Meet the Team: Lloyd Pemberton
When students speak to career coach Lloyd Pemberton, the first thing that stands out is his calm, professional demeanor. As the School of Business Career Coach, Lloyd has a constant stream of students coming into Career Services seeking his wisdom. At the same time, he is able to give each and every person he interacts with his full attention, making them feel truly valued as a professional.
Lloyd has 15 years of business experience. Part of his background consists of collaborating with business owners in research and talking to those pursuing higher education. Before he was a Career Coach, he worked as an adjunct professor during the day and then worked in facilities during the afternoon and evening shift. He did this for five and a half years as he was pursuing his master’s. It was from working in facilities that he talked to those working in Career Services and one day decided to see if they had any opening positions available.
“They had mentioned that they were looking for a couple of positions within Career Services and one of them happened to be Career Coaching, so I saw that as a good marriage between interacting with students, which I really enjoyed when I served as a teacher and establishing some good relationships with them, being a positive influence and getting to know them.”
Passion for Coaching
There is a vast array of degrees within the School of Business, such as human resources, marketing, project management, sales, and so much more. Lloyd helps students in all of these career paths. When asked what his favorite part of his job is, Lloyd responded:
“I guess it would be the interaction of not only the students but the people, getting to hear the stories of the students of where they’re from, what aspirations or goals they like to accomplish and knowing if I can contribute in any small way to make that happen.”
Lloyd enjoys getting to help students in exploring their career. This includes writing cover letters, participating in mock interviews, and writing resumes. He also coordinates with faculty by going into their classrooms and doing presentations on topics such as what a resume should look like, how to navigate Handshake, the importance of networking, and how these things will be beneficial when looking for an internship or job.
“I do feel that interview prep or interviewing skills are going to be important cause you can be a fantastic person on paper, but yet it still is that communication in order to interact with people.”
Advising Students
What is Lloyd’s biggest piece of advice to his students? He tells his students to mention the person’s name they are talking to in the middle of a conversation as it gets the person’s attention and makes them feel acknowledged. Lloyd believes this a biblical concept.
“It’s similar to what we see in Scripture, such as when God changes people’s name from Abram’s name to Abraham,” Lloyd says, “So names are rather significant, names are very important.”
Lloyd encourages students to make connections while in school, because it is potentially the most worthwhile thing they can do to promote their future career.
“Networking is extremely important so having access to the various clubs and organizations that we have on campus, social networking events, those that are more geared toward professionals that might be coming in from the outside to provide any kind of advice or counsel and taking leadership roles from the start is something that I strongly encourage students to do.”
If you are a business student in need of some guidance for your future career, book an appointment with Lloyd! He would love to get to know you and help you strategically plan how to achieve your goals.
