Mindy Thomas

Career Chat – Mindy Thomas Interviews Ruth Campbell

Mindy Thomas interviews Ruth Campbell in a 30-minute segment on RVNTV.
Two career counselors chat about making a career decision and how they struggled too.

Mindy Thomas:

Hi, I’m Mindy Thomas and this is Career Chat, which airs every Monday at 1130 and Tuesday night at 8:00 PM. If you’re thinking about career issues, you want to stay tuned to our show today because we have a very special guest in the studio. Ruth Campbell from Delaware County community college who is the Coordinator of Career Services is here with us today. I’m so happy that you made it out and that you’re visiting with us today. Welcome to the show, Ruth.

Ruth Campbell:

Thank you Mindy. Thank you for having me as your guest.

Mindy Thomas:

That I am really delighted to let our audience know so much about you. You’ve been a mentor to me for the last 25 years since graduate school. And Ruth’scredentials are some of the best out there. She is not only a board certified coach, she’s a licensed professional counselor, a national certified career counselor. She’s also a nationally certified counselor and professor at the college I at Delaware County community college in media, Pennsylvania. She coordinates the career services and is Delaware County is home to a probably about 10,000 people. And so I’d love to kick this interview off with, tell us about your role. I know you have a massive role over there, but tell us a little bit about what you do.

Ruth Campbell:

Oh, thank you. Well as you said, I’m coordinator of career services, but I also do career counseling with students, with community residents. And I do a lot of outreach to classes. I do workshops and you know, I’m trying to not just sit in my office and wait for students to come to me. I’m going out to where students are as well. When I

Mindy Thomas:

Think about your long lived career as a career counselor, I you know, think about what, what really drew you to becoming a career counselor. I know that we both struggled trying to figure out what to do with our lives. You at an earlier age, me and midlife. And so I thought maybe you could tell us a little bit about how you decided to make that career decision.

Ruth Campbell:

That’s a great question, Mindy, like a lot of other people. In my twenties I tried out a number of things and I was trying to find myself like a number of people in their twenties and I finally landed into a, where I became administrator of a social service agency. I mean, I should have never been hired for that job. I had no idea what I was doing. I hated every second of it. And after that ended, I realized I had to do some career counseling on myself, although at that point I didn’t know I was doing career counseling and I went to the library, there was someone there who was storing a program for community residents, so on careers. And I did all my homework and I went to talk to her and later on she said, I thought you were a plant from the state. So I knew I must’ve been doing something right. And then I sought out a graduate program. I went to Westchester university for higher education counseling and it was a great fit. And although the head of the department at the time said, well, we’re not really looking for people like you. You’re a job hopper. And yeah, and of course, having gotten my degree, I’m anything but a job hopper anymore,

Mindy Thomas:

That’s for sure. You’ve been at the college a long, long time, very long time, and you’ve influenced hundreds and hundreds of students. And also Ruth is the counseling supervisor for anyone that wants to be a career counselor. So that’s how we met. Actually, and I interned under Ruth teen years ago. So we both we have that in common. In fact, that I also struggled with figuring out what career to choose for myself. I did a whole unstructured situation with analyzing my skills and taking assessments and, and, you know, just wow, okay. I ended up here. But today with a lot of people struggling and there’s a lot of folks struggling out there. They don’t know what to do. They can’t figure it out. They’ve talked to their moms, their dads, their husbands, their spouses, and still, you know, it’s a futile attempt. Sometimes we need professional help to sort things out. So is that what you’re finding at the community college? The, the students and the community members that come in? Are they struggling with those issues too?

Ruth Campbell:

Absolutely. Monday. And I think you’re, you’re bringing up the idea of students and community residents because we also deal with community residents. We’ll ask other people what should I do? And of course that often doesn’t go too well. It’s your

Mindy Thomas:

Mother and your mother wanted you to be a pharmacist. Can you imagine? My parents wanted me to be a teacher and a nurse or a nurse, right? No, that’s not happening right now. So that’s what’s happening

Ruth Campbell:

Still with parents telling children, right? You must be in medical, you must be in healthcare. And unfortunately it’s not always a good fit. And then there’s the other thing that sometimes people do, which is, well, where are the jobs that pay the most money? Or where are the hot jobs, where the most jobs are? So what we try to do, and you know this very well and you use this in your work too, is we follow the career decision making pyramid, which is steps to a very good appropriate career decision. And the bottom of the pyramid, the foundation is know thyself. And that’s where we do assessments to look at personality interests, values and other aspects of self. And once the person has gone through that, then the next step is career exploration. There’s some wonderful websites for career exploration such asO O H career one stop videos.

