Cultivating a meaningful career – finding and landing the jobs worthy of your talents and time – is a deeply relational experience. Learning how to be both strategic and purposeful in activating the connections that create opportunities and open doors is a vital skill to be developed.

It’s also the only way to gain access to the hidden job market – positions that never get posted on online job boards (and they are many). These valuable, desirable jobs are accessed, often created, through connections and personal referrals. As the maxim goes, it’s all about relationships. Yet the strategies and tips for setting yourself up for success aren’t necessarily intuitive.

Fortuna Careers modules offer a mix of online tools and personal, expert coaching to help you navigate the next steps in your post-MBA career journey – whether you’re looking to pivot into a new industry/function, build your confidence with networking and personal brand building, or make meaningful moves amid the global pandemic.

Our Expert Career Coaches bring decades of combined experience from within the Career Management Centers at schools including Harvard Business School, Wharton, INSEAD, LBS, and Duke Fuqua, and have coached post-MBA alumni to build the networks and capacities that connected them to their greatest career potential.

The first step to any successful career is a knowing where you are going. Working together, we will help you develop a clear and concise vision of what you want to achieve in your career going forward. Together we will guide you in researching industries and trends, creating a career “road map,” identifying your skills (and gaps) and articulating the lasting impact you hope to have in your career. Establishing this “big picture” vision will lay the groundwork for your efforts going forward.

When you invest in your relationships — professional and personal — it will pay you back in dividends throughout the course of your career, helping you hone in on and develop relevant skill sets, stay on top of the latest industry trends, keep a pulse on the job market, and meet prospective mentors, partners, and clients. We will work with you to create a list of companies, identify and connect with individuals you may know already or would like to know who work within these organizations, and then leverage those connections to move forward in your search.

Just like your resume, your online brand should be reflective of who you are and what you bring to any community or company. LinkedIn has evolved to become a platform that allows you to tell your story but there is a fine line between creating an engaging profile, and creating a profile that will come up in search by recruiters. Our Expert Coaches know how to maximize your presence on LinkedIn and will work with you individually to enhance your personal brand across communications channels.

Self-awareness begins with self-discovery, and that’s where our personal strengths assessment comes in. Fortuna facilitates an experience that grounds you in a nuanced understanding of your unique strengths, affinities, and talents utilizing the CliftonStrengths assessment tool. Our certified CliftonStrengths coach leverages its suite of sophisticated insights to help lead you to a deeper understanding of your talents and strengths, enhance your self- and situational awareness, and give you the confidence to perform more effectively on teams at work and beyond.

Whether you are responding to a job posting or leveraging an internal connection, it’s vital that your resume makes a positive first impression in order to garner a response from companies and recruiters. This includes leveraging key words to maximize visibility within Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and making it easy for employers to see the value you bring to an organization. We’ll walk you through the entire process from what format to use, how to maximize key words, and develop impactful bullet points. From there, we will review, make comments, and help you finalize the document.

Leverage the expertise of our panel of industry experts who have worked with and recruited for the biggest firms in tech, banking, and consulting (to name a few). Combine that expertise with the benefit of a tailored individual session with one of our Expert Coaches to ensure you are polished and prepared for your next interview. This includes a prep session, full mock interview, and debrief. We’ll cover the most common questions and interview styles, the difference between in-person and video interviews, and follow-up communication to leave the best possible impression.

A skilled career consultant, admissions coach, and marketer, Catherine brings over a decade of careers experience as a former Associate Director of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, a career consultant with a number of universities, and as the successful owner of Forward Thinking Resumes & Careers.

At Duke, Catherine worked in the Career Management Center, serving as the liaison with Admissions and leading the career counseling team to create, implement, and evaluate career programs for full-time and executive MBA students. In addition to her tenure at Fuqua, Catherine also launched the alumni career coaching program at North Carolina State University and provides coaching to alumni of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through a partnership with their General Alumni Association.

Catherine is consistently recognized by her clients for taking a personal approach to their career development. Her executive clients in particular have commented on her innate ability to listen, understand their interests and motivators, and then coach them to effectively articulate their value across a number of platforms including their resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, and interviews.

Catherine holds an MEd from North Carolina State University and lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband and son.

Dr. Sharon T. Joyce is a three-decades seasoned professional in higher education, coaching and facilitation. Leveraging her certification in CliftonStrengths and her experience, within multiple institutions in Career Services, she works with clients to create a personal brand and strategically approach the job search.

While at UC Berkeley, Sharon created a graduate-level course focused on leadership development and preparing students for personal and professional success. She was also a Co-Instructor for students to explore their core values as aligned with their career goals. At Carnegie Mellon, she designed and led career-related programming.

Sharon holds a doctoral degree in Administrative and Policy Studies in Higher Education from the University of Pittsburgh; her doctoral research was focused on first-generation college students and their rise into graduate programs.

Jenifer brings over a decade’s experience in career coaching to the Fortuna Admissions team. She served as a coach for Career Services at INSEAD, as MBA Programme Director of Singapore Management University (SMU), and as Director in the Dean of Faculty Office at Yale-NUS College.

In her tenure as an executive coach in higher education and MBA admissions, Jenifer has worked with hundreds of individuals navigating their professional journeys with a focus on transitions including changing careers, and returning to the workforce.

Jenifer holds an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School and an MA in International Relations from the Lauder Institute, University of Pennsylvania. She’s also an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with the International Coach Federation (ICF) and an Integral Coach with New Ventures West.

For over 20 years Nonie has been working in the career development space. As the Assistant Director at INSEAD Careers Services, she was responsible for one-on-one career coaching to MBA and EMBA students on how to best achieve their career aspirations and source the best job opportunities within their target companies.

With deep expertise in Corporate Partnership Development, Nonie has worked closely with numerous companies to fulfill their talent acquisition needs. Prior to joining INSEAD, Nonie worked as an International Recruitment Consultant and recruited senior level executives for a variety of Fortune 500 companies.

Nonie has lived and worked in the UK, Japan, and Singapore. She holds an MA (Hons.) in Geography from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Malvina is former Assistant Director of Career Services at HBS. As Head of the HBS Programs and Communication team she was responsible for providing career training and guidance to students, and as a member of the career coaching team she has spent literally hundreds of hours coaching students on how to achieve their post-MBA goals.

In addition to an extensive background in career development, Malvina also brings rich experience in talent management and campus recruiting from her time at LVMH and L’Oréal USA.