Megan Riksen (00:04):

Hello and welcome to the Work Like a Laker podcast. I'm Megan Riksen and today my cohost is Brian Bossick. Hi, Brian, how are you doing today?

Brian Bossick (00:27):

Good, Megan, how are you

Megan Riksen (00:29):

Doing? Pretty good. Good to be here with you at the start of the semester.

Brian Bossick (00:33):

Yes. We're excited today to be talking about the beginning of this year. And really today we wanted to talk about how to adjust to this new normal we're all in right now, because we can ask ourselves, is it really normal because it's changing every day.

Megan Riksen (00:47):

It's the opposite of normal, but let's go.

Brian Bossick (00:50):

That's exactly. So we'll call it our new normal realizing that that's probably will sound different in about a week. So today we hope to shed a little light on a few tips that you can use to help navigate the changes you might be experiencing related to both your career journey and then also your personal life.

Megan Riksen (01:09):

That's right. So I'll try to tackle the stuff on more of the career side. And Brian, are you going to handle the personal side?

Brian Bossick (01:17):

Yes. So I'm going to be going over a few things you can do to help you emotionally like manage all the changes that are going on as you're returning to GVSU. So without kind of further delay we thought we'd introduce six tips to help you navigate this new and somewhat funky normal.

Megan Riksen (01:36):

Absolutely. Okay. So we've got some tips, let's start with the first one. And that is, we just wanted to share that we are still really excited as a career center to work with you this semester, it's going to look different. It's going to be in a virtual realm. But we have a lot of things going on that, that we think our students will be excited about. So one of, one of the big, new, exciting things is that we are going to be hosting a workplace, a Laker conference. So you can see we, we like the little theme of work, like a Laker, got a podcast and a conference now. And basically this is going to kind of be an all encompassing multi-week event. So it's going to be in October a couple of weeks and it will include things like professional development sessions, industry sessions, where you can connect with employers lots of different topics, really timely, relevant topics.

Megan Riksen (02:34):

We're trying to, you know, keep things super relevant to the current events happening in our world right now. And then that's going to culminate in the big career fair that we always have. But this time we get to do it virtually which of course will present its challenges, but I think also can be a real opportunity to kind of be at home so you don't need to travel. You can preschedule conversations with employers. So those can be one on one and you can also preschedule to join group sessions from various employers. So I think we're kind of excited about it. When you say Brian,

Brian Bossick (03:15):

Megan, I love that part. Cause I think there is that extra flexibility can also sometimes make it a little bit extra comfortable, too.

Megan Riksen (03:21):

Exactly, exactly. So that's what we're hoping and don't worry the career center, we will be trying to prepare you every step of the way to really make that happen. So that's gonna to kind of be the events and connecting with employer piece. That's going to look a little bit different but we also still are going to maintaining be maintaining all of our career advising. So you can still connect with us by making an appointment on handshake and you'll have the option then to make a zoom or a phone appointment. And we are pretty excited because we have a virtual career lab as well. And in the past our career lab hours were just during the confines kind of, of the work day. And now we're excited that because this is virtual format, we actually can expand our hours. So there will be some evening opportunities and even some opportunities on the weekend to connect in the career lab with someone who works in the career center.

Megan Riksen (04:10):

So you know, when we're thinking about new normal, yeah, I think we can start to be a little positive. Sure. We're missing out on some of those like actual, you know, you know, living and breathing like face to face moments, but I think we're all, you know, becoming hopefully a little more used to like the video, you know, chat environment and that sort of thing. So trying to kind of look at the positives and, and know that you can still make real connections with people and still move forward with relationships and things like that.

Brian Bossick (04:44):

I think that's great, Megan. I think I've been really impressed by the creativity, you know, as, as having to go through all this in different ways to reach and make connections. And I'm just speaking from someone who's jumped into the virtual career lab to understand it, it works great because you can share documents and have real time conversations almost as closely as if you were stopping in the office. So I think those are great ways to do that. Absolutely. Yeah. Good point.

Megan Riksen (05:08):

That's my tip. What's yours?

