. Yes – this time Sandra – at the students’ request – was a special guest and shared facets of her work as a Career Consultant from behind the scenes. She also answered all questions in an open and transparent way.
Reflections after the eleventh weekend
“I realized that I have to review the material around career patterns. Mastering the know-how is very important.”
“I realized how vastly client approaches differ and what they expect from their consultant. At the same time, you have to remember your own position and properly value your services. “
“You can organize your HR processes to the point of creating KPIs that will help you work on quality.”
“I didn’t realize that the range of services could be so wide.”
“I really enjoyed the meeting with Sandra who put it bluntly and was honest about the highlights and shadows of the career consultant profession.”
“Everything inspires me, I also learned from other participants what HR looks like in business.”
“I am touched because this is the last day of our weekend… and studies! What I will remember about this meeting are KPIs – hard indicators to measure soft processes. I realised, that they can always be set. “
“I am impressed by the breadth of the range of services provided as part of career consulting. And how broad customer needs can be.”
“I leave the meeting with the conviction that professionalism will always defend itself. I will provide the services the best I can, but also won’t neglect how much I can and still have to learn. “
“I feel and believe that this is the beginning of my development towards Career Advisory. I was very engaged by these studies and I think this is the most important stage in my career. “
We will keep you informed about our students as well as the progress of our studies.
The enrollment for the 2022/2023 academic year has opened:
- study in Polish – details of the program
- study in English – details of the program
PS. read more about the other meetings:
Are you interested in this field and you don’t want to wait for the next edition? Follow information about our courses – also in-house – on this page:
https://careerangels.eu/become-a-career-consultant/
