Students Teach (and learn) Career Building

Imagine you’re a young professional running to a big meeting. Arriving late, you are closed out of a seat at the table with all the company’s major players. But there’s a second table nearby, occupied by – what’s this? – a handful of toddlers. And there at the proverbial kids’ table you take a seat, relinquishing any grown-up chance for professional advancement.

This visual metaphor for a stalled career comes from a video produced by five Media and Culture majors at Bentley. The students spent the spring semester creating web commercials for career-coaching company CSB Training – a startup owned by alumnus John Greene ’81.

The interaction is “a different ballgame” for students, observes Liz LeDoux, senior lecturer in the English and Media Studies Department and adviser for the directed study project. “”In a production course, we provide parameters for an assignment, but students are basically doing the work for themselves. Working for a client, students realize they have to compromise. They have to sell someone on their ideas and keep the client happy.”

Duo of Firsts

The Corporate Immersion project that Greene brought to Bentley is a first for the English and Media Studies Department, and coincides with a new chapter in his own life. A former Accountancy and Computer Information Systems major, the alumnus has held several senior-level posts in business. Most recently, at Fidelity Investments, he was head of North American service delivery for the mid-market HR/Payroll business.

Greene’s 20 years at Fidelity took him across the organization, and from North America to Europe. But one thing never changed: Colleagues often asked for his advice on how to move up the corporate ladder, and Greene was glad to oblige. By 1995 or so, he started to assemble his coaching strategy into something more formal.

“Instead of just having conversations with people about how to propel their career, I started writing it down,” he recalls. “That became the beginning of the career skill-builder program.”

The growing folder of training materials inspired Greene start writing a book: The Perfekt Employee (spelled to make the point that “there’s no such thing”). Before long, Greene says, “I realized this isn’t a book, it’s a business.”

In March 2010, Greene left Fidelity for business solution provider Collaborative Consulting, where now he serves as COO and is poised to launch CSB Training and the Career Services Builder software program. The latter will initially target individuals aiming toward career advancement, through 15 modules focusing on everything from time management to “dressing and acting the part.” Future software packages will be geared toward companies and colleges.

Engaging Expertise

Greene knew from the outset that he wanted to engage Bentley students in the company launch, particularly for a series of video advertisements to use in online marketing. 

“I thought the students would get good experience, it would be fun, and it’s a low-risk thing,” he says.

LeDoux tapped five students for the job: Chris Hall ’11, David Entin ’11, James Ferguson ’11, Sam Maroon ’12 and Brandon Muir ’13. All had “impressed me at some point in my experience with them,” she says. “I felt they could handle the project.”

The students met with Greene in February to discuss his goals for the video ads.

“We wanted to do something in line with John’s business idea, which is training professionals in the business world to prepare them for upper management,” explains Entin. “That’s why every one of our videos, at the core, deals with the young professional, the person who’s underemployed or at that stage where they’d like to move up, but something’s preventing them.”

The students went on to generate several potential ad ideas, including the aforementioned “Kids’ Table” storyline and a three-part series called “Subtitles.” The latter features a boss giving employees explicit, verbal instructions, while subtitles at the bottom of the screen reveal the true, implicit meaning of his words.

Think Outside the Book

After a second meeting to pitch ideas to Greene, the students identified five concepts to develop into videos. Each team member had a role: Entin took on many producer-type tasks and recorded sound on set; Ferguson served as director of photography; Maroon also worked on sound recording and sound design; and Hall did most of the script writing.

The students all brought expertise honed in courses and through previous independent projects, and pooled their knowledge throughout the process of recruiting actors, scouting locations, and shooting the actual videos.

“Everyone involved has learned a great deal. It’s much better than trying to learn something out of a manual or a book,” Ferguson says. “I’m excited about the product we’ve created.”

And how about the client?

“The ideas they came up with are situations you see in real life,” observes Greene, who plans to use the completed videos to promote CSB Training on the company website and through social media. “They did a great job.”