How Do You Support Students in Career Transition and Students Starting a Business?
I support both students in career transition and those starting a business in the same way. It involves coaching, where they determine where they are, where they want to go, and we work together to bridge the gap between the two.
However, generally speaking, there is a difference between the two types of support offered here:
- Students starting a business have a clearer idea of where they want to go. As a result, the support focuses on a concrete project they are advancing, whether they have already started their business or not. It should be noted that their motivation and energy to move forward are usually high because they are already clear and aligned.
- This clarity about where they want to go is often lacking in students in career transition. Therefore, a significant part of the support involves helping them identify or simply clarify where they want to go. Such reflection requires time, space, and iterations. Their energy might fluctuate depending on where they are in their reflection and their perceived progress on the subject.
What Are the Keys to Giving Them Confidence?
My role is not to provide them with the keys to boost their confidence unless it’s a subject they wish to work on. In that case, my role is to help them find their own keys, as we are all different on this topic, and thus our keys are also different.
Nevertheless, one approach that can serve everyone to build confidence is to break down what they want to do into smaller, easily achievable tasks. Achieving each of these small tasks helps build confidence in their abilities and, consequently, in themselves.
How Do You Support Students in Balancing Professional and Personal Life Alongside Returning to Studies?
The challenge of resuming studies while managing professional and personal life is clear and part of the students’ ecosystem. However, few seek coaching specifically on this subject. I think this is because they anticipated this challenge beforehand and generally made the decision in agreement with their partner, family, and employer.
The problem arises more if their financial or professional situation changes between the time of their application and the start of their studies or during their studies.
What Is Your Greatest Pride as a Coach?
As a coach, although I am not attached to results, my greatest pride is seeing the change in the people I support. And indeed, witnessing someone find themselves, gain confidence, and flourish nourishes the sense I give to my work as a coach.
Thus, my greatest pride as a coach is having helped individuals initiate and realise the change that made sense for them and my gratitude to all my clients for allowing me to grow and refine my tools and skills along the way.
What Project Have You Seen Come to Life That Has Impacted You?
Many coaching experiences have impacted me because they resonated with me in some way; they taught me or made me grow, and they moved me.
One coaching experience at Rennes SB that immediately comes to mind involves a businesswoman contemplating relocating her business. There was an immediate financial impact, followed by an efficient and effective reorganisation of the company. A year later, the business leader experienced genuine fulfilment due to the complete alignment between her personal and professional life and a time gain used to explore other desires, such as helping others by sharing her experience.
The relocation allowed her to align her values and those of her company for the first time, with the entire team located in one place, including the supply chain, which was previously outsourced, to be closer to their product users.
What Are the Major Challenges Awaiting Our Continuing Education Students?
The major challenges for our participants will be:
- Learning to navigate a rapidly changing world (different climate and societal issues: demographic differences, consumption differences, etc.) that we cannot currently anticipate.
- Operating in a world where the economy (the basis of their degree and management) is being heavily questioned and needs to reinvent itself.
- Learning to evolve in a world with changing values and facing them both as economic actors and as citizens of this world—their values will be tested, and for some, questioned, potentially changing.
What Advice Would You Give Our Students Facing These Challenges?
Concrete advice:
- Maintain optimism in the face of the general weariness setting in.
- Demonstrate greater flexibility and agility throughout their studies in response to the societal changes affecting their work and studies, or, in the case of international students, their local integration.
- Learn to master the hybrid model (mix of in-person and virtual) for their studies, work, and workgroups.
- Keep a course aligned with their values, knowing that the journey, mode of transport, or final destination may be impacted by what emerges in the short term.