Deb Sutton, Business Development Advisor.

Deb Sutton was working at Mosgiel’s Fisher & Paykel Appliances site as a learning and development adviser, helping others find new work as the company cut jobs, when she found she needed some help herself.

“I already had eleven papers towards my degree and had pretty much given up the thought of finishing it, being that I was ‘doing’ the work and had the credibility. I didn’t think I needed it. Then the redundancy announcement at Fisher & Paykel was made and

..the CAPL opportunity presented itself as a way to get the qualification to ‘prove I could do what I said I could do’.

 For me the benefit of finishing my degree through CAPL was threefold:

• In terms of cost, the CAPL fees easily equated to the cost of enrolling in the number of papers I’d have had to do to complete, but the time frame and study commitment was way less (a no-brainer really!).
• The reflection that I did in pulling together the case studies and demonstrating my skills, experience and knowledge gained over my career helped boost my self-esteem and prepared me for the job-seeking task ahead of me. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the ‘doing’ in a job and underestimate your value to your employer as well as undervaluing the skills that you have.
• Analysing data to support the case studies from Fisher & Paykel experiences gave me a broader understanding of how the company had reacted to economic factors globally; and helped me in my support role at Fisher & Paykel through redundancy.

Through analysing my career journey and reflecting on my learning along the way, I felt more confident to apply for roles that were outside the HR and training mould. It also made me realise that perhaps I needed a new challenge in a different employment area.

The whole CAPL team were very supportive, and my facilitator in particular was awesome in his support, advice and encouragement.

Deb now works as Business Development Advisor (Skills and Entrepreneurship) for the Economic Development Unit, Dunedin City Council.

“In terms of my new role – which is quite different to my Fisher & Paykel role – I do think that having a degree helped with securing the Business Development Advisor job at EDU. I used the degree panel feedback document as a ‘reference’ at interview and, my new boss said, the contents of that document was one factor in his decision to offer me the role. In addition, I was able to use examples from my degree presentation to support my suitability for the role; and my newly acquired understanding of the economic environment from my case study research.”

Deb’s manager reports that “The fact that Deb had shown the commitment to go through the CAPL programme alongside her full-time work was impressive. It was definitely one factor that led to us offering her the job.”

The CAPL process has been a way for Deb to turn a stressful experience into new opportunity. “I cannot speak highly enough of my CAPL experience and would certainly recommend it to others keen to gain formal recognition for their experiential learning – two of my very close friends are currently CAPL clients, spurred to do something following my experience and success.”