Careers Panel @ 2025 Annual Conference

Board and Committees Professional Development Committee
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This committee is in charge of throwing together a career-focused panel for the fall conference. It’s already been submitted through the Call for Content.

Theme?

At a previous committee meeting, we’d talked about a “day in the life” kind of panel, where folks talk about what their work actually looks like in more granular detail. But we can keep it pretty general, too. These things attract a lot of students, so keeping the questions relevant to new / prospective GIS professionals is good.

Might be a good idea to get someone on the panel who actually manages other staff or is involved in the hiring process…

Questions

Feel free to throw some questions at this topic. I prefer to let the audience steer discussion, but we can have a stockpile of questions ready. A good moderator can figure out what to ask and how to steer things.

I’ll create a separate post here that anyone can edit to add questions.

People

Person Sector
@BMcAlpine Non-profit
@MicahWilli Private
@jawillis (tentative) Private
@daniel.bartlett Public (County)
@Cyndi_Rachol (tentative) Public (Federal)

Moderator

As committee chair, I suppose it ought to be me? Let’s assume that.

I’m told I’m appearing enough at the conference as it is. :sweat_smile: Looking for a volunteer.

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Professional Development Meeting: 28 Aug 2025
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Questions Go Here

This post will be a wiki. Please feel free to add questions to it.

  • Basic bio stuff at the top, let the panel members introduce themselves
    • Name
    • Org
    • How long they’ve been there
  • For upper-level panelists: what did the transition look like, moving from, say, Analyst to Coordinator?
  • what is something that surprised you in your position? or unexpected?
  • what is something that you felt woefully unprepared for?
    • budget management, employee issues, politics of dealing with similar managers and those above
  • what resources did you turn to to deal with these things?
  • what is a change you made in your department that you are really proud of?
  • do you have any advice for others in their mid-career?
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@mkamin You mentioned you had a few names in mind. Could you share them?

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If you need a participant, I would be happy to be a panelist. If you have others interested then no worries.

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I also recall someone mentioning an intern/recent hire panel as something many students would benefit from. Topics to include how to get an internship, what tasks to expect to perform as an intern, and success stories on how an internship ultimately led them to employment.

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Yes, there are a couple of panels planned for students / recent grads / “emerging professionals”.

This one will be focused more on folks who are mid-career, to get perspective on maybe other segments of the industry, or what advancement looks like to a seasoned professional, etc. Not that this panel wouldn’t be interesting to students as well, but the target audience will be different.

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If you don’t get tapped for one of the other panels, we’ll be happy to have you!

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This line of questions is for the Student Panel / Emerging Professionals Panel as Josh mentioned. Education Committee is working on filling those as we speak.

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I can come up with some but I highly recommend that you fill this panel with 4-5 people from a range of career types. Thinking a local govt, a state/fed, some private sector etc.

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I am willing to be a panelist as needed.

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I can be panelist if needed as well.

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some questions to add to the reserve, though feel free to edit!

  • what is something that surprised you in your position? or unexpected?
  • what is something that you felt woefully unprepared for?
    • budget management, employee issues, politics of dealing with similar managers and those above
  • what resources did you turn to to deal with these things?
  • what is a change you made in your department that you are really proud of?
  • do you have any advice for others in their mid-career?
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@kddarby25 Are you still willing to be a panelist?

We’ve lost one panelist to the shutdown (Cyndi), and another to them having a session scheduled at the same time (Micah).

@prof-dev I would prefer if we had two more panelists lined up. Is anyone available to join, or know someone who would be willing? Please reach out, or forward their information to me and I can contact them.

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Hi Josh,

You can put me down as a panelist. Thanks!

  • Keith
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Okay! Though Mike Kamin says you’re already on two other panels! Please don’t feel obligated to participate, I will understand if you’d rather attend some sessions.