To better assist the Walton MBA students as they navigate an ever-changing job market, Bill Ryan has joined the Walton MBA Programs office as a career coach. This new position will primarily assist Executive MBA students as they plan their career paths after graduation.
In addition to the traditional roles of a career counselor, including critiquing resumes and helping students prepare for interviews, Ryan plans to focus on helping students increase their network and define their own personal standards for success.
“What I’m most excited about, because it had the most impact for me, is helping students to define fit and success for them,” Ryan said. “I want to help them to really, truly look introspectively, understand themselves, be honest with what they are good at, what they are not good at, and what do they like to do. Then, use that information, that introspective summary you’ll develop to say this industry would be great, this one wouldn’t, this company would be great, this one wouldn’t, this role would be great, this one wouldn’t, and when you get there and go into an interview you do so much better.”
Ryan brings an impressive amount of work experience to his role with past positions with Coca-Cola, Mars and Wrigley. As an alumnus of the Walton EMBA program, he also brings an understanding and ability to relate to the students and their class workload.
“Bill is extremely passionate about helping people with their careers and life goals,” Executive Director of MBA Programs Vikas Anand said. “He has done that with dozens of our MBA interns in the past. Almost everyone he has mentored has had a successful outcome. He is a member of our Alumni Advisory Board. He’s an alum. He checks all the boxes. And of course his corporate career and his network definitely will help our students.”
Ryan first learned of the career coach position at the Walton MBA Alumni Advisory Board’s spring meeting in February 2020. Despite being semi-retired, Ryan immediately felt intrigued by the opportunity to mentor Walton MBA students and help them define their career goals.
“One of the first things on the agenda was that Vikas introduced that this role had been created and I thought about how I’ve always had a passion for people and I’ve got a lot of experience that I think would be relevant,” Ryan said. “We did internships with full-time MBA students which paid great dividends for them and for the company. Most of the full-time interns we had came on full-time and are still at Mars today.”
Ryan’s new position will gain even more importance as many workplaces shift their way of operating due to changes from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Every job is going to be impacted by COVID-19 and there is no reason to expect the impact will be temporary,” Ryan said. “Things are going to change, and some things are going to change forever. It’s going to be important to prepare yourself to do some good introspective work.”
Ryan has already started counseling current students and looks forward to using his career experience and advice to have an impact on the Walton EMBA students’ careers.
“I’m a big believer that success needs to be self-defined,” he said. “If you allow others to define success for you, you’re going to burn out. If you can define success for yourself, you will enjoy the journey a lot more.”
