Gig Development Opportunities (