Brian Bossick (05:10):

All right. Let me see if I can follow that up. My tip number two, I'm speaking from kind of that personal wellness piece. One of the things that we can really suggest is that during this time of a lot of changes to find the things that ground you, the things that feel a little bit more normal in a time where things just aren't as normal. So for myself, just giving a couple of examples recently, you know, I've been able to travel, my family has been able to travel cause they live out of state and we can see each other more and kind of get together in a safe kind of setting. And that has provided such a great sense of normalcy. And it can be things like for me, I love baseball and you can't go to a game, but I can listen on the radio. Movie theaters are closed, but there's drive-ins and pop up movie theaters. So I think it for yourself just thinking about those things, that ground you, and whether that's talking to your friends at a certain time of day or going to take a walk, being outside in the nice weather, the things that kind of create a sense of normalcy, I think can be really helpful during this time.

Megan Riksen (06:08):

Absolutely. I think that's so important as we think about how we're going to continue to move forward in this new normal that we don't know when it's going to end. We S we still, yeah. We need to find those things that, that bring us that comfort.

Brian Bossick (06:22):

Exactly. Exactly. So that's my tip. Number two.

Megan Riksen (06:25):

Awesome. Okay. So tip number three. We want to talk about experience. You can still get experience in terms of your career during this time. So it might seem like I can't get a job right now. I can't go anywhere. But you can, because there are more and more, you will find that employers are open to allowing you to do an internship from home, a virtual internship, right. Our employer team and the career center has been working really hard with a lot of our employer partners to make that happen to provide them with some training and some ideas of, you know, you don't have to cancel your internship program because interns can still be very productive from home and still be getting a lot done. So I thought I'd just share a couple of tips when it comes to that. So we've got tips within tips guys, so get ready.

Megan Riksen (07:21):

So you know, you're going to be working from home, right? If you have some sort of a, some sort of a virtual internship, so that means you're going to be on the phone a lot. That means you're going to be on zoom or whatever video platform a lot. So I think it's really important to maintain some normalcy to your Workday. Right. So have specific hours that you commit to working, even if your supervisor, isn't asking that of you. I know that in the career center, I supervise a couple of interns and I am saying like, let's all work from X to X time, right? Like eight to 12. So we can all have this time where even though we're apart, we're still together and working on things. So even if that isn't provided to you making some sort of a schedule and sticking to it, I think is super helpful checking in with your supervisor often.

Megan Riksen (08:09):

So asking questions, making sure you're doing things the way that they were hoping, right. They're never going to be upset if you're asking a clarifying question, right. Make sure you're well informed and that you've done your research first, but questions, questions are good. You know, and along with that, maintaining that Workday in terms of just getting ready for the day as well. So get out of your PJ's be ready, especially for those zoom calls. You want to look professional, but even if you only have phone conversations that whole day, I think it's, that helps with kind of that mental getting ready for the day. Right. and take breaks and cause it, you know, you can, it can be pretty exhausting to just sit in front of a all day, so make sure you're taking breaks. And then I also was just thinking how even in the career center, we've started to schedule some lunches where we just meet over zoom to chat about our lives, not about work at all.

Megan Riksen (09:10):

And I think that's a concept that could come in really handy as an intern. Maybe you schedule some lunches with the other interns where you are all eating at home, but you can chat and just get to know each other. Or you do that with other people who are on your team, things like that, but finding ways to still have conversations with people that aren't always just around work. Cause that that can be tough then to feel like, you know, the relationship is moving forward at all. And I did want to put a plug in here as well that the student employment plus initiative is going strong at grand Valley. So you'll hear it referred to as se plus and these are positions on campus where maybe you're working on campus. Maybe it's a hybrid where you work a little bit from home a little bit on campus, or maybe it's a fully remote position. But they're kind of an elevated student employment position where you're getting a ton of experience and learning a lot of skills. So it really starts to feel even a little bit more like an internship with us se plus positions. So those are good to be on the lookout for in handshake.

Brian Bossick (10:11):

Thanks speaking. I love the se plus idea too, just cause, you know, as our students are working on campus, I think so many jobs with the virtual connection are leading to more responsibility, more leadership, more supervision.

