Ep. 15: Strengths to Passion: Building a Fulfilling AEC Career

Whether your career path is a defined roadmap or more of a blank canvas, aspiring leaders in the AEC industry will find great value in our next episode.

Join your hosts Emily Lawrence and Jen Knox as they preface their next chat with groundbreaking growth guest, Rachel Ribich, Strategic Growth Manager at Nunn Construction. If you’ve had difficulties identifying your strengths, finding passion, or balancing your skills and learning from others, this is an episode you won’t want to miss! Hear how Emily and Jen have each overcome each of these obstacles and what they're most excited to learn from Rachel's inspirational story on how to strategically leverage strengths and cultivate a passion, to build a fulfilling career in the AEC industry.

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Transcript

Emily Lawrence: Welcome to the AEC Groundbreaking Growth Podcast.

Jen Knox: Hosted by Stambaugh Ness.

[Opening Credits]

Emily Lawrence: Hi, everyone; welcome to another sneak peek episode of Groundbreaking Growth. Emily and Jen here, and we are excited today to talk about our upcoming episode with Rachel Ribich. Rachel is the Strategic Growth Manager at Nunn Construction. We're very excited for this episode to air, especially heading into Women's Month.

Jen Knox: Yeah, and we've had awesome women on the podcast lately. Males may be a little underrepresented, but we promise we will change that soon. Rachel's episode is great and jumped off of Katie's episode nicely. Katie talks about that personal mastery and understanding yourself. You dove into some of those unique kind of personality assessments you can take, Gallup's strengths, etc., leveraging great training resources at ACEC National, and what I loved about Rachel then was saying, "Okay, how do you build on maybe some of those training platforms, etc., and really do," learn by doing, right? We learn as we fail, try new things, and learn about our strengths that way. And that's what resonated with me in our conversation with Rachel, and I'm super excited for listeners to hear and understand her journey.

But it connected the two for me. We need to leverage great training, resources, personality assessments, etc. That's the part of learning about yourself as a leader. But we also learn by doing. And that's the story that Rachel will tell, and I'm super excited for guests to hear that.

Emily Lawrence: Yeah, and as soon as we talked to Katie, we discussed that flow of career and development, how to learn and pursue peer networks and things like that, the personal mastery of it. Rachel, someone I've known in the industry for years, was the Chair of the Southern Colorado Committee, and that's for the Society of Marketing Professional Services, SMPS. I've talked about that before, and that's how I met her and became great personal friends. Her career has also inspired me immensely because she is very much a doer. Rachel is strategic about the choices she makes in her career and is not afraid to make those choices. She advocates for what she wants and where she wants to go and holds true to that as well.

Jen Knox: Yeah. And she's open to the fluidity and flexibility of what a career can be, which I love. It's not this linear path. It can be a lot of different things. Your connection to Rachel speaks to that pure network. A pure network allows you to see what's out there and the possibilities. You may run into individuals you didn't even realize that that role could be a possibility or existed within or outside the industry.

Emily Lawrence: Yeah, I think about that all the time. The exposure I get to other roles or what other people have found as their niche in a company and where they can shine in a company. And I think about that throughout my career; I've tried to look at it, and we've talked about this and that career portfolio and that well-rounded experience you can get. And it's about being strategic in that momententum as you move and change roles throughout your career.

Jen Knox: Yeah, I go back to my time in college and what I thought my career was going to be like as a senior in college or getting my P.E. license. And what I thought it would be is nothing compared to what it is now. But what it is now is amazing. I've had the opportunity to be technical, be in construction, and be in business and leverage those skills. And it's, to your point, building that portfolio to say, "Okay, when do I need to lean on the technical? When do I need to lean on the business side of things, etc.?" So you're pulling from the vast experience that you've had over your entire life to say, "Hey, how can I show up as a leader, add value to an organization, and understand my strengths and where they can best benefit my team and the company?"

Emily Lawrence: Yeah, and you have two types of recent college graduates. So, Jen, you were very specific about getting your P.E. license, becoming a Professional Engineer, and growing within a company. I was a Communications Major, and I had my fingers crossed that I would find a job that I was passionate about and do some kind of communications or marketing. I thought I might go into public relations. I did some job shadowing throughout college with public relations firms and couldn't find a job with that. So, I had both a blessing and a curse in that I had a pretty blank canvas for my career. But in both cases, we're talking about learning your strengths as you go on, and that's trial and error like we talked about. And then there are also development courses and putting yourself in the right position to learn from experts like we've talked about with Katie. But it's also that passion that we've talked about now, too, and it's what I am passionate about: You're not going to like everything you do in your job. There are ebbs and flows; there are good days and bad days. But even sitting in your current seat, even if it's not the most passionate position, make sure that you take what you can from that role and learn what you don't want to do versus learning that you love that position. Both are valuable.

Jen Knox: Yeah, and something you said earlier that really resonated is what story you can tell about your time in that position, right? Why is that an important part of your career portfolio?

You either learned something you didn't like, gained a great skill, or learned what you are passionate about. You have a rough perspective of the business or the industry. That's a great outlook or a frame of reference to have and look at a role that you may not love currently. It could be an important stepping stone to get you to your next passion project or role that you're curious about.

Confidence and humility as you craft your career journey are so important. You need to be strong and confident in your skills and your strengths. Still, you need to have the humility to know you don't know everything and to leverage kind of your peer network and your internal network to say, "Hey, how am I showing up?" and "What are the strengths I'm bringing in?" and "What do I need to supplement those strengths with?" "What are the people I need in my circle to kind of help me be of value?"

Emily Lawrence: Yeah. And that was something that I had a mentor tell me. I have always had that in the back of my mind.

She said, you may not love your current company, you may not love this specific position, but you're going to learn a lot of technical skills. You'll learn a lot about the business; learn what you can. And then, when you're interviewing for your next job, you have a story to tell. Do one thing: Pick one specific initiative or value add to the company that you can pull out and say was my story from that role. And here are the things that I learned. And that will exponentially progress your career, and you'll have something to say about that role, even if it isn't passionate. You can be passionate about that one thing that you did at the company, and that will shine through in any future interview when you talk about your career.

Jen Knox: Yeah, that was great advice, I agree.

Emily Lawrence: Well, we can't wait for everyone to hear our next Groundbreaking Growth episode with our next groundbreaking guest, Rachel Ribich, again, Strategic Growth Manager at Nunn Construction and just an incredible human being. She'll talk about how she strategically leveraged her passion and strengths to connect the dots throughout her career.