Two New Fall Courses to Help You Define and Launch Your Career

Professional education prepares students to assume professional roles. Effective professionals in all fields demonstrate expertise beyond their academic training, expertise that they develop through experience, exposure to new situations and challenges and awareness of the demands and opportunities in the environment. In business, developing professional skills is critical to successfully launching and developing a career.

Knowing that the ROI for investing in graduate business education is landing a professional position that offers the opportunity to use and further develop one’s skills, UIC Liautaud is offering two experimental two-credit professional development courses this fall.  These courses are designed to prepare students to successfully navigate the transition to a new professional opportunity, and they are most valuable early in a student’s experience at Liautaud.

MBA 590 – Creating Careers That Count

(CRN: 29312) – meets 8/27/12 – 10/19/12; Thursdays 6:00pm-8:30pm

In the highly-dynamic, globally-competitive marketplace, relevance has replaced loyalty as a basis for employment relationships. Since the marketplace dictates what is relevant, you are free to create a career that counts for you—as long as it counts with the marketplace.

This course will cover three steps to “Creating a Career That Counts” for you and for the marketplace:

• Defining Your Difference-Making Strategy – defining what is relevant to you and your motivational focus for making a difference
• Discovering Your Marketplace Relevance – discovering your fit—where your difference-making capability is most relevant in the marketplace
• Demonstrating and Delivering Your Difference-Making Capability with Highly Relevant Impact –engaging the marketplace to demonstrate and deliver your difference-making capability with highly relevant impact.

MBA 590 – Using the Power of Social Networks to Take Control of Your Career

(CRN: 27205) – meets 10/22/12 – 12/7/12; Saturdays 9:00am-11:30am

Social media platforms and social networks have transformed the way we communicate and develop personal and professional relationships. To maximize your value and results in a highly competitive marketplace, it is crucial to establish and foster effective online profiles. Understanding the importance and functional application of “Network Science” enables the user to build a solid network of people, develop Social and Emotional Intelligence, and effectively engage in conversations, both online and offline. LinkedIn is currently considered to be the most powerful social network for business professionals. Leveraging the strength and reach of LinkedIn gives an individual access to making the ultimate career moves and allows the entrepreneur to build a profitable business.

By the end of this course participants will:

• Shape a more functional and searchable online profile
• Build a fully functional and reliable LinkedIn profile, enabling them to leverage the power of this social network
• Demonstrate the concepts of “Network Science” when engaging in conversations and building their network
• Increase their number of professional contacts and broaden their network
• Create a Success Plan to advance their career and/or build their business

For detailed information about all Professional Topic Series courses offered this fall, click here.