Bill Priestley: How to Identify a Dream Job

What I do is I present a picture of how to identify and create a dream job - a position that a person can look at as a professional target for their life. This can be especially motivating because if you can find a position which stimulates you intellectually, drives you physically and fulfills you emotionally and/or spiritually, you've found a situation that is hard to say no to. I do this through telling a little bit of my own story in wanting to become an NCAA Division I sportscaster while also adding in stories illustrating my points on how to identify core interests, desired abilities and audiences. In the end, I remind audiences that the possibilities of their life can contain massive professional experiences, but none of that matters unless you "never let your dream die before you do."

Bill grew up in Sewanee, TN the son of a mathematics professor and biology/chemistry teacher. He went to Furman University in Greenville, SC where he majored in history with the idea of becoming a high school history teacher. However, he got bit by the sportscasting bug while he was there and made the decision to go after becoming an NCAA Division I sportscaster. That led him to work in Tennessee, Indiana, South Carolina and North Carolina. While teaching (as a high school history teacher), he resolved that if he didn't get his dream job, he wanted to be able to help other young people get theirs. At the time, a graduate assistant's position opened up at Campbell University for broadcasting. Bill got the job and earned a masters degree in education around the idea of helping young people choose careers.
Bill was set to go back into the classroom after graduating, but Campbell called a few months later and offered him a full-time sportscasting gig - 18 years after he made the decision to go after that position. It seemed appropriate that he landed at a school with a mascot that is a long-suffering animal that traverses long, laborious journeys (Campbell's mascot is the Fighting Camel). He was there from (phone number hidden)8 and spoke to Campbell students on "How to Identify a Dream Job" many times over those 5 years. Unfortunately, he was let go due to budget cuts.
He returned to his home state of Tennessee where he worked at CBS affiliate News 12 in Chattanooga, TN as well as freight media startup FreightWaves as a television producer. He moved to Nashville, TN and currently works as the Assistant Director of Vanderbilt University Student Communications advising all of the electronic media (two radio stations, a tv studio, several podcasting studios and two music recording studios.
Through it all, Bill is passionate about helping kids use their education and through his graduate school experience, he created The Dream Job Blueprint - a program for students to help them see how they can use their education to achieve their dream job. He also hosts a podcast called The Launch Sequence which talks about the Blueprint as well as hosts guests in the career discernment space.

I don't have much in terms of requirements - I can talk with a hand held microphone or a lavalier. I can do a workshop version of my presentation but would need a screen and a projector to pull it off.