Ruth Campbell:

These are all resources that people can Google and find readily for information about different fields. Go ahead. Oh, so I was going say that there’s a specific framework there is that you use as a career counselor. And we sort of liken it as a triangle and in making a good career decision, which is at the top, at the bottom, Ruth is saying it’s really self assessment and knowing myself you use what kind of tools to do the assessments you’re using the Myers-Briggs, right? Right. For was definitely the strong interest inventory. We have card sorts that we use on finding motivated skills on values. There are many assessments and we, some of the paper and pencil assessments are really, some of the best are fun, aren’t they? I’m happiest when I am where, you know, we, we love to read those cause they give us so much information about a person.

Ruth Campbell:

Right. I just read about these people are very well known. Two professors from Stanford university bill Burnett and Dave Evans, and they teach a course called designing your life. And it’s the most popular course at Stanford. And one of the things that they do in their course is have people create a flow journal, which I thought was brilliant. You know, the idea being when do you feel most alive, most animated? And just keeping track of that. And I was reading that one of their students was an art history major, but she said, well, but I hate writing and I don’t really like art history that much. And she said, when I, in my flow journal, what I really discovered was what I really like is math. I mean, you know,

Mindy Thomas:

It’s interesting. Do they talk about what do you do when you lose track of time? That would be a flow moment. That’s a flow moment flow mode. That’s when you have to set an alarm because you’re in the middle of writing or you’re in the middle of playing piano or singing or talking. And, and you, you need to get to an appointment. That’s a very interesting flow chart that they use. So do you graph it out? Are you writing this out? Are you

Ruth Campbell:

Well, apparently with Evanson Burnett, they just have their students create a journal, like what pops up and a given day like, gosh, here’s a time when I lost track of time. Here was a moment that was a flow moment. And over time they track it. Fantastic.

Mindy Thomas:

So that, that career pyramid, if you will, starts with knowing myself. And then we go to looking at the career and occupational information. Ruth mentioned the occupational outlook handbook. She mentioned career one-stop. That is my personal favorite. If you have never been there, you’ve got to go there because they do have videos, they have all kinds of assessments, free assessments on there. Even if like for example, you were a stockbroker and you wanted to find out, well what careers could I transition into? There’s a little platform inside that you plug in stockbroker and it generates all of the careers related career related careers where you could transfer your skills. Right. So it’s very helpful. What else do you recommend on the resources? Well, department of labor

Ruth Campbell:

Yeah, those are all from the department of labor. O O H O net and career one-stop. They’re all from the department of labor. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. And the idea is that after knowing myself after researching different possibilities then a student or a community resident is in a better position to start making some decisions. And for a student at a community college that would involve, do I want to transfer and get a bachelor’s degree or not? And if so, where do I want to transfer? Or what about these other majors that really aren’t for transfer? And then the final step is action planning. What steps do I need to take to implement my goals? And in a community college we might call that an academic plan. And it’s what steps do I need to do over a period of time to further things step by step?

Mindy Thomas:

Well, Delaware County community colleges I mentioned is home to 10,000 students and community members, they have over 50 degree programs. They have 35 transitional programs in addition to a number of certificate programs. And if you’re over the age of 65, you actually can take one or two courses a semester for free. And so they send out that brochure every half semester or every semester they send it every semester. And it’s just the best value going, wouldn’t you say?

Ruth Campbell:

I think that that’s one of the secrets about community college is what a great value it is. And I recently had a student, former student contact me to say, I want someone from the college to come and speak to our community group. And she said, I know I could do it cause I loved it as a student, but I want somebody from the college to come and talk about it. That’s how good it was. Wow.

Mindy Thomas:

Well speaking of secrets, when we come right back, I’m going to share a secret that I don’t even think Ruth Campbell knows.

Ruth Campbell:

Whoa. Can’t wait. Stay tuned.

