Career Total Fitness Annual Retreat

About this course: 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!

Created by:  The State University of New York

• Taught by:  Dr. Valeri Chukhlomin, Professor

  SUNY Empire State College

• Taught by:  Dr. Michele Forte, Assistant Professor, SUNY Empire State College

  Community and Human Services

• Taught by:  Dr. John M. Beckem II, Assistant Professor of Finance and Management Studies

  State University of New York, Empire State College

• Taught by:  Dr. Tonka Jokelova, Coordinator of Curriculum and Instructional Design

  SUNY Empire State College

• Taught by:  Amy Giaculli, Coordinator of Student Services

  SUNY Empire State College

Basic Info Course 4 of 4 in the Career Brand Management Specialization Level Intermediate Language English How To Pass Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. Coursework

Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.

Help from your peers

Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help mastering concepts.

Certificates

Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends, colleagues, and employers.

The State University of New York The State University of New York, with 64 unique institutions, is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States. Educating nearly 468,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate programs both on campus and online, SUNY has nearly 3 million alumni around the globe.

Syllabus


WEEK 1


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, Val Chukhlomin and John Beckem.


4 videos, 5 readings expand

1. Video: Welcome: Why an annual retreat?
2. Reading: Retreat agenda (Course schedule)
3. Video: Keynote speaker: Phylise Banner, Union Graduate College
4. Video: Career brand management as a skill: Connecting the dots (pdf attached)
5. Reading: Looking for lectures from previous courses?
6. Video: Conducting a thorough career investigation: How to
7. Discussion Prompt: Discussion: Your career investigation
8. Reading: Optional reading
9. Reading: Course developers and contributors
10. Reading: Reuse of the course content

Graded: Conducting a thorough career investigation

WEEK 2


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, Val Chukhlomin and Michele Forte.


3 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Self-management information system: A review
2. Video: Making peer review assessment work
3. Reading: Read more about reviewing and assessment
4. Video: Creating a mind-blowing digital artifact: How to
5. Discussion Prompt: Discussion: Digital artifact playground

Graded: Creating a mind-blowing digital artifact

WEEK 3


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, Val Chukhlomin and John Beckem.


4 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Self-coaching toolbox: A review
2. Reading: Self-Coaching Tools and Techniques
3. Video: Making self-strategy work
4. Video: Developing a breath-taking promotional strategy: How to
5. Discussion Prompt: Discussion: Self-marketing promotional strategy
6. Video: The secrets of using social media for self-marketing: A bonus interview with Dr. Alfreda James of SUNY Stony Brook

Graded: Developing a breath-taking promotional strategy

WEEK 4


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, Val Chukhlomin and Michele Forte.


4 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Reviewing the retreat
2. Video: So what? How to reflect
3. Video: What's next: Planning a field experience (pdf attached)
4. Video: How to contribute
5. Peer Review: Optional: Share YOUR experiences with us
6. Reading: End-of-course survey

Graded: Week 4 Peer Review