Career Services Spotlight Transcripts

RECORDING OF: YouTube Video Career Spotlight: Networking Tips for Career Advancement

TRANSCRIBED: March 20, 2015

FOR: Walden University

MERILEE S. JOHNSON, RMR, CRR, CBC, CCP PARADIGM REPORTING & CAPTIONING, INC. 612.339.0545 CAPTION@PARADIGMREPORTING.COM

(Dina): Hello, I am Dina Bergren, senior career services advisor at Walden University. I met Tamu Browne at the DBA residency in Indianapolis. Tamu tapped into career services resources, to increase her networking efforts, which led to new professional advancement opportunities. She shares her story with us.

(Tamu):  Well, my name is Tamu Petra Browne. I'm currently enrolled in the doctor of business administration, and my specialization is technology entrepreneurship. I am the head of business and information technology at the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College which is a tertiary level institution in St. Kitts, and I currently own my own business. I have a virtual tutoring company for advanced level students in digital media entrepreneurship and management, so I tutor in those areas. And I do some training, entrepreneurship training, as well. Recently networking has played a tremendous role in my success, and I see that the more that I network, the more lucrative my opportunities have become. This increase in my networking came about because of some resources that I accessed right here, through the Walden Career Services Center. And I looked at one of the archived webinars about the importance of branding. About the importance of using LinkedIn as a tool, and about the importance of networking. And even though I am in a profession where I speak a lot and I talk a lot, and I meet quite a number of persons, I never really took the opportunity to network with those persons. I would conduct my session, or attend my meetings, and just pack up and go home. And those resources, they really showed me that if I had to reposition myself, and I had to grow, that networking was germane, that it was essential. Yes, well, I did attend workshop for a new entrepreneurship syllabus that our standardized examination body in the Caribbean was holding. And I took the opportunity at that workshop to liaise with some of the key decision makers, like some of the panel members of that syllabus committee and some of the lead persons at the Caribbean Examinations Council. So I took their information the old fashioned way, with pen and paper, and their e-mail addresses, and I searched them online. Searched for them online and added them both on LinkedIn, but also Google+. And what happened is that eventually, not quite long after, I was contacted by a lead person at the Caribbean Examinations Council who asked me if I would be interested in not only producing resources for entrepreneurship, but also heading or being a convener for a syllabus panel in animation and game design. And that actually came to fruition, and I now serve as convener on that panel and that was a direct result of networking efforts. And even through this panel, I've continued to network and so I've gotten other opportunities, and I've also learned so much from -- from networking in this area. So I would like to give this advice to other Walden students. And that advice would be, first, to discover the resources online at the Career Services Center. I mean, there are so many webinars that you can look at and replay, that are extremely valuable, including, you know, how to re-brand. How to use social media effectively. So that is what I actually did first, because I did not know how to be effective at networking, and those resources did assist me.

[This text is being provided in a rough-draft format to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings]