What an amazing 2 weeks. There almost aren’t enough superlatives to describe it but inspiring, insightful, empowering, interesting, intense, supportive and confidence building are amongst the many ways I’ve heard Back2Businessship 2019 described.
There was palpable nervous energy in the room this morning ahead of our final event. First, though, we had to tackle ‘the elephant in the room’, these are personal to each of us but include asking for flexible working and we were given the tools, by Jane Fordham, that we can use to successfully negotiate.
Then the speed dating, terrifying and exciting, possibly built up in our minds to be more scary than the reality! A great mix of companies and agencies with one thing in common, a desire to search for talent and a belief in agile (the new flexible) working. Four minutes isn’t long to encapsulate a career, to sell our skills and build trust but I think we all did better than we’d hoped and the practice was invaluable. Fingers crossed for further conversations and job offers in the future!
One of the many things that the course has given us is a reminder of our intellectual curiosity. From being amazed at the difference a power pose can make, to thinking about what our personal brand might look like to wondering about the future-gazing potential of AI to brands, the sessions from industry experts have awakened our curiosity and given us enthusiasm to explore the new.
One of the delegates likened the office doors at Oracle (thanks for having us Oracle!) to The Apprentice. Thanks to the determination to generate change of Amanda Fone and Liz Nottingham we now all feel so much more confident and ready to be hired! A massive thank you from all 35 of us.