Mindy Thomas:

And welcome back to Career Chat. We are with Ruth Campbell from Delaware County community college who is the coordinator of career services. My former professor from graduate school. I’m so delighted you are here.

Ruth Campbell:

And we left just a few minutes ago and I was saying that I had a little secret to share, which I don’t think Ruth really knows about me. I went to community college. No, I started really community college at Northern Virginia community college, also known as Nova cocoa in Annandale, Virginia. Wow. And I had a great experience and I did transfer up to a four year state college after a semester or two. And I don’t think you ever knew that. I did. I did. And you know, I think that says something because you know, my former student that I was referring to says that more people should go to community college, don’t rack up so much debt, the courses transfer really well and the instruction is high quality. So you’re just a living example of it all. I went to multiple colleges and really was clueless about what major to choose back in the day.

Ruth Campbell:

So you all are not alone out there cause I didn’t know what to major in. I did not know what career to choose and struggled. Right along with Ruth. And so I’m curious about how have the students changed over the years. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, is that a big change? Yes. I think there’s a large change and one of the changes is that more and more students are working longer and longer hours at jobs. So that makes being a college student very challenging. Because as we know in college there’s homework, you know, that has to be done and it’s just juggling all these responsibilities becomes very difficult for college community college students. The other one of course is that everybody is attached to their smartphone phones literally and figuratively. And that’s been a big change since when I started doing what I do.

Ruth Campbell:

Yeah. I noticed that Delaware County community college has a number of matriculation or arc articulation agreements with area universities. Could you name a couple of those so students can go for two years get an associates degree and then transfer out. But the list is just endless, it seems. And we have more than a hundred institutions of higher education in Philadelphia. So who is, who have you forged agreements with? Well certainly West Chester university where we both attended temple university, Drexel, Drexel university Arcadia. They’re just so many different agreements and our students really take advantage of meeting with transfer advisors to map out their plans. And even if we don’t have a specific agreement, the transfer advisor will do research and we’ll help the student with that. Well what do you need to do? What courses do you need to take here at community college that are going to readily transfer to the school of your choice? We don’t want students to waste time and money. Fantastic.

Mindy Thomas:

I was thinking about your career and it’s a long one and it’s exciting to case conference with you from time to time, Ruth, and I’m always appreciative of your counsel. I was curious about the profession itself. What, what do you find exciting as a career counselor? What, you know, makes your engines run in, in this profession?

Ruth Campbell:

Well it’s a great field. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I still love it. And one of the things that I love is that no two days are ever the same. Of course, no two people are ever the same. We don’t do something cookie cutter. We’re custom designing what work we’re going to do with a given individual. And I just love sitting in my office. If I, if I’m doing it in my office and listening to someone, tell me the story. What’s your story? Let me hear the story. And everybody’s got a story. There’s a lot of stories. Everybody’s fine, everybody’s got a story. And those stories can really be the clue to where to go for the future too.

Mindy Thomas:

I think what I like about that career counseling piece is very much the journey because we don’t know when someone sits down where the journey is going to take us. And it’s not a process that you can push, right? Right, right. Working in a sea of ambiguity, we’re trying to gather the massive amounts of information and use our tools and use our inner wisdom to help people along that journey.

Ruth Campbell:

It’s an organic process, isn’t it, Mindy?

Mindy Thomas:

And there’s people that we meet with too that you talk about the magic bullet. Can you describe what that looks like?

Ruth Campbell:

The magic bullet. What’s that mean? [inaudible] They want magic. Like a magic bullet. Yeah. And I’m always telling my colleagues we don’t do magic. So what does that look like? What does that, you know, how does that present itself? Well, I think it presents itself. When a person says to me as a counselor well, I didn’t really do the homework, you know, I didn’t have time, but what do you think I do? You know, what’s the answer? You’re supposed to Intuit what? I’m going to be wonderful at and tell me, and that’s what I’m paying you. That’s that’s a real red flag and that’s not gonna work.

Mindy Thomas:

Other challenges that you find with folks that are not following the process, do they?

Ruth Campbell:

Well I think a lot of people will think that it’s, they don’t like the idea of a process. And so in an initial session with a student, let’s say we’re trying to size up, well, what does this student need? And some students will be willing to engage in a process but some just probably want more like some information and that’s it for right now. But you know, for people that are really going through an entire career decision making process and they’re buying into it, that’s a process.

