As I look to January and I prepare for my upcoming Career Navigator webcast on Career Reinvention, I find myself reflecting on my own career and what ‘reinvention’ I seek in 2018. I have a highly rewarding career as a coach in the IUAA Career and Professional Development department. Daily, I partner with IU alumni as they experience career shifts, growth, and change. I certainly don’t want to give that up, but I find myself wanting to do my work in new and innovative ways.

Are you seeking a career reinvention, big or small, in 2018? Perhaps you are a new professional in your first five years of work, and you find yourself saying, ‘There has got to be more to work than this.’ Or maybe you are mid-career professional and you want to distinguish yourself from the pack. Maybe you have recently become a parent and the career you love is all of a sudden taxing you in unfamiliar ways, or you are a seasoned professional who is contemplating the uncharted territory of retirement.

As I contemplated my own career reinvention, I found myself asking: How can I help more IU alumni with the same amount of hours in a week? How can IU alumnae be empowered to help other IU alumnae achieve their career goals? As a result, in late January 2018, I will be launching a new format of career coaching, and if you are an IU alumna facing any type of career transition and you don’t want to do it alone, this may be a great fit for you.

Designing Your Career is a five session, virtual group made up of 10-15 IU alumnae at all stages of career who are curious, collaborative, and ready to take action in career reinvention. Using design thinking principles and the best-selling book, Designing Your Life: How to Live a Joy Filled Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, we will creatively design the next phase in our career with thought-provoking and actionable steps. We will couple this structured process with videos and texts from thought leaders who can uniquely inspire and care for us along the journey regarding the unique issues women face in the workplace, including: confidence, vulnerability, imposter syndrome and more.

What to Expect:

• Five one hour sessions, every other week, using video-conferencing
• A structured and actionable process for moving through reinvention with ‘homework’ in between each session
• Goal sharing, progress reporting, and a chance for feedback
• A group of women who are of, by and for IU supporting one another

I’d love to hear from you. If you are a woman interested in joining the group or would like to promote the group to your IU community, please email me at erserwin@iu.edu.  And be sure to ask about how you can obtain a scholarship to participate!