Maggie Cutler Young, MLI Scholarship Recipient Reflection

Some favorite takeaways from my experience at NACE MLI: Financial planning and budgeting are the funniest topics. To transform career services, keep a clown nose in your desk. Ethics can be entertaining, and at the same time, very serious business.
 
When I landed in Chicago to join the NACE Management Leadership Institute (MLI) 2024 cohort, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it may be like the conferences I have attended: Relevant topics, interesting discussions, and opportunities to network. What I found was that MLI is that, but much more. I learned from MLI Alumni and faculty about not only the topics they presented but also their career journeys and experiences. How they have grown as leaders applied these topics to their work, and impacted others. I found the topics extremely valuable, and the courses endlessly entertaining! We had not only presentations, but discussions, case studies, group work, and share-outs that made me think about the topics in a new way. I felt inspired by my MLI colleagues, hearing their stories and different points of view. I have never been in a room of more motivated, empathetic, ambitious, and innovative people. In addition to the invaluable professional development I received at MLI, I also walked away with new friendships and professional connections. After each day of sessions, we had ample time to connect and explore Chicago as a cohort. We enjoyed free concerts in Millennium Park, laughed at Second City standup and improv, and learned about Chicago architecture on a sunset river cruise. I feel that I have left MLI with new friends and potential mentors.
 
NACE MLI was a space for growth and tough questions. I learned more about myself, and what it takes to be a leader in career services. I learned that leadership begins from within, and there is no one-size-fits-all type of leadership. Many leaders choose to lead in different ways, incorporating their unique stories and skill sets. NACE MLI showed me how to use my unique background and strengths to lead my organization.
 
Some key takeaways from my MLI experience are: Use storytelling as a key leadership skill and leverage your own experiences to guide how you help others achieve their own career and life design. Measure outcomes, output, and impact in career services. Remember that metrics do not always tell the whole story. Build your team around ethics, you don’t have to tackle this topic alone. Consider AI as a generative tool, and understand bias is built into it. Question the user and always check results. Strategic planning will determine the success of your office. Generate the vision that guides future decisions and actions, and include allocation of time, money, and talent. If you don’t plan your future, someone else will do it for you. Finances and budget are some of the hardest areas of change in career services. Approach financial planning with an understanding of resource management, and use benchmarking with other universities to your advantage. For student success, build NACE Career Competencies into all career services, and leverage career champions at your university. I learned that building a brand around career services is about exploring imagination and making students part of the process. Regarding employer and external relations, I learned to be more tactical, less operational, and more proactive as well as reactive. Building lasting relationships is about trust and transparency, as well as about becoming a consultant and a specialist in understanding what students want from employers. I took away so many lessons from MLI, I felt that I had a brand new toolkit to pull from when I returned to work.
 
In my professional growth and development, MLI helped me to see how my own self-discovery will positively impact those around me. By exploring my "Why", I discovered the reason I chose to work in Career Services which in turn reignited my passion for my work. I left MLI feeling empowered to make changes in the way I lead every day, bringing more of my Why into everything I do. The leadership principles of model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart will always be ingrained in my personal and professional goals. Looking forward, I plan to implement more of the leadership principles with my team. I plan to lead strategic planning and team building in the coming months to inspire my teammates in the same way that MLI inspired me. I look forward to sharing the principles with them and bringing leadership to the forefront of my work in the next year. As I manage my own team, and help them grow and develop their leadership skills, I will use the lessons learned from MLI and recount the action items I have taken away from my time at MLI.
 
Reflecting on my time spent at NACE MLI, I feel incredibly grateful and honored to have been awarded the scholarship to attend the program. I gained so much in my time there, and feel empowered to make real change. I recommend that everyone who plans to be a leader in their field, attend NACE MLI, as it will make you learn so much about leadership and yourself.
 
Maggie Cutler Young
Assistant Director, Employer Relations
Viterbi Career Connections