Megan Riksen (10:22):

Right. And if you can navigate that well, if you can do that well you're yeah. You're going to be able to prove that point to a future employer too. Exactly. You can do this. Yeah.

Brian Bossick (10:31):

And you get an extra, like an extra special reference. So I think it's a good way to go about it. Well, for our fourth tip, I wanted to talk a little bit about personality style. So one of the things that as you look at, like how you navigate something that's different and not working so well or is working well is like your personality and how you use that to adapt, to change stress, good things, bad things, all that different stuff. One of the things we're going to put in our show notes is a link to trudy.com. So it is a website where you can jump on to get essentially take a free personality assessment and look at all the results for like your personality style up there. Of course, if you come meet with us, we can do more extended personality tests too, related to your career and also like your personal life.

Brian Bossick (11:17):

But if you're just listening to this and you're like, I'm really curious, I want to do that. Check out Trudy. And one of the things I often suggest to folks to do is look to see based on your personality style, what works for you. So for example, I'm an inf J and the J part of myself likes that, that means I like a little bit more structure and a little bit more kind of planning. Right now there's not nearly as much structure, right. And things are constantly changing. So I'm finding myself looking for, okay, within a small segment, where do I find structure? How do I use supports to kind of help me navigate things that change every whereas say someone who's more of a IFP, who's a perceiver would love the flexibility. We get energy from that. So I think knowing your personality style knowing what you need really can be influential to how you deal with these things. I'm also like an introvert and I like some downtime, but then in COVID there's a lot of downtime, right. So is it too much that, so you have to ask yourself, is it too much if I like to isolate it? So there's just a lot to be thinking about you know, for yourself, Meagan, I, I am forgetting a little bit, but we, we talked about personality style, but when you think about your, your letters, what, what jumps out to you right now is how your,

Megan Riksen (12:33):

Yeah, I think it is for me just trying to find that personal space with everybody in my household is just kind of around all the time. Which in so many ways is lovely and you know, and other times, yeah, when you're feeling introverted, you know, you just need some time to yourself. It's finding that space. So I, I think it's really important to just listen to yourself, like pay attention to what's bugging you, what's making you anxious. Because then you can put a plan in place hopefully to try to address that in some way.

Brian Bossick (13:05):

Exactly. And realizing that based on your style, it's somebody else's style. That plan might look really different than it's totally okay.

Megan Riksen (13:11):

Love that. Awesome. Good deal. Okay. So tip number five then is around networking. So just like getting experience, like having an internship, does it need to go away networking doesn't need to go away right now either. There are still ways to connect to grow your network during this time. Even when you might not be going on a visit to an employer to tour their campus instead you might be doing some sort of a virtual visit, right. And there are lots of ways that this can still happen. So kind of on a one-to-one level, certainly reaching out to people, using LinkedIn, to find alums, to find people who work at an organization that you really are interested in learning more about and just reaching out, you know, hitting that connect button, sending a little message along with that saying, I'd love to just hear more about your career path.

Megan Riksen (14:10):

Those can start to open doors to some really good conversations you know, and feel free to get creative with that. Maybe you schedule a coffee, but you both just start holding coffee and drinking coffee at eight 30 in the morning from your own homes. Right. But it still can kind of be a little coffee chat. So, you know, that would kind of be the one on one, but you can also be networking and a lot of these virtual environments. For example, a lot of our employer partners are doing a ton of information sessions where you can have some back and forth dialogue. You get to ask questions in a Q and a, you probably are given the contact information of the people who are running that webinar or info session. They're telling you all about their company and all the great opportunities there. So take advantage of that. You know, if you are given someone's email address, use that, reach out afterwards and say, thank you so much. This was really interesting. Really peaked my interest in your company. Can you tell me more? Right. So I think it takes, takes a little bit more creativity to maybe make some of these connections, but it's certainly still possible.

Brian Bossick (15:15):

I think that's a great point. And it seems like so many employers want to connect with our students and if they can't do it in the way they normally do, I think sometimes by taking that extra step, that they can keep that connection going too.

