Workshop Design
I have experience creating and facilitating online, hybrid, and in person educational workshops.
If you want to learn more about designing a workshop together, check out my Services.
Keep scrolling to see an example of some of my work!
In Person Workshop:
Building Career Confidence: A Workshop for Teens
Audience:
11th - 12th graders local to Troy, Michigan
Responsibilities:
This is a workshop I made for my own career coaching business, in partnership with Autana Family Therapy Center (formerly ARISE). I designed this workshop from scratch. I determined the learning objectives, outlined the content, and designed the workbook.
Tools:
Google Docs, Canva
Designing the Workbook
I created a printable workbook using Google Docs instead of Canva because I actually find it’s much easier for managing written content, and it helps me stay focused on substance over style. Canva is beautiful, but not the best for formatting lots of written content, and it’s easy to get lost in all of Canva’s fun visual design tools. Often, when I work with a design client, I recommend trying to build their workbooks or workshop handouts in Google Docs first, and then if they still want the prettier look, we can rebuild in Canva once we have the content down.
Designing Marketing Materials
For print, I created different flyers for the two primary audiences: the teens themselves, and the caregivers who might encourage their teens to attend. I included QR codes for easy registration.
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Overwhelmed trying to figure out your career or college plans? Let me help! In this 1 hour interactive workshop for 11th-12th graders, you’ll identify practical next steps to kickstart your career. Whether your goal is an Ivy League, an internship, a gap year, or something entirely unique, this workshop will give you the tools to start your career strong.
Attendees will learn how to:
✅ Showcase hobbies, clubs, classes, and jobs in resumes and college applications
✅ Craft strong personal stories to demonstrate skills in interviews, college application essays, and scholarship essays
✅ Learn new skills for free & gain work experience through do-it-yourself personal projects
✅ Learn about people’s career paths and start building a professional network through informational interviews
When: Saturday, February 1st, 2025 from 3-4pm
Where: Autana Family Therapy Center, 755 W Big Beaver Rd, Suite 475, Troy, Michigan 48084
Facilitator: Danielle Nicholson (Career Coach & Oakland University Counseling Master’s student)
Cost: $50 per person
All attendees will walk away with a workbook full of career development tips, a digital resume and cover letter template, and actionable steps to start gaining experience in your desired field.
Bonus: Everyone who attends the workshop will receive 50% off an optional resume service from our facilitator, Danielle Nicholson!
Spaces are limited to just 10 participants, so reserve your spot today!
Registration info at genzcareercoach.com/events or on ARISE's website at arisecounselingcenterandtraininginstitute.com/workshops
Feel free to contact me via my website genzcareercoach.com/contact with any questions or for more information.
We can’t wait to see you there!
And you know what?
It didn’t run. But something more amazing happened.
This workshop didn’t even run. No one signed up. So we cancelled it.
Granted, it was early February in a particularly snowy time in Michigan - of course no one wanted to come out in the cold to talk about career stuff after the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Many lessons learned in terms of timing and overall marketing strategy.
I could have let this “failure” crush me. I could have stayed in the embarrassment and disappointment that it didn’t “succeed” the way I wanted.
But here’s the thing.
I was able to talk with someone else about this workshop as I was developing it, and they thought the project was so cool sounding that they literally hired me to do a workshop for their own company! And then THAT WORKSHOP went so well, they’ve hired me back to do THREE MORE, AND I’ve written several articles from them.
Did I mention this was my DREAM client, The Financial Diet - a company I had been following for YEARS?
I’ve made hundreds of dollars working for my dream client as a direct result of this “failed” workshop - all because I was brave enough to try something imperfectly, and talk to others about it, and demonstrate my knowledge and passion for the subject.
So THIS is why I say - FINISH YOUR DAMN WORKSHOP! Because you literally never know how it will turn out, what cool opportunities it will lead you to, what cool people you’ll meet.
But maybe don’t plan an in person workshop for January / early February in Michigan haha…