In this episode, host Rob Hendrickson shares his thoughts about Season 1 of his JobSpeakers podcasting journey and speaks to what may come next. 

"Most people don't realize that architecture is a team sport," says this week's guest, Steve Burgos, who demystifies this highly romanticized profession from all angles: drawing designs, managing budgets, inspecting construction, brushing up on building codes, communicating with clients, and more. Designing and managing projects ranging from solariums on residential homes to resorts in northern Egypt, Steve covers the different stages of an architect's career, explains where he spends his time, emphasizes the hard work behind every structure, shares what makes him proud about what he does, and lays out his journey from being a little guy who wanted to draw for comic books to a successful Chicago architect.

Claudia Miller's job is to help her clients convert career ambitions into plans, plans into action, and action into achievement. By helping with personal branding, resume writing, online profile polishing, and one-on-one interview coaching (among other related services), Claudia helps her clients achieve more than they thought possible. Does it always work? Well ... most of the time, but it always works if her clients are committed, disciplined, and willing to put in the hard work. In this episode, hear about the three most common mistakes job seekers make and the missteps Claudia herself took as she learned about herself and the kinds of jobs that motivated her to do more, be more, and make an impact in others' lives.

It almost ruined her, but Ally Bergmann didn't let it. Bucking the family trend - both her parents had been alcoholics - Ally quit drinking cold turkey at the age of 29 and has since built a life dedicated to helping others deal with the disease of substance abuse through counseling or avoid it altogether through prevention. In this very personal and important episode, learn what triggered Ally to stop drinking, how she found her calling and returned to college to achieve undergraduate and graduate degrees, and what she did to build and manage a career dedicated to a purpose forged very early in life. Finally, hear Ally's take on the joys and challenges of working in the nonprofit arena.  

Her dream was to be a Walt Disney Imagineer - a super cool job by anyone's standards - but our guest Cindy Levin's path took her in a slightly different but equally cool direction: working as an automobile engineer at GM's proving grounds. While she worked to eliminate vibrations in vehicles, she was allowed on company time to tutor kids in math for one hour per week. Reflecting back, Cindy recalls, "that was my favorite part of the week." Fast forward to becoming a new mom during a long, dark Chicago winter, when Cindy tapped into her dormant give-back-to-the-community reserves. She began writing letters to Congress and perhaps without knowing it at the time, started an advocacy career phase focused on shifting public policy in areas covering poverty, hunger, and global health. Now, as Cindy's children have begun following in mom's footsteps (many more letters going to Congress these days!), she is about a year away from finishing and publishing a book about how moms make great activists - impressive indeed! In this episode, learn what it takes to write a book, how volunteering is an ideal career springboard, what it is like to work for nonprofit organizations, and how one person's career journey brought her back to the causes she cares most about and making a better world for our kids.

Our guest this week is an award-winning poet, young adult novelist, and cookbook author as well as an activist, public intellectual, performance artist, and scholar. Named by Southern Living as “One of the 50 People changing the South,” Caroline Randall Williams views her work and her identity as inextricably linked. As a truth-teller who endeavors to "have a say in how things get remembered," Caroline in this episode unpacks the jobs of being a writer, professor, and change agent in the context of serving causes that matter to our time now and will "impact the record" for years to come. Like the beautiful meals in her cookbook, Soul Food Love, our guest this week serves up the gritty and glorious experiences that have shaped her career and life journey, so that we may all learn a thing or two. Bon appetite!

Her job is cool, really cool. Visit the operating room to watch surgeries live? Check. Talk to surgeons and nurses about how to make their instruments better? Check. Devise cutting-edge instruments a joystick-operated robot will use to perform surgeries? Check. Yes, very cool indeed - but being a biomedical engineer also involves behind-the-scenes design and development processes that require exacting rigor, thorough testing, detailed documentation, and organized project management - along with a big dollop of creativity and problem-solving. Our guest this week walks through the ins and outs of a biomedical engineering profession while sharing how she has risen to the executive ranks, what she has learned about being a leader in her field, and whom she hopes to inspire as a result.

Do you work to live, or live to work? It's an important question many of us ignore ... but not this week's guest, David Connell, who has crafted a successful career in digital communications while managing to be crystal clear about his personal and professional priorities (hint: David knows how to unplug after a productive day to spend time with his wife and two sons). As for choosing his working path, says David, "my generation was never expected to pick a career before college - that's when we were supposed to start figuring that out!" Still, David had the presence of mind to pursue a liberal arts education that helped him learn to communicate and think critically, and he used those skills to pursue writing and eventually web design and content development opportunities. Now a director, David shapes the Urban Institute's digital communications strategy and leads a team to execute that strategy. Hear more about David's career journey, the four paths to pursue a digital communications career, and, as a bonus, a little-known novel David might one day publish!