Women With Impact: 3 Steps to Kickstarting Your Career
By Jody Bell
I remember breaking down crying while discussing my career plans with a college advisor and being met with a phrase that is now burnt into my mind: “Just follow your passion!”
While they were well-intentioned in their response, these words of encouragement didn’t help to detangle the path to my dream job. I already knew what I was passionate about, but when it came to converting that passion into a tangible full time career, I was utterly lost.
Many advisors and programs are very similar; they provide guidance and support to help you discover where you want to go occupationally, but leave you lost when it comes to the logistics.
That’s why we launched the Women With Impact series ‒ a workshop program that serves as a launchpad for female success. The program covers everything from personal finance, to venture funding, to career planning. This is separated into three different tracks ‒ Personal Success, Kickstart Your Career, and Start-up Launchpad ‒ and women are able to complete multiple tracks, or even attend just a few workshops within one track.
Our career focused component of this series kicks off on November 10th at 5pm EST with a discussion around finding a career that is the right fit within your field of passion. Register here for this event, and click here for the full list of workshop offerings within the series.
For a preview of this series, specifically the “Kickstart Your Career” track, read below.
1. Finding Your Fit: How to Choose the Right Role & Industry
Being able to articulate your passion is truthfully just the first hurdle before landing your dream job.
Oftentimes, you can approach your passion through many different roles, fields, and organizations. Thus, it then becomes a process of identifying what kind of environment you thrive in professionally. For example, are you more collaborative, or independent when working? Do you work well in more of a start-up environment, when you’re wearing many hats and working cross-functionally, or would you do better in a corporate environment with rigid structures?
Many of these questions can only be answered through experience ‒ whether that's an internship, or speaking to individuals in these industries and asking targeted questions.
2. Crushing Your Interview: How to Prepare & Land the Job
The stage and that most young people despise ‒ the dreaded interview
The common notion that you should “be yourself” during an interview is most definitely true, but it also takes a lot of preparation that is often overlooked. Researching the role, leveraging your network beforehand, and practicing behavioral questions are all great places to start for general roles. If you’re going into a more technical field, you may want to do some research into what that usually entails and speak to some professionals who have been through the process.
3. The First 90 Days: How to Set Yourself Up for Job Success
Congrats ‒ you got the job! Now what?
After officially signing your offer letter, you may feel that it’s time to start immediately celebrating given that the stress of the job hunt is behind you. Well, you absolutely should celebrate, but that doesn’t mean your work is done.
The first 90 days of your first job are some of the most formative and important times in your career ‒ both for your professional development, but also for your place in your new organization. Ensuring that you are actively networking outside of your direct circle of colleagues, you’re going the extra mile, and actively bringing new ideas to the table in a respectful way are all crucial to making a good impression.
Some people even make schedules to ensure that making a good impression at their new firm is part of their weekly routine and incorporated into their workflow.
With recruiting of graduating undergraduate students well-underway, now is a great time to gain some tangible advice on how to navigate getting your first job. Click here to register for the first event in our “Kickstart Your Career” track on November 10th at 5pm EST, and here to explore the Women With Impact series as a whole.
Jody Bell, 20 is Girls With Impact’s Editor in Chief and a program graduate from Greenwich High School. Girls With Impact is the nation’s only online, business and leadership program for girls 14-24, turning them into tomorrow’s leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators.