This past Friday, female students from the MS Marketing, MS Finance, and MS Business Analytics programs sat down for a roundtable breakfast with successful women from typically male-dominated fields. The effort to connect young women with industry leaders was initiated by Linda Vytlacil, Walmart VP in Data and Analytics, when the MSBA program kicked off four years ago in order to provide mentoring to young women beginning their careers. Other companies represented included IBM, JDA, W20, AT&T, Teacher Retirement System of Texas, Bank of Texas, EY, and Facebook. While much was to be taken away from this roundtable, we’ve captured a few of the key pieces of advice.
Defining Your Definition of Success
Whether you’re kicking off your career or re-evaluating your goals, you need to define what success means to you. At this point in time, success could be climbing the career ladder. Or it could be focusing on family and taking a job that allows you to spend more time at home. There is no wrong answer, but you must look within yourself to determine what that answer is.
Find a Mentor or Support Group
When starting your career, it is important to surround yourself with people who will have your best interests in mind. Whether it’s family or colleagues, you need a group of people you can turn to. In addition to building a strong support group, it is also important to find mentors throughout your career. Lisa Perry from JDA emphasized the importance of not only finding a mentor but also finding one who is your opposite in order to push you and offer different perspectives.
How to be Assertive and Have Confidence in the Workplace
One topic that came up at multiple tables was how to overcome the negative stereotype of a strong woman and be more assertive. The women seemed almost unanimous in that the best way to overcome to stereotype is to ignore it altogether. Perception is reality, and the more you buy into or believe a particular thing, the more it becomes true. If we, as women, believe that there is a gender gap, the stereotype will continue to build. It is important to let the strength of your work define you as opposed to your gender.
-Emily Graves