Presentation at the 7th Women in ICT & Digital Leadership Summit in Melbourne, Feb 2018

1. Future Proof Your Career
Kate Carruthers
Version 1.0
Feb 2018
Classification: PUBLIC

2. Agenda
• Essentials
• Office housework
• Self understanding
• Support network
• Power of sponsorship
• Impostor syndrome
• Actual skills
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4. Taking rejection & ignoring it
You will be rejected – sometimes
because you are a woman, sometimes
for other reasons
Pick yourself up, regroup and continue
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Resilience counts
– a career is a
marathon not a
sprint
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Don’t take
it
personally!
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Find out about
yourself

8. Understanding yourself
Take every opportunity to get a 360 degree
understanding of yourself
Ask for feedback
Reflect on your work, assess
dispassionately
Recognise your strengths and weaknesses
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Say ‘NO’ to
office
housework

10. Office housework
People will unconsciously expect
women to do it
It takes time
It distracts you from your mission
It adds up over the years
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Find your support network

12. Support network
Find a work support network
Often friends will not understand your
work context
Sometimes colleagues at work will
diverge as you progress
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Discover the
power of
sponsorship

14. Sponsorship not mentorship
A sponsor is someone who will
advocate on your behalf
Mentors are helpful but to get ahead a
sponsor can be more useful
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Nobody knows
you feel like an
impostor

17. Impostor syndrome
Nobody knows how you feel
‘Fake it until you make it’ or rather ‘fake
it until you become it’
Own your success
Don’t compare yourself to others
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18. The crucial thing about imposter syndrome
is that there is clear evidence that you are
not an imposter.
You have the feeling that you are an
imposter but there is evidence that you are
not.
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20. The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive
bias wherein persons of low ability suffer
from illusory superiority, mistakenly
assessing their cognitive ability as greater
than it is.
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21. 21st Century challenges/opportunities
Digital revolution
AI
Machine learning
Internet of Things
Big data & data science
Quantum computing
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New jobs
will emerge
as
technology
changes

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“People skills are more and
more important in an era where
we have powerful and pervasive
technology,” he says. “It sounds
counterintuitive, but to beat the
bot, you need to be more
human.”
Paul Roehrig, chief strategy officer for Cognizant Digital Business,
https://www.fastcompany.com/40439955/these-are-the-job-skills-of-the-future-that-robots-cant-master

23. 21st Century skills
Problem solving
Creativity
Analytic thinking
Collaboration
Communication
Ethics, action, and accountability
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https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/21st-century-skills-every-student-needs
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24. Above all…
You can have multiple careers
Don’t panic
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Summit 23

25. What we’ve covered
• Essentials
• Office housework
• Self understanding
• Support network
• Power of sponsorship
• Impostor syndrome
• Actual skills
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26. Think
about
this…
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27. Thank you
Kate Carruthers
k.carruthers@unsw.edu.au
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