The following career resources were contributed by Cornell colleagues for the October 14, 2025 Emerging Tech Dialogues event focusing on the Future of Work, during poster and lunch table discussions.

Pursue Guided Learning Paths

Explore various career paths and engage in upskilling activities to prepare for those paths using personalized tools from Skillsoft and LinkedIn Learning.

• Skillsoft Role Advisor helps employees build a tailored development plan based on their current role and future goals.
• LinkedIn Learning’s My Career Plan offers goal-based learning paths and role recommendations using real-world career data.

Employee stories:

• ERP Breakdown – A new enterprise resource planning system failed, and financial aid officers had data only in paper FAFSAs, with no way to process it. Self-guided Learning Path: The employee's new self-taught Excel skills were used to build a multi-sheet workbook replicating the federal Estimated Family Contribution calculation, enabling award letters to go out during six weeks of ERP downtime. This initiative led to two weeks of Oracle SQL DBA training and new responsibilities supporting system debugging, and eventually to a new role.

Practice Change Management Strategies

Working in higher education means constantly adapting to new students and their evolving needs and expectations. The university's systems and processes also shift to meet external and internal influences. Both gradual and sudden changes can act as a catalyst, pushing the Cornell community and its members to think differently, adapt quickly, and grow stronger together.

• The Cornell Organization Change Management website contains practical tools, resources, and guidance to help you navigate change with confidence and clarity.
• Favorite video clips for everyone:
  • Moving through the Six Stages of Reacting to Change: NetID login | CWID login (4 min)
  • How change helped me: funny British presenter reliving several early pain points (4 minutes, 54 seconds)
  • What to do if you're upset by change: American professor with a practical approach (3 minutes, 6 seconds)
  • Watch out for group think: the Brit returns with a look back at changes that rolled forward despite group denial. (3 minutes, 15 seconds)
• Favorite video clips from Support Change as a Project Manager
  • Effects of change on individuals: Claudia Peet is a great explainer! (3 minutes, 1 second)
  • Aligning teams and resources: Good points about one reason behind failed changes (2 minutes, 42 seconds)
• Favorite video clips from Lead and Support Teams Through Change
  • Change Capacity: Cup running over? Learn easy steps to address. (4 minutes, 15 seconds)
  • Starting with the Why of Change: Identify and play back the why. (1 minute, 25 seconds)

Employee stories:

• Industry Shift – Evolving technology changed graphic design and creative roles and tasks, from paste-up/layout artist to typesetter, to computer graphics, adapting to tools like Pagemaker, Quark, and InDesign, and transitioning from studio photography to Photoshop and web design. Adapting to industry shifts: changing industries and skill sets became a constant. The ongoing evolution of the field fostered adaptability and resilience, making each transition less stressful and more manageable over time.

Map a New Career Path

Dream big! Design the perfect job to match other or new interests—for example, someone committed to sustainability might transition into the renewable energy sector to actively support local environmental efforts.

• Clarify what you really want to be doing. Map a path that moves you closer, using mentors and proven resources to plot a new course (see Guided Learning Paths).
• Identify an ongoing process or system issue in the unit and propose a special side project to resolve it. If troubleshooting and resolving new problems is the best part of the day, seek roles or consulting work that focuses on those skills.
• Explore the hype. Remaining curious and open to emerging fields can stimulate career growth and reinvention.
  • Build a career in AI and Machine Learning - ask Copilot to map a path from a current role to the most likely job in this area. Skillsoft and LinkedIn Learning also offer career path mapping (see Guided Learning Paths).
  • Build a career in Cybersecurity -  ask a colleague in the ITSO about their journey.
  • Build a career in Data Science, Analysis or Visualization - the Build a Career in Data Science book and podcast include entertaining stories of career changers plus solid insights on paths to working with data, analysis, and visualizations from entry level to senior data scientist. roles Read a colleague's review.
  • Build a career in Data Centers - regardless of AI's success or bust, new data centers continue to emerge. Explore paths to careers in cloud infrastructure or as a network architect, or an engineer who understands power systems and energy efficiencies for high-density compute loads.

Employee stories:

• Team Shuttered in Downturn - In an organization-wide economy-driven reduction in force, the entire team was eliminated. New path: organization provided multiple resources to change directions, leading to an external project and career shift followed by an eventual return to the organization in a different role.

Recover and Pivot

When a role ends or runs into trouble, consider a career pivot.  Here are examples of career detours around trouble or following downsizing or termination.

• Blocked Promotion - VP told team leader in 15-minute career coaching session, "I don't see you ever becoming a director or higher, so no use promoting you to manager." Detour: employee suggests shifting to the project management. VP immediately agreed to support that shift with work that would support PMI certification.
• Economic Layoff - energy industry downturn rippled through other service sectors across region; 1 in 8 are unemployed. Detour: Move; change industries.
• Surprise Termination - new manager arrives, fires employee, hires friend. Detour: Substitute taught in local schools to pay bills; applied 'everywhere' for months, finally hired by a previous manager for new opening.
• Probation Recovery - six-month probation following a judgment error, can be fired any day without notice. Detour: refocus attention and energy, win awards for new initiatives and sales growth.
• Dead-end Role - no advancement opportunity. Detour: advocate for a special two-year project to troubleshoot new ERP implementation for department; gain SQL skills and visibility with other departments.
• Ethical Conflict - frequent recipient of verbal directions to bypass legal reporting guidelines. Attempts to confirm via email or memo are ignored. Detour: consulted HR for job protection; eventually transferred to different division.
• Reorganized Out - position eliminated under new CIO. Detour: change departments, build on existing skills to create new initiatives and events, begin traveling to New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, the Bay Area, and Austin to support growing popularity of the new programs.