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Leading a Re-Imagine Effort in Career Services


The Collective is truly delighted to announce the first video in our three-part video series on How to Re-Imagine Career Services, sponsored by PeopleGrove and Handshake.

Jeremy Podany, Founder of The Collective, sat down with Christine Cruzvergara, Associate Provost and Executive Director of Career Education at Wellesley College, to unpack what it's like to lead massive change. The series is broken into three important topics:

  1. Leading a Re-Imagine Effort

  2. Ecosystem Integration Strategies

  3. The New Career Services Staff

Each video in the series is about the length of a Ted Talk and is ideal for showing to entire staff teams in order to stimulate dialogue and action regarding how you might personalize the embedded insights.

We believe you will be inspired by Christine's authenticity, her grace, and her truly amazing ability to articulate a bold new vision for career services. We encourage Career Staff, Technology Leaders, Employers, University President's, Vice President's and Provosts to consider the broad and positive effects of elevating the mission of career!

Part 1: Leading a Re-Imagine Effort

We are sure you will enjoy hearing Christine discuss fresh initiatives like:

  • Students having Personal Advisory Boards

  • A Career Connections and Communities Model

  • Group Interviews for New Staff Hires

  • Radically redefined office procedures that empower staff

And, we know you'll love her encouragement to leaders and change agents who are:

  • On the anxious and hopeful cusp of something large and influential

  • Questioning if they have the will to persevere

  • Striving to lead as a woman and/or person of color with confidence and strength

The following questions highlight themes from Part 1 that you might consider discussing with your staff teams, peer groups, and upper administration:

  1. What are some indicators that your campus is ready for a re-imagine effort?

  2. What dreams might you have for big change on your campus?

  3. What does a career services model built around 'communities' and 'connections' look and feel like in practice?

  4. How can you build better relations with your President, Provost, and Cabinet in order to be more engaged in discussions happening in all parts of campus?

  5. What are the barriers to change on your campus and how can your team live above them?

  6. How do you best handle campus partners and stakeholders who are less than supportive of your vision?

  7. How can you transform your staff hiring processes?

  8. What's the best advice for staff who are about to embark on change?

  9. How can you think fresh about procedures that might be holding you back from best serving your users?

  10. How do you stay sane when leading change?

  11. What are the dimensions of a healthy leadership mindset, even when circumstances are difficult?

Christine Cruzvergara started at Wellesley College in January 2016 as the first Associate Provost and Executive Director for Career Education. She was charged with building a comprehensive career model that engages the entire college ecosystem and leading the college’s effort to create greater opportunity for women in the 21st century and to empower the next generation of women leaders. She's been recognized for her visionary leadership in the field and has a reputation of being a creative problem-solver. Her writing, presentations, and consulting work typically center around emerging trends, organizational change, leadership, and management. Christine has worked at all the "George's" in the DC area (GW, Georgetown, and George Mason) and is ridiculously good at limbo. You can follower her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Jeremy Podany is an innovation, leadership, and organization growth connoisseur who has helped nearly 1,000 organizations and 500 leaders, having nearly 40 leadership roles in the last 20 years. Jeremy has enjoyed a career in higher education, has helped build five unique start-ups, and is currently the Executive Director of Ascend and The Career Center at Colorado State University, the CEO & Co-Founder of The Fairs App, the Inventor and Managing Partner of Career Tools, and the founder of The Career Leadership Collective. You can follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn

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