On today’s Live with Bottleneck, our guest Mark Herschberg shares how you can create your career toolkit to help boost your career to the next level.

Mark Herschberg is the author of the new bestseller The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. Mark has helped with launching multiple ventures and startups, as well as fixing issues with Fortune 500s and the academia.

So if you want to create your very own career toolkit, stay tuned to this episode.

Who is Mark Herschberg?

When Mark graduated in the 90s, he started off as a software developer. He wanted to become a Chief Technology Officer, but realized that he needed not just the engineering skills, but also other skills such as leadership, communication, and various management skills.

At the time, there was no one to teach him these things, so he had to do it on his own.

According to Mark, these things he had to learn wasn’t limited into making a career toolkit, but also for creating your own business, if you decide to venture off on your own, rather than take on the corporate path.

“I knew I needed these skills, but no one taught me. They’re not what you learn in college typically, so I developed them in myself. I quickly realized the skills aren’t just for executives, founders, and solopreneurs, they’re for everyone.” – Mark Herschberg

Starting from the Academe

After this realization, Mark started training his team to improve on these skills. Meanwhile, MIT had reached out to companies and conducted a survey on what skills they want from future hires, besides those required by a specific position. Once the results came back, MIT realized that their students and the curriculums they have do not support the development of such skills.

Mark and his colleagues started to create classes and curriculums to teach their students these necessary skills before they even leave the academe. Hence the Career Accelerator Program was created.

After teaching it for years at MIT, they realized that this should not only apply to MIT graduates, but should be a universal thing. So They compiled everything they’ve learned over the years and condensed it into a book and an app for creating your own Career Toolkit.

Months to Make, Decades to Learn

When asked how long it took him to make the book, Mark has this to say:

“It’s funny – I wrote the book in about 3-4 months. However, here’s the caveat: I have been teaching it for 20 years. So I can’t really say, “Oh yeah, it came out quickly.” I had 20 years where we were working through materials: from teaching it to students, to what to include in the book. So the act of writing was really easy.” – Mark Herschberg

For Mark, it was a matter of translating the things he had taught to his class all these years, and finding the most important ones and elaborating on it in the book. The challenge was condensing everything into one book.

To hear more from Mark Herschberg and how to create your own Career Toolkit, continue listening to this episode.

Bio

Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You.

Educated at MIT, Mark has spent his career launching and fixing new ventures at startups, Fortune 500s, and academia. He’s developed new software languages, online marketplaces, new authentication systems, and tracked criminals and terrorists on the dark web.

Mark helped create the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, MIT’s “Career Success Accelerator”, where he’s taught for twenty years. Mark also serves on the boards of non-profits Techie Youth and Plant a Million Corals.

Connect with Mark Herschberg today!

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