The Purposeful Work Podcast

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Evgenia Lysova, Director of the VU Center for Meaningful Work and Assistant Professor of Careers and Organizational Behavior at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Evgenia discusses international research on work as a calling, the process of editing a special issue on calling in vocational psychology’s top journal, her research on callings within the Dutch video game industry, and experiencing meaningful work while balancing work and family.&...

Guests in this episode are longtime friends, collaborators, and eminent scholars on calling research. Stuart Bunderson, PhD, is the Bauer Professor of Organizational Ethics and Governance, and Director of the Bauer Leadership Center, at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Jeffery Thompson, PhD, is a professor at the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University. Stuart and Jeff discuss their famous study of callings among zookeepers, the...

This episode introduces listeners to a series of episodes that focus on the intersection of faith and work. Specifically, they explore Bryan’s new book, “Redeeming Work: A Guide to Discovering God’s Calling for Your Career.” Bryan discusses his purpose in writing this book, and why a book for Christians should be of interest to listeners who want more purpose in their work regardless of their faith perspective. He then reads the book’s introduction and teases the episode to follow. Suppo...

In this episode we hear from Nate Lake, who is featured in Chapter 2 of Bryan’s new book, “Redeeming Work: A Guide to Discovering God’s Calling for Your Career.” When Bryan and Nate first met, Nate was a senior in college who was passionate about sports, communication studies, and his faith—and torn over whether a career in sports or a career in ministry, was the path for him. In this interview, Nate talks about his process of discerning his calling into sports communications and descri...

This episode features Nick Dale, who is featured in Chapter 6 of Bryan’s new book, “Redeeming Work: A Guide to Discovering God’s Calling for Your Career.” Nick is living his calling as an HR Tech professional right now, but a few years back, he endured a challenging job search that taught him the power of proactivity. In this interview, Nick and Bryan discuss how Nick’s job search experience conforms to what we know works in a job search. Nick also describes how he lives out his faith t...

The protests spurred on by the deaths of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others, have turned everyone’s attention to the serious racism pandemic in the U.S. and beyond. In the career development world, we’ve known for a long time about systemic biases and oppression that harm racial and ethnic minorities in general and Black Americans in particular, but change has been slow and profound problems seem entrenched. What are some things that those of ...

Put yourself in the position of a college student right now. You’ve been investing a ton of your time, energy, and money into an education that you assumed would lead you to gainful employment. But then a pandemic hits, and everything you assumed about the job market is being tested - big time. How worried should you be? What should you be doing right now to prepare yourself for entry into this crazy world of work? In this episode, we welcome Dr. Briana Randall, Executive Director of the Care...

What is your calling? How did you figure this out? For students, what experiences or tools or skills are most helpful in fostering wise discernment? Denise Terry joins us for this episode. Denise is the Director of the Center for Career Connections at Grace College, on the shores of Winona Lake in northern Indiana. In the interview, we learn a little about Denise’s own career journey, get her take on what makes work purposeful, and explore why learning to pivot in your career is s...

Career services have evolved over time to stay ahead of cultural and economic changes we’ve endured. How? And in what ways do the concerns of emerging adults, in terms of their career development, generalize to the challenges faced by people later in life, even into retirement? Today we welcome Dale Austin, Associate Dean in the Boerigter Center for Calling and Career at Hope College in Holland, MI. We’ll learn a little about Dale’s four decades in career services, get his perspective o...

Imagine the career center at your university was called the Career Center for Life Calling. At Ashland University, this is the reality. What activity led to the rebranding in 2020 from “Career Services Center” to the “Career Center for Life Calling”? How have career services at Ashland changed? Karen Hagans has been instrumental in rethinking career services at Ashland. She is the director of the Career Center for Life Calling, a career coach in Ashland’s Dauch College of Business and Economi...

Helping people discover their personal sense of calling and mission is incredibly rewarding. So is using applied research strategies to identify student drivers of engagement. These are some of Dr. Sam Jones’ primary callings within his career, and he accomplishes them in a variety of ways. What does it look like to promote a sense of purpose for MBA students at the prestigious Wharton School? What tools and strategies have proven most effective at achieving this goal? Sam i...

The Purposeful Work Podcast is back with a brand new season! Are you interested in building a deeper understanding of concepts like calling, vocation, purpose, and meaning as they apply to your learning and your work? Of course, you are. We’re going to build that deeper understanding in this season of the podcast by spending time with experts from NetVUE—that is, the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education. NetVUE is a nationwide network of 272 colleges and universities formed “to enr...

This episode of the Purposeful Work Podcast is our second in a series on NetVUE, the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, an initiative supported the Council for Independent Colleges with financial support from the Lilly Endowment. This episode features Dr. Shirley Roels, the inaugural director of NetVUE and leader of the network for its first 8 years. We’ll learn a little about NetVUE’s history and growth, its challenges and opportunities, and about Dr. Roel’s own vocational jour...

In this episode, our third in a series on NetVUE, our guest is Dr. Tim Clydesdale, sociologist and Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at The College of New Jersey. NetVUE grew out of an 8-year project in which 88 colleges and universities across the United States developed programs designed to foster a sense of purpose, calling, and vocation in the lives of their students. Tim led a massive, multi-year, mixed-method study of 26 of those campuses. His team interviewed hundreds of studen...

Dr. Jason Mahn, a PhD scholar, religion professor, and a Chair of the Humanities Department at Augustana College joins us for a discussion on Lutheran understandings of vocation and how that impacts and is applied to today’s world of work. Discover his findings from his latest book Neighbor Love through Fearful Days: Finding Purpose and Meaning in a Time of Crisis in our most recent podcast.Support the Show.