Mindy Thomas:

Yeah. Yeah. One of our mentors is Richard Bowles. Yes. From what color is your parachute? I sometimes have people that have read through that whole book. They’ve done every exercise. I’m in the back of the book under the state of Pennsylvania for career counseling, which I’m very flattered that he put me in. And they still can’t figure it out and they undergo counseling. What do you think is missing from reading a book that’s teaching you how to make a career decision versus the process with a counselor, a professional counselor

Ruth Campbell:

Slur? Well you know, the book is good, very good, very good. However, it’s hard to do career work in isolation. It really is. And I think that one reason people will come to see a career counselor is to have a dialogue to get feedback. And not that we’re going to give a client or a student the answer, that’s not what we do. But we’re there to provide guidance as to how to move through to the next step. What are some ideas what are your strengths that I’m observing? And you know, so in isolation, someone doesn’t get that feedback. So we’re really a good backed board. A good sounding board.

Mindy Thomas:

Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because when I Googled how many people were happily employed in the United States, probably it, I, I just know it was an error with, because it said 85% of Americans are happily employed and there’s just no way that number is correct. So I know that you have the latest research in stat on that. Could you tell us what’s a straight streetscape?

Ruth Campbell:

Well, I, I knew that I had heard that two thirds of workers were not happy at work and that 15% hated going to work. And I thought, who said that? I have to look this up. And it was Dave Evans and bill Burnett in their book designing your life. And you know, they’re Stanford professors they came out of Silicon Valley. I don’t think they were making this up, although it’s hard to believe that 15% of workers hate what they do and two thirds aren’t so happy. Yes. You mean 15%? Like what they do hate, hate, hate what they do. Hate it. Yeah. And from their point of view, two thirds, they’re not so happy. Yeah. Yeah. And then then you throw on top of the incompetency at the managerial level. So you have managers that are in positions that have no business being there.

Ruth Campbell:

They have no business supervising people. Right. And that happens quite a bit. It does. And I think one thing that makes a lot of people very unhappy in a work situation is never getting any acknowledgement. The recognition that had a boy. Right. Some people don’t care about money, they just want someone to recognize they’re doing a good job even though you know, people are killing themselves and they’re just not getting any recognition. That’s very difficult. Can you share with us a couple success stories or anecdotes you know, that you think would be inspiring to our audience that’s sitting there struggling and wondering what to do next? Well, I had a couple of students at the community college that are really memorable and one is I changed the names here, but one is Sean and Sean was working full time as a janitor in a school district.

Ruth Campbell:

And he came to me for career counseling when he first started at community college. And we did his personality through the Myers Briggs. I’m sure we did other assessments too. And he said, well, I want to make money. And after going through the process, he settled in on a business major and I think it was really good fit for him. And he just graduated with almost a four O at DCCC and he now transferred to West Chester university in business. And he’s just such a special student. And he came back, he won this. What made this so special was right when he was leaving the school. He came to see me, he came to visit to say, I’m moving on and thank you for everything you did. And he came back again recently when he came to pick up his diploma. And it’s just so that’s something that makes our work so satisfying is the relationships that we forge with people that we work with. It’s a very rewarding and meaningful

Mindy Thomas:

Career that we share.

Ruth Campbell:

It is, it is. And I’m another student who was from West Africa calling Ben and he was a very good student and he wanted to get into nursing. And he was going to transfer to Jefferson which is very high caliber, a place to study anything medical. And so I, but I worked with him as an advisor when he was taking all of his science courses and got to know him well and he got into the accelerated nursing program at Jefferson. Oh gosh. And then he got hired at in a very prestigious area, mainline health in the operating room. And after he got that job, he came back to see me and he brought me a soccer scarf with my name engraved in it. And that was really special. It’s the relationships that are the best.

Mindy Thomas:

Yes. That’s what’s, that’s what life is made up of. Makes it worthwhile. Yeah. Well it has been a great, great pleasure and, and such an honor to bring you on the show today. Thank you. I really enjoyed this and I wish you continued success at the college and want to thank the audience for tuning in. We will be back next week. As I said, we are every Monday at 11:30 AM and Tuesday night at 8:00 PM. See you next week.