UBC

Career retention, navigation & transition

March 22, 2026 Workday Recruiting

Career retention, navigation and transition

Build career resilience to achieve a career of wellbeing and success for yourself or your teams. 

Career Retention, Navigation and Transition services is a dedicated and holistic offering for all staff and leaders to engage and build their careers and that of their teams, within their roles and through professional experiences at UBC. 

This service partners with staff and leaders to create possibilities for growing careers in unique, creative, and non-traditional ways while contributing to their team’s mandate, and larger university’s strategic goals.

Our services aim to assist you with building your career at UBC. We will help you navigate the intersectionality of your role, stage of employment, personal and professional identity, career experiences, and more as you partner with us in building your unique and fulfilling career. 

Outcomes

Through our services, you will: 
  • Align your personal values, interests, strengths and experiences with UBC’s strategic plan and the work at the institution.  
  • Develop meaningful connections and shared vision with your department’s goals, and engage with communities of common interests and practices.  
  • Explore opportunities to learn and grow professionally.  
  • Commit to continually practicing career navigation and embracing changes within your career on an on-going basis throughout your employment at UBC.  

Our services

Career retention — for people leaders

For HR representatives, people leaders and those who manage staff and want to retain and engage employees, support them during times of change, and motivate them to continue to perform well in their roles.

Services offered:

  • One-on-One consultation with the leader and/or their HR point of contact to align the offerings with their specific needs. Please contact – [email protected] 
  • A workshop on ‘Introduction to Career Navigation’ for teams that is designed to be facilitated and lead in partnership with your unit’s HR representative. This is the first step to creating an understanding on the different roles including that of the leader and the nature and scope of career support offered organizationally to employees. 
  • A 2-part group series offered both virtually and in-person, for employees on ‘Building a Career Profile at UBC’. This group series of two workshops includes self-directed work, and builds capacity for staff (including their leader) to engage in appropriate career conversations with different UBC partnership programs 
  • ‘Career Conversation Practice Gyms’ is an offering exclusively for leaders to come together and unpack real-time barriers to supporting the careers of their staff. This brave space is a perfect opportunity to practice the learnings from various leadership programs and work on aligning the career conversation guide to specific performance goals. Please reach out for the latest version of our guide. 
  • One-one-one leadership coaching support to explore available UBC offerings based on your specific retention and career support needs. Please contact [email protected]. 

Career navigation

For current employees who wish to build their careers at UBC and who have passed their probation period (depending on the employee group, this can be between three and twelve months). This service will empower employees to evolve their existing careers and become more resilient and engaged with their current roles as they embrace changes at the personal, professional and institutional level.

Outcomes you can hope to achieve through our partnership:   

  • Acknowledging one’s whole-self at work: understanding one’s personal values and passions, and discovering ways to continuously integrate who you are into the work you do. 
  • Engaging with the workplace: discovering shared values and vision, developing authentic and meaningful connections by engaging with: 
    • The Place – the organizational vision, current department’s goals and other interests.
    • Its People – the connections with colleagues and leaders across work units which can include communities of common interests and practices.
    • Resources & Opportunities – curated online learning through LinkedIn learning playlists and other UBC benefits within Health & Wellbeing and Workplace Learning opportunities.
  • Understanding the ongoing self-commitment and responsibility: career navigation is not a program for just a singular job search activity, but a philosophy to meet one’s career aspirations at UBC. 

Please contact  and we will send you a discovery document to understand and begin supporting your specific needs. [email protected]

Career transition

This service has successfully partnered with employees since 2012 to create transformative spaces as they continue to build their careers within UBC and beyond. The focus is to support employees in transition such that they view it as a comma and not a period in their career journey at UBC. Employees get to build their career resilience in support of an agile administration, making it their first-choice place to continue to work. Please check eligibility with your HR Representative and/or your manager.

This is a voluntary service for staff whose roles are ending, such as CUPE2950 on a recall list, M&P staff who are in term roles or covering parental or long-leave positions, or have received notice that their ongoing positions have ended, without cause (reasons for termination without cause may include lack of funding, elimination of position, lack of suitability, or organizational restructuring). 

Areas of support:   

  • Reconnecting to the sense of belonging. 
  • Designing one’s unique job search strategy while paying attention to present interests, knowledge, skills and experience. 
  • Enhancing professional networks within the university community and beyond. 
  • Assistance with tailoring resume to every job opportunity. 
  • Developing an exclusive toolkit for effective interviews. 
 
Dual Career Spousal Staff Program

We also offer support for spouses or partners exploring faculty and staff job opportunities at the university through the Dual Career Program. 

Candidates for faculty positions and their partners should first contact the department head, director or selection committee chair of the academic unit to which you are applying. With the support of the Dean, the unit representative can then make a referral and connect you with our services, and we will guide you through the process.

Meet Pooja 

Pooja Khandelwal has a Masters’ in Business Administration (MBA), is a Master Certified Coach (MCC, ICF), Advanced Certified Team Coach (ACTC, ICF), Certified Mentor Coach (CMC) and Dare to LeadTM trained facilitator. She currently leads this portfolio of services. 

Learn more about the work in her words in this Q&A article on 'Exploring the unexpected path to career fulfillment' featured on UBC Today. 

Testimonials

Career Navigation and Transition consultations at UBC are a fantastic service, and represent the best part of working, learning and growing at UBC. My talks with Pooja were nurturing, challenging, refocusing and inspiring, and gave me what I needed to land on my feet.  

I had the pleasure of working with Pooja throughout a recent career transition. Her kind and inquisitive approach created a safe space to explore my transition while aiding me in taking a more holistic approach to the situation. She aided me in pausing to take the time to truly grow from the experience and not merely push forward to the next job opportunity. 

I worked with Pooja to help with career transition in the months preceding the end of my grant-funded position. Her services were most useful and her compassionate, thorough and timely approach was most appreciated. I was very happy to find out that UBC HR could provide me with such efficient support.

I recently had the pleasure of working with Pooja in planning a career transition. I really appreciated that Pooja takes a holistic and balanced approach in her coaching. This process helped me develop my own inner “compass”. I may not have landed my dream job quite yet, but thanks to her advice and support I now have a crystal-clear vision of where I want to go and feel absolutely confident on my ability to get there. 

Get in touch

Ready to begin your career retention, navigation or transition work? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. 

Supports for managers

If you are a manager or people leader looking for support for teams, including building your team’s career resilience and engagement for achieving agility within your unit, view the Career retention, navigation & transition for teams webpage (CWL-protected).

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How to Get Hired at UBC

  • UBC uses Workday Recruiting on its own tenant at ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com, with separate Staff (ubcstaffjobs) and Faculty (ubcfacultyjobs) job boards that share a single candidate profile.
  • There are five practical hiring tracks: Faculty (UBC Faculty Association), CUPE 2950 clerical and library staff, CUPE 116 technical and trades staff, AAPS Management and Professional staff, and Postdoctoral and Sessional appointments. The track determines the entire process, from posting period to interview format to offer timeline.
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