Grant Schroll has always known he’s enjoyed helping people find the right career. Back in 2012, he founded a company called Beyond Bounds while he was a student at the University of Michigan to do just that.
From there he found a passion. He raised seed funding, launched a marketing campaign and ran pilot programs for over 80 students.
Now, even though he works full time with the Education Advisory Board in D.C., Schroll is still helping people find the right career path for them.
Along with his co-founder Erica Soultanian, Schroll runs Mission Collaborative on the side to let people test drive a possible new career.
“Our goal is to essentially teach people a more effective process for figuring out what they want to do with their career,” Schroll said. “We provide a community and a sense of accountability.”
Founded in March 2017, Mission Collaborative offers workshops, called Career Test Drives, and networking events to help people find a new career path that best fits their interests, skills and goals. Career Test Drives are $5 per session, while other more informal events, like networking sessions, are typically free.
During the Career Test Drives, leaders from local startups present challenges they are currently facing. Workshop participants are then given two hours to create solutions to these problems, and later present their ideas to the startups.
So far, Mission Collaborative has completed four Career Test Drives with plans to offer more of the workshops. Startup presenters have included D.C.-based Hatch Apps and Shop or Not.
Outside of its Career Test Drives and free workshops, Mission Collaborative hosts six-week long workshops for $750. This package includes two full Saturday workshops and four evening seminars.
Each of Mission Collaborative’s workshops focuses on a four-step process to get clients started in their new industries; reflection, definition, the test and launch. The reflection phase dives into identifying one’s strengths, weaknesses, skills, goals and personality traits. These factors are taken transferred to the definition stage where Mission Collaborative helps align people with three to four possible careers.
In the test phase, participants are given two-week projects to tackle a real-world issue. The launch phase allows participants to start looking for jobs in their new career. Mission Collaborative equips people with headshots, updated resumes, mock interviews and other techniques for landing a job during its workshops.
Since starting the workshops, Schroll says he’s noticed some trends with people looking to enter a new field in the D.C.-area. For instance, a lot of people come to Mission Collaborative with the hope of entering the social impact scene. "A lot of these people are leaving the corporate sector where they were paid pretty nicely," he said.
And that can be tricky because most people in D.C. tend to tie their identities to their careers. That's a problem when people aren't excited to say what their jobs are, Schroll said.
"When you don’t feel good about your answer, you need some help,” Schroll said. “Once people realize that, we find that people are more than happy to come check out what Mission Collaborative does and engage with our programs."
He's also noticed that women are more likely to admit that they need help on their journey.
"I think there’s a challenge getting through to men because they think they can figure it out on their own and that they don’t need help," Schroll said. "Women seem to be a little bit more ready to admit when they need help."
Mission Collaborative team believes it will continue to grow and that the company offers something unique to D.C. professionals.
"We’ve had more than 500 people go through various programs and workshops around career change," Schroll said. "We’re feeling confident that this process is very different and more effective than how people intuitively try to figure out their careers."
