Overview

In the business world, modern organizations conduct corporate retreats on a regular basis to consider their strategic direction, review progress, and set up goals and objectives for the year. In this course you will use the same approach to organize, strategize, re-energize, and re-invigorate your career building activities. The final Capstone Project is designed as an annual retreat aimed at facilitating your ability to step back from day-to-day demands and strategically focus on gaining a competitive edge on the job market by investigating new opportunities for career growth, conducting a thorough audit of your skill-building and self-marketing strategies, and developing new ways to enhance and showcase your marketable skills. The Capstone Project will allow you to integrate concepts and tools from the entire Career Brand Management specialization to effectively manage your career brand and increase personal effectiveness. Some unique program highlights: • The Capstone Project is designed as a virtual training and development facility where you will engage in career investigation research, self-audit, and creating evidence-based portfolios, professional development plans, self-marketing and personal branding strategies, presentations, and public profiles; • You’ll be actively working with your cohort (study group members) to review their work and receive peer feedback; • You may also use the Capstone as a “career fitness gym” and work independently on a project where you will share your results with others and receive peer feedback. Examples of these projects include but are not limited to developing a self-marketing plan, creating a new digital artifact, developing communication strategy, working on a job application, creating a selection criteria statement, and looking for best practices and self-assessment tools; • It is completely self-paced; you may want to either do it as a 4-week course, or focus and complete in just 3-4 days. Overall, the Capstone Project will help you organize yourself, fine tune your self-management information system, provide a framework for strategic self-management, and serve as an effective self-coaching support system. In the end, you will be well positioned to succeed in the marketplace as the CEO of your own career!

Syllabus

Career Investigation

Welcome to Career Total Fitness 4-Day Annual Retreat! Day 1 will begin with some housekeeping announcements. Then, you'll be greeted by a special guest with a brief keynote talk followed by two lectures. One lecture, called "Connecting the dots", will provide a knowledge map for the entire specialization. The other lecture will introduce the first assignment, a thorough career investigation. Your instructors are Amy Giaculli and Professor Val Chukhlomin joined by guest lecturer Dr. John Beckem.

Self-Audit

Welcome to Day 2! The day will begin with a review of the Self-Management Information System followed by two lectures. One lecture will explain how to maximize benefits of peer reviews for career brand management. The other lecture will introduce the second assignment focused on creating mind-blowing digital artifacts. Your instructors are Amy Giaculli and Professor Val Chukhlomin joined by guest lecturer Dr. Michele Forte.

Strategic Planning

Welcome to Day 3! The day will begin with a review of the Self-Coaching Toolbox followed by two lectures. The first lecture will examine approaches to sustaining self-strategy and translating it into daily routines. The other lecture will introduce the third assignment devoted to developing breathtaking communication strategies. Your instructors are Amy Giaculli and Professor Val Chukhlomin joined by guest lecturer Dr. John Beckem.

Field Experience and Reflection

The annual retreat is almost over, but there are some outstanding learning activities to complete. One lecture called "So what?" provides guidance for self-reflection. Another lecture will introduce field experiences for the next year ("homework"). We will ask you to plan ahead your career branding activities and prepare a brief report as the fourth (and final) assignment in this course. In the end please take a few minutes to complete the end-of-the-course survey. There is also a bonus exercise; you may find it useful to share your unique career branding experiences with other learners and us by recording a brief video (see instructions in the "How to Contribute" video). Finally, we are planning to arrange a live round table to answer your questions. Your instructors are Amy Giaculli and Professor Val Chukhlomin joined by guest lecturer Dr. Michele Forte.