Megan Riksen (15:26):

And I'm hopeful that on both sides, we'll start to see some creativity, right. That players are finding new ways to reach out to students that students can then find ways to reach out to employers. Cause I think that's, that's gonna be important. And if we've learned nothing through this is that we can kind of reinvent the way things are done and then it can still be okay, right. We're recording this podcast from three different homes and we made it work. Right. We never envisioned ourselves doing that, but I think there's, yeah, there's ways to kind of get creative with that

Brian Bossick (15:57):

Well said. Excellent. And, and for our sixth and kind of final tip I just wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about if you do feel really stressed out and if you need some extra support there are some things we're doing at the counseling center to help out too. So while we are not meeting with students in person we're doing virtual appointments and so everybody, those are confidential, those are free and you can call us and get set up with kind of initial screening appointment to see what's best for you. And maybe that's individual therapy. You will meet one on one kind of virtually with a therapist. We are also doing group appointments that way too. So a lot of our students love connecting with others in a group and we found a secure and safe way to do that, where you could have like 10 people in a group room and two therapists kind of helping to talk about what's going on.

Brian Bossick (16:42):

Right? Yeah. It's, it's, it's such a cool idea. And you know, the typical topics of like depression, anxiety of course will be there. But I think also you're going to be looking at how does that look different right now? Right? How does it look different today? And so while you've got support from other people, if you're feeling a little isolated plus you've got therapists in there. So we have a lot of those services. We work with our nurse practitioner. So if you're coming in and you're really struggling, we have medication consultants and she can work with you too. And then one of the things that I'm really excited about is we've placed a lot of our educational groups online. So if you wanted to learn about like managing anxiety, you can kind of log onto our website and see like a whole workshop on like how to manage anxiety and depression and video demonstrations on like deep breathing and art therapy and how you can do all of those things to kind of help you manage stress and kind of move forward in a good way.

Megan Riksen (17:36):

So some good things to try, even if you're like, wow, art therapy, is that going to work for me? Why not try it now, maybe you have a little more time at home to try something new that could end up really being rewarding. And of it is extremely

Brian Bossick (17:50):

Easy and simple where it's like blank paper in a and a cram and others, you can get really like kind of crafty so you can choose like which of the ones you're watching to see what you really want to try.

Megan Riksen (18:00):

That's great. That's awesome. And that's all available on the counseling center's website. Yeah.

Brian Bossick (18:05):

You got it. [email protected] backslash council you can find all of our resources there for you.

Megan Riksen (18:12):

Perfect. Great. Well, I think we've covered our tips, Brian.

Brian Bossick (18:17):

I think we have, I don't know how yes we did. I think we did,

Megan Riksen (18:23):

You know, this was just a brief snapshot, right? If some of the ways to be thinking about this time to kind of, yeah. Wrap your mind around, how can I move forward in my career planning while at the same time, ensuring that I'm staying healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, right. All of that good stuff. So hopefully this gave you a few tips and tricks to kind of navigate that new normal I'm sure you feel this way, Brian, but all faculty and staff as well at grand Valley are going through these transitions and dealing with their own personal circumstances. So, you know, we kind of have this all in common now, which is kind of great, you know, I feel like I've started every zoom or phone call with a student lately just chatting. Like, how are you? And it's actually like, how are you? It's not like, I'm good. You know, no, here's what's really happening in my life. So don't hesitate to reach out to us in the career center, to the folks in the counseling center to really just, you know, even if you just want to chat and don't want to talk about career at all, like please, please reach out. We are, we're here for you. For sure.

Brian Bossick (19:31):

Absolutely. And I would say, you know, if we, if we don't know the answer, I think part of what we like to do is we will connect you to somebody that does. So, you know, if you're looking for a starting place, do you have a relationship with someone in the career center, some of the counseling center, some of the academic advising, and I think everyone here is excited to help you figure out where you need to go. Even if we don't know it.

Megan Riksen (19:50):

Absolutely. Yup. I think that's something that grand Valley is really good at getting students to the right place. So. Great. All right. I think that's it for us, Brian?

Brian Bossick (20:01):

I think so too. Megan

Megan Riksen (20:04):

Sounds good. So we wish everyone in Austin start to the semester. Whatever that looks like for you and know that we are here to help.