Summary
Careers aren’t a straight, upward path. After you land that co-op placement, or that job, then what? Especially if either one is not what you thought it would be. Sarah Law is the Senior Manager of Early Talent Acquisition (TNO) at the Royal Bank of Canada. In this episode, Annie talks to her about thriving during your co-op placement, or even in your working career. To Sarah, there’s two key aspects to being resilient: Recovering quickly, and the ability to be elastic.
Annie: Welcome to episode five of the career resiliency podcast series. In today's episode we have Sarah Law with us, Senior Manager of Early Talent Acquisition with the Royal Bank of Canada.
Podcast Intro: The career journey is rarely linear. It is full of twists and turns. Because of this, we know that the transition from school to work can feel scary, uncertain and challenging. To address this, we’ve developed this podcast series to chat about career resilience with guest speakers to show that you are not alone on this journey. Career resilience is the mindset that allows people to pursue their career goals and bounce back, pivot, and thrive when confronted with challenges such as difficult job search, a failed school program, job loss and changes, or career uncertainty. In this podcast series we will focus on five skills that allow us to thrive when unexpected events happen. They are: curiosity, persistence, flexibility, optimism and risk taking.
Annie: Sarah, welcome.
Sarah: Thank you, Annie. Nice to be here and hope you're all doing well.
Annie: Wonderful. So Sarah will be sharing with us today on tips and suggestions in staying resilient and successful on the job from the employer's perspective. Now that you've heard from students, ultimately when you leave Centennial, you'll be looking for a job. So today we're going to hear from Sarah. So Sarah, we'll start with the first question. What does career resiliency in the workplace mean?
Sarah: I think to start answering that question, I'll have to talk quickly about what the word resilience means in and of itself. To me, there are two aspects of being a resilient individual. On one hand, it's the capacity to recover quickly from difficult situations and we all know life is not perfect. We all will run into some issues. So being able to recover quickly from that. And then the second aspect of being resilient is the ability to bounce back and be elastic. Again, could be in response to change, difficult circumstances, but that'll be a really key factor when it comes to talking about resilience. And so career resiliency, especially in the context of the workplace, means being able to be adaptable and flexible to change. Change is really the new constant in terms of change in your career path, change in the criteria that you were given when you first had to work on this project. Surprises will come your way, things that you didn't expect will come your way and so being able to bounce back quickly from that is an element of being resilient in the workplace. I think being a quick learner as well is another point that I'd like to mention. The quicker you can learn from your situation, or even learn from your mistakes, the quicker you are able to adapt. And so the ability to assess your situation, determine where you currently are in your current state, how that maps out to your future state and being able to pivot from there, they all tie into career resiliency. Finally, because mentorship is so key if you are to develop in your career path, being able to accept and implement some constructive criticism is also quite key. Sometimes it's hard to hear things about yourself, especially when it comes to areas of improvement, but being able to take that and implement it and incorporate it into how you go moving forward and knowing that it all comes from good intentions will help you be a more resilient individual.
Annie: Great Sarah, and real great tips too. I hear a lot in the tips that you're sharing about being flexible and being able to bounce back and cultivating that suppleness, and flexibility. One of the things that we talk about is this idea of the growth and fixed mindset as well in the process of cultivating career resiliency. So this idea that in the learning process, when things happen in life, taking every experience, whether if that shows up as a failure or if that shows up as a success, especially with the failures. It's looking at it as a learning opportunity. Being curious about the approach and looking at what can be learned from that experience that will help to create a sense of openness and resiliency from within.
Sarah: Great.
Annie: Sarah, the second question is, can you give us an example of a staff member or someone that you know who shows a great deal of career resilience?
Sarah: I think at RBC we're quite fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of leaders who have displayed career resilience and the commonality that they have with each other is that they've all had quite different career paths and they've taken really different routes to get to where they are today. So the individual that comes to mind is someone who was a keynote speaker for us at one of our RBC sessions last year. In her career with RBC, she explored many different opportunities, some in personal and commercial banking, where she had a lot of client-facing interaction and that's how she honed her interpersonal and communication skills. Some in corporate head office where she can work on the strategy side of things and again hone down that business acumen, and so all together it's now given her a really great toolkit of skills, experiences, knowledge, talking points that have been able to get her to where she is today, which is a really successful position. So that to me demonstrates resilience because it shows a lot of change. She probably had a different idea in mind when she first joined the bank and where she is today is completely different from that, and it was not a linear path to get there. She had a lot of different ups and downs back and forth, a lot of lateral movement, not just vertical progression and that again is really resilient.
Annie: Wonderful. Sarah, one of the things that we really touch on in career resiliency are five mindsets to cultivate. You've touched on a really great point, which is this idea of risk-taking.
Sarah: Yes.
Annie: You know, like being able to be open to opportunities. So Sarah, not just in stepping into the unknown and uncertainty, but in the learning process as well. This colleague, this person that you have mentioned, trying on various opportunities in different departments, cultivating new skills, making herself a more well-rounded candidate so that she is able to be competitive in this growing job market.
Sarah: Yeah, exactly.
Annie: So Sarah, the third question is how can students who are starting their first job, or field placement, co-op experience, better prepare themselves to cope, thrive and manage with the challenges of a new job?
Sarah: Great question and I think the tips that I'll share in a minute can be applicable not just to a co-op job. It could be applicable even for people who have established their careers already for two to three years but are now looking to pivot and perhaps try something new. So these are quite general and applicable statements but I would recommend them to keep an open mind and expect the unexpected. Really just like what you said, Annie, it's about risk taking and not being afraid to explore all of these different opportunities is really key. I would also say not to approach the opportunity with too many expectations and perceptions. As a student, you really don't know what's out there. When you first go into the workplace, the amount of things that you'll learn, the types of jobs that you never knew existed, it will definitely blow you away and so if you have too much tunnel vision, or you've got blinders on and you're only focused on that one goal, it could eliminate a lot of opportunities that would end up being beneficial for you. So I would say definitely at least have an idea of your strengths, your passions and your areas of interest, but keep that quite generic and open and broad so that way new learning opportunities can come in. To give you a more practical example, as a student, you likely would have read through a job description to apply for that position, go through the interview process and then finally land the role but as you start working in your placement or your work term, you might find out, "Wow, I don't remember that I saw this in the job description," and that is because it is impossible to capture everything in black and white text. The manager might see certain traits in you that he or she did not see during the interview process and they might give you new opportunities as a result of that. So being open to those experiences, I think is really key. And that also ties in with my next recommendation, which is to have an endless thirst for learning. Being able to just sit in a room, even if it's in a big meeting with a lot of senior leaders that makes you feel a little bit nervous, listening to them speak, being just a blank slate, like a sponge, absorbing as much as you can is really key for you to learn, and it will come up in the future where you think back, "Wow, I just completely pulled that fact from a conversation I was listening to a few weeks ago." So that'll definitely surprise you, but having that learning attitude is really helpful. Take every experience, again like you mentioned earlier, as that learning experience. Whether it's positive or negative. Don't be afraid to take some time to think what went well, what didn't go so well, what could have improved, and then implement that moving forward. An analogy that I always like to use when I'm talking to students is dating. It's equally as important to find out what you don't like as it is to figure out what you do like. That also is very applicable to the workplace and your career path. So even if you're working on a task in your role where you feel like, "Okay, this is not something that I enjoy too much," that's actually a really key learning takeaway as well, because you now know that in the future, your job should not be related to that certain area. Finally, don't be afraid to ask questions. The employer knows that you are there for a work-integrated learning opportunity and so they actually welcome questions. In fact, questions will help you stand out from some of your peers, especially if they're thoughtful and you've taken the time to do some initial research before approaching that person with questions. So it'll help you stand out amongst the hundreds of students that we hire if you ask the right types of questions and it'll also tie back to your own learning as well. So those are some of the tips that I can give the students.
Annie: Those are really rich tips and resources that you're sharing Sarah, and just this idea that for that first job too, sometimes what may happen is that a candidate might be really excited, or they might have a particular expectation that it looks a certain way, and your tip Sarah, is being open to those opportunities and the attitude that you go in into that experience, and to be open to learning is absolutely as you say, impossible to capture everything in black and white text but the attitude that you bring in makes that impression about the person that you show up as, as that professional in the workplace. One of the things about being open too, for students, is the attitude that you go in, into a workplace.
Sarah: Mhmm (Affirmative).
Annie: I think sometimes it's not getting stuck on a particular idea of what it's going to look like, but being open to learning and to absorb, and that in itself could yield really positive outcomes, while not knowing where the outcome is going to end up. Thank you for sharing about the coffee chat. At Centennial College, we have a platform, 10,000 Coffees, where students can connect with alumni and network and set up coffee chats to learn more about careers.
Sarah: We’re strong partners at 10KC at RBC, too, so that’s fantastic to hear.
Annie: Wonderful, thank you so much. So Sarah, what are some tips and suggestions you have to offer students to thrive in their career path?
Sarah: The first one that comes to mind is don't be afraid of trying new things, and I think I've been reiterating that this morning as well, but the opportunity wear different hats is actually a huge learning experience. I've had that in my own career experience where I first started off with a company that was quite small in size. They were international but they were coming to Toronto and establishing their Canadian presence and I was their first Canadian employee. Despite the fact that my job description would have had one certain title, I ended up doing five to six different things. Those are all things that I would not be able to learn in any other kind of environment. So don't be afraid to try new things even if it's outside of your expectations. Second tip would be do not plan too far ahead into the future and take that with a grain of salt. By no means am I saying don't have goals, don't have plans, those are all really important. But like I said earlier as well, you don't know what you don't know, and so coming into the workplace and being able to absorb all of this different influence from your peers around you will help you dictate some of your goals moving forward as well. So don't plan too far ahead. For example, if we were to talk to our grandparents and say, "Well what kinds of jobs existed in your day and age?" They could probably just list off a few. The key ones like doctor, teacher, lawyer, so on and so forth. They would have no idea what a Java Developer is and that's only something that came through because of technology after their generation. So if you plan too far ahead into the future, you now suddenly eliminate all of these new opportunities that could come up as a result of change in technology, a result of change in society moving forward. So that's what I mean about that second tip. And then the final one would probably be to take some time to self-reflect and be introspective. I know especially as a student on a work term or a placement, you are so keen to please the employer and demonstrate your ability, and so you're just constantly and go, go, go mode. I myself am in the same way as well, but that is why I set aside time either on a monthly, or even weekly basis, to record all of the work and the activity that I've done in that period of time, especially if it's related to a large project or an initiative that I was part of. It could be as simple as starting a Word document or just a OneNote document where you go in there and write STAR statements. I'm sure a lot of students are familiar with what STAR statements are, but that's just where you put down the situation, the task, what was the action expected of you and the result. How did you actually impact the business or the team that you were working with, how did you contribute value? Put down all of these quantitative statements around, "I was able to increase efficiency by X percentage," or it could even be qualitative, "As a result of the work we did, employee morale or the culture was improved." So jotting down all of these things after your work term, it makes it really easy for you to update your resume and especially in future interviews, to talk to the employers about what you were able to do. So taking some time to relax a little bit, let it all sink in. Evaluate your current situation, map that out against your future goals, identify where are some areas where you can continue working on some skills that you'll need for the future, that is all really key, I think for students to thrive in their career path.
Annie: Thank you so much Sarah. Last question, reflecting on your own journey, what strategy helps you to stay resilient and why?
Sarah: I think my own career journey is pretty interesting and I’ll probably have to start at the very beginning around my education piece in order for me to tell this story. But to answer your question, the ability to realize that my knowledge is limited. So what I thought was the best approach, or the best plan for me at that time may not actually have been the best route for me. And coming to that realization is probably one of the key things that has helped me stay resilient throughout. And so, my story begins back in university where I first went to Waterloo for Accounting, and I thought that’s my career goal, that’ll be my destination. And I only came to that conclusion because I was doing so well in my Accounting courses in high school, which truly does not say that much when you think about it. But I was doing my first year of accounting at Waterloo, and then I thought to myself, “I am really miserable, and I don’t want to be doing this for the rest of my life.” Your career is such a huge aspect of your life. You spend more time with your co-workers and in the workplace than you do with your friends and family, and so I thought to myself, “this is not what I want to do in the future”. So that was my first sort of pivot moment number one, where I realized, “wow I really have to change my plans”. And I was thinking to myself, “well then where do I go from here?” So I spoke to my counsellor at the university, and then switched into psychology. At that point the plan was to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist because that sounded like a natural career path coming from a psychology degree. Closer to the end of my degree, I realized again this was not what I wanted to be doing. So what do I do at that time, right? Do I complete another new four-year degree at school? Not necessarily. So I was really fortunate, in the summer of my third year going into my fourth year I had an HR internship. I signed up for that not knowing what to expect, I never thought I would be interested in HR at that point, I didn’t really understand what HR encompassed either. It was more of an, “I need a summer job so I will go ahead and try this,” kind of attitude. And that was a huge pivot moment again in my life, where I realized this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And so, after I finished that internship, my third year summer, went back to my final year and took on more HR courses. So I ended up graduating with an HR specialization on top of my psych degree. And then afterwards directly went into U of T to do my Masters in HR as well. So, if it weren’t for that internship, I do not know what I would be doing at this point in my life, and that really ties back to the tips I was giving earlier around, be open, try new experiences, even if it’s not what you expect, even if it’s not what you think you’ll like, go and give it a shot, you really never know what to expect. And so, here I am, eight or nine years later still doing the same thing in campus recruitment, specifically in the tech space, and I’m still loving it here. So, being able to realize that what you think you know at that time is not necessarily all that’s out there, has been a strategy for helping me to stay resilient in my own career.
Annie: Wow, yeah. Sarah, you gave a really great example of sort of the fluidity of the career journey because what we say about career resilience is that the career path is never linear. It’s got lots of ups and downs, lots of uncertainties, and all of the things that you've shared about being open to the experience, about being introspective and reflective and learning and risk-taking as well, are really demonstrated through the examples that you gave about your own path, really shows that you just never know, right?
Sarah: Right.
Annie: You never know, and when you're open and you cultivate these mindsets, it will lead you, as long as you learn about yourself, you trust yourself, you know yourself, it will lead you to where it is that you were meant to be.
Sarah: Yeah.
Annie: Yeah.
Sarah: And I actually would probably have to say it's better that it's not linear. It just makes you that much more of an interesting individual. From a recruitment perspective, we typically look for people who have a T profile. So if you think of the way that a capital T is written, there's a horizontal line across at the top and then there's your vertical line going down. So the horizontal line denotes someone who has a broad range of general skillsets and the only way that you can acquire that is if your career path is not linear and you try different things that you didn't expect and you have your ups and downs and so you're that much more of a rich individual. And that T, that vertical line, is your area of expertise, which for myself would be campus recruitment, but because I tried all those different things, I now can have some talking points if I need to as well. So I would encourage you to be comfortable with ambiguity, be comfortable with not knowing what's coming up next and try new things. It will definitely make you a more competitive individual in the future.
Annie: Thank you so much, Sarah, for sharing all of these really valuable resources to our students from the employer's perspective, about how to stay resilient on one's career path and journey. And thank you so much for tuning in to our Career Resilience podcast series. We hope that you really enjoy the series and have taken a lot of valuable learnings from the experience in learning about and hearing about the students' perspective, the employer's perspective, and also the Indigenous perspective about career resiliency as well. My name is Annie, I'm an Employment Advisor at Career Services and Cooperative Education and once again, thank you to Sarah, Senior Manager, Early Talent Acquisition from the Royal Bank of Canada. Thank you so much.