Speaker 1: What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Ask a Trainer video series. On this episode, we're doing something a little bit different. Today, I'm speaking with Lisa Spinelli-White to talk about how to start a career in talent development. If you've ever wondered what talent development is, what skills you need, and how to start a transition, then this episode is for you. Stick around. Hi, Lisa. Thanks so much for being on this episode of Ask a Trainer today. How are you? Great. Thanks for having me, Jess. Yeah. I'm so excited to have you on this episode today. And before we dive into our topic,

Speaker 2: can you share a little bit about yourself with our viewers?

Speaker 1: Thanks. My name's Lisa Spinelli, and I am a career and leadership coach at the University of Michigan.

Speaker 2: And I'm a senior manager at the University of Michigan And I am a career and leadership coach. I also do workshop facilitation and learning content development.

Speaker 1: So let's start with understanding a little bit about talent development. So our topic is starting a career in talent development. Can you share a little bit about what talent development is? How would you define that?

Speaker 2: Well, I think actually Tony might have said it a while ago. And Tony being the CEO of ETD, and he said that talent development is really people development. So I wholeheartedly agree with Tony. And yeah, I think that any time you're really looking at talent, you're looking at the people, you're trying to grow, develop them in ways that are going to make the workforce a better place. And you're looking at developing their skill set. You're looking at developing them also as a whole person. So traditionally, people might have thought of talent development as training and just developing people's skills so that they could really be great at their job, which is part of it, I believe. But you can't really be great at your job if you're not really being looked at as a whole person. So I think that's some of the movement that's been happening maybe in and around COVID, really bringing your whole self to work and being thought of as a whole person at work.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with what you're saying about focusing on the whole person. So what isn't talent development? There may be some misconceptions out there about what talent development is. What would you say talent development is not?

Speaker 2: I think I kind of touched on it. I don't think the traditional sense of just looking at people's skills is talent development in and of itself. And I think that also when you're looking at just training as the answer to talent development, also I think anyone in this field will tell you that's not what talent development is. It's just throwing some training at people and watching it stick. And I know that there's a lot of focus now on data. Data is everywhere. Data is providing the path forward. But I think when we're looking at the data, sometimes we're missing that picture around all of the data, which it goes back to are we getting the full story of the person? Are we getting the full story of the workforce, the environment, the organization if we're just looking at data? And are we getting the right data? So I think that pure data look at talent development can also lead us askew. But those are just some of my random thoughts on it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. So are there any skills that someone would need to be able to succeed in talent development? Or I should say, what are the skills that are transferable to talent development? Can you give an example of a skill that would be beneficial to this field?

Speaker 2: There's so many, so many. And there are tons of different roles within talent development itself. So when I'm talking to teachers, a lot of the times I would say some of the great skills that they bring to the table that could transfer over to, say, being a corporate trainer and workshop facilitator might be things like presentation skills, communication skills. I think communication skills can pretty much span any job ever, right? And then, of course, like conflict resolution, coaching, leadership development, all those sorts of skill sets that the teachers bring. And I think some of those are the same for transitioning service members, military members. When they come over from their world into the civilian world and they're looking at talent development roles, a lot of those leadership and communication skills can transfer over. And then a lot of their organization and analytical kind of skills can as well.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think that there are a lot of skills. I agree. There are a lot of skills that do overlap with talent development. Speaking for myself, coming from an educational background, something that you touched on, conflict resolution, that's something that was actually I have a lot of experience in that and also just learning and development. So there is a little bit of overlap there. Well, obviously, it's not the same, but definitely you can see the overlap there.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you're looking at more of those instructional design roles, of course, that designing aspect, the graphic design, the curriculum design, I mean, all those sorts of things play into it. So it really depends on which role you're looking at. But that's where that skill mapping and skill gap and assessments come in.

Speaker 1: Lisa, what tips do you have about transitioning into the field of talent development?

Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. So I think with a lot of career transitions, networking is definitely the number one thing that I would do. So reaching out to either those first or second degree connections that you might have first and asking them for informational interviews, but then also joining places like ATD chapters, the one that you're a part of in DC, and getting to meet new people, reaching out to new people who might be in roles or companies that you're interested in, gaining some of that information. And then once you have that set, I think that it's really important to think about those skills that you might be missing. And there's a number of great online academies, if you will, that are out there like Tim Slade's Academy. And so finding out if you're looking for that instructional design piece, or if you're what your niche role would be within talent development. Sarah Canestra talks about this a lot and she has a great transitioning into L&D Academy as well. And she talks about that very first step is really finding your niche. So I totally agree with that. Figuring out, getting really granular in detail of what it is you want to be doing. And I know you know this very well, like instructional designer, trainer, any of those titles could mean a thousand different things. And even within the same company, they might have the same title with an entirely different set of requirements and job duties. So you really wanna hone in on those practices that you're gonna be doing every day and what really brings you joy. So that is hard to find sometimes, figure out what it is that brings you joy. But diving into those, what Marcus Buckingham calls like his red threads, what you just find yourself getting lost in those activities. And if you can get as detailed as possible, figuring out what those are, then you can sort of go and figure out what your niche might be, what those keywords might be, and then really getting in those connections for those roles, figuring out what skills you might be missing, upskilling, and then getting into those roles in those companies.

Speaker 1: Lisa, do you have any recommendations on resources or books that folks could check out if they're curious to find out more information about starting a career in talent development?

Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a great book here. I don't know who helped write it, but if you're a teacher moving into training, of course, there's teachers and trainers from ATD.

Speaker 2: Another one that is very specific to L&D that is on my desk all the time is Find Your Fit, also ATD Press. And also from ATD is Digital You, which is from William Aruta. And this is more on personal branding, but can really help you narrow down your niche. A couple other ones that are not from ATD, I mean, I'm just like a book sale right here, is Stand Out by Dori Clark. And pretty much any book from Dori Clark is amazing. And then Marcus Buckingham, who I do have his book here too, but I'm just done showing you all the books, Love and Work. He also is, of course, a great author and all of his books will help you kind of narrow down your niche and figure out what it is that really fulfills you and brings you joy at work.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, a couple of those books are on my list to check out as well. So those are really great recommendations. Thank you, Lisa, for sharing that. Lisa, what advice would you give someone who is looking to transition to the field of talent development? Where should they start?

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think that for anybody going through a career transition, the first thing that I'm gonna tell them is really to tap into your network, create new networks and new connections. And some of that might be by reaching out to ATD chapters, like the DC one that you're a part of, and really getting in there, meeting people, asking their advice, getting informational interviews so that you can really get a real sense of what it's like day-to-day in that field and in those roles.

Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us on this episode of Ask a Trainer, the special episode talking about transitioning into a career in talent development. Where can folks find you if they have any additional questions and to keep up with all the great things that you've got going on?

Speaker 2: Oh, thanks. Yeah, I think LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me. I'm on there at least once a day, sometimes too many times a day. So yeah, that's probably the best place. Thanks.

Speaker 1: Awesome. All right, Lisa. Well, thanks so much. Thank you. All right, that's all our time for today, everyone. A huge shout out to Lisa Spinelli-White for joining me on this episode of Ask a Trainer. If you wanna find out how to stay connected with Lisa Spinelli-White, make sure to check out our show notes below. And if you wanna find out when our next Ask a Trainer video is going live, just subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell to know when our next video drops. I'm Jess Thompson. Thanks so much for watching.