10/08/2021

A Personalized Plan Is Vital for Advancing Women in the Higher-education IT Field

Professional success must be customized

Career advancement requires a variety of conditions that are strategically placed throughout your professional life, like breadcrumbs along a pathway that provide continuous enrichment and support along the way. This is especially true for women professionals who are looking to succeed and advance in a historically male-dominated field. The earlier you find those breadcrumbs, the better, because they are critical for supporting early-career women.

Whether staying in a current role or aggressively pursuing one with more responsibility, professional success requires mentorship, continuous learning, experiences that develop skills, abilities, growth opportunities, and—perhaps most important of all—support. That’s the strategy EDUCAUSE, an association that advances higher education through information technology, used as it developed a portfolio of services to help women advance their careers in the higher-education IT field.

Professional success can sometimes hinge on your network, which can provide personalized support and access to opportunities. Community members, especially underrepresented professionals, often say they understand the importance of networking and mentoring, but they don’t know how to do it effectively, or are uncomfortable asking someone to be their mentor. Beyond that, they don’t know what to look for in a mentor or how to structure that relationship.  

Please select this link to read the complete article from ASAE's Center for Association Leadership.