On January 31st, Women in Big Data hosted a DataCamp Donates session, offering valuable insights on career development, celebrating certified professionals, and recognizing the month’s Top 10 learners. The event also featured inspiring testimonials from two DataCamp Donates learners.

Have you ever thought about building career support? If you have, you’ve probably faced the challenge of how to do it effectively. This is a question that all of us, whether we already have an established career, are just entering the job market, or even switching fields, come across. After all, is there a right formula?

To shed light on this important topic, certified career coach Deborah Sgro was invited to give a talk. Deborah is also on the Board of Advisors and serves as the Global Mentoring Director for Women in Big Data (WiBD). She frequently speaks at corporate women’s resource groups and conferences on various aspects of career advancement. Invited by data engineer and WiBD mentor Srabasti Banerjee, Deborah addressed the topic for the learners of the joint program between Women in Big Data and DataCamp in January.

Deborah Sgro began by explaining what career development is, with a brief definition. To start, it is a process of self-knowledge, exploration, and decision-making that shapes your career, “looking for opportunities and navigating around obstacles,”the career coach added. Among other extremely valuable information, she talked about how to build your bridge from where you are to where you want to go in five important steps:

• Identify your current skills – determine your future self.
• Spot what is required in the future state.
• Identify your gaps.
• Create an action plan to address the gap.
• Execute your action plan.

The career coach also brought a personal lesson to the lecture, which is: “You are responsible for your own career, but you don’t have to do it alone.” This means that no one owes you a job, and sometimes layoffs, including mass layoffs, can happen even if you are an excellent professional. However, networking and contacts with key people can be essential for getting a promotion, a salary increase, a new job, or the position you’ve always wanted. She also helped identify who you can work with, both inside and outside your company, to achieve this.

If you want to learn more about this important topic for the development and growth of your career, don’t miss out on watching the recording—it’s top-notch!

In addition, before the lecture, there were an introduction presented by  Srabasti Banerjee and a member of the Board of Directors of Women in Big  Shala Arshi , showcasing all the benefits that a woman can gain by enrolling in the scholarship program promoted in partnership with DataCamp. They also shared success stories of students who completed the course and obtained their certificates.

Here is the link to the recording.