The Career Everywhere team is excited to highlight a Career Champion each month. The Career Champion Spotlight for April 2022 is Rory McGloin.
Rory McGloin, Ph.D has been involved with the Career Champion Program since its start. He is an Associate Professor of Business Communication & Director in the UConn College of Liberal Arts & Sciences/School of Business, Assistant Director of Communication and Program Development in the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CCEI), and the Associate Director of Communication Programming and Development in the Professional Education Program in the School of Engineering. Rory also won the Irish Echos 40 under 40 award in 2022. Read on to learn more about the work Rory does with career development and entrepreneurship and to learn more about upcoming entrepreneurship events.
Cecelia Lickteig: Why did you become a Career Champion?
Rory McGloin: I care deeply about providing my students an experience that is applicable and transformative to their careers. I have always seen myself as a “career champion”. Over the years I’ve supported students in so many different ways in their career pursuits that becoming a formally recognized Career Champion was an easy choice.
Experiences are not confined to the classroom and therefore I’ve made it a mission to try and mentor students across an array of venues.
Rory McGloin
CL: Do you incorporate any aspects of career development into your curriculum? If so, how?
RM: Absolutely. I’m fortunate to be able to work in the field of business and communication and thus I believe every single assignment and piece of work that a student creates should be applicable to their personal and professional journey. I’ve recently developed the curriculum for our COMM 2100 Professional Communication course that gets students to start building their professional materials using contemporary best practices in both communication and business. Students design visual resumes, enhance their LinkedIn profiles, and generate business proposals that put their skills and passions at the center of the plan. In my School of Business MBA courses, we focus a great of our attention on presenting effectively across a wide range of business audiences and engagements – we’ve integrated personal branding assignments to help these advanced students hone in on their core values in an effort to ensure these values are at the forefront of their communications.
CL: What is the main way you interact with students/your way of giving career advice (during class, by making specific appointments, holding group meetings, ect.)?
RM: To me, educational experiences are not confined to the classroom and therefore I’ve made it a mission to try and mentor students across an array of venues. I love to meet with students and hear their stories, but that doesn’t always mean it needs to take place in the classroom or office. I’ve often had great conversations and mentoring moments with students when I see them out on campus, in the gyms, on the ball fields, etc. I also believe that my students can provide a great deal of perspective and insight that will help me in my career also. Today’s students see the world through a different lens and when I listen to their challenges, I see opportunity for us all to grow and evolve our approach to career development.
CL: What other resources do you use to provide students with meaningful career advice?
RM: I try to provide a collection of curated materials that I find to be thoughtful and insightful. More often than not these days, those materials are coming from a wider array of content providers. The days of having one textbook to guide the development of a student’s skills in communication and business are fading away. I enjoy integrating content that meets my students where they are today – videos, podcasts, YouTube tutorials, blogs, etc. I believe that if we want to make Career Everywhere come to life, then we need to simply change the lens by which we consume our content – not seek different channels.
CL: If you were talking to a colleague about joining the Career Champion program, what would you share with them about the benefits of joining?
RM: To me, the most compelling reason to join is to be a part of the community – if you want to be surrounded by individuals who are committed to career development for both themselves and their students it is a well-led and highly organized program that delivers on its promise.
CL: What is one piece of advice would you give any student during their career development journey?
RM: Spend time digging deep into the things in life that bring you joy. Once you’ve started to identify what makes you happy, be authentic and stay true to those passions by developing specific skills that allow you to bring those passions to life. In my opinion, to be successful in life we need to be surrounded by people who believe in us and share our values. Thus, if you are true to yourself and work hard to develop the skills you most enjoy you will eventually attract the right people into your network. When you are surrounded by the right network success is most likely to follow soon thereafter (joy, satisfaction, financial stability, fulfillment, etc.).
Rory is involved with CCEI and there are a number of upcoming events for students related to entrepreneurship. Click here to learn more about entrepreneurship events and resources
Interested in becoming a Career Champion? Click here to learn about the program and its benefits.
