(59a) Career Planning: Would I Fit or Be a Misfit? Understanding Organizational Culture, a workshop for Students and Young Professionals

This workshop began as an idea presented to the Management Division Leadership Team with the aim fill voids in preparing students to enter the work place, and subsequently was expanded to include young professionals. In general, academic curriculum or career services resources did not offer a way to match one’s personal values with an organization’s culture. Results of a survey of students and YPs identified the value of a highly interactive workshop which would increase the participant’s capability to pick an organization which fits them best.

The Workshop has three basic parts:

• Establish key personal values which must be realized in a job.

• Explore applications of a tool or framework to assess the culture of an organization

• Compare Personal Values to an Organization Culture

In each part of the 2 hour session, concepts are introduced followed by structured exercises for small groups of participants to test the ideas, develop useful applications and personal action items.

The final design of the workshop is the result of the work of a 7 member diverse Project Team, interviews with student leaders, review with YPs, and a live “preview” with students. The evaluations were used to make appropriate improvements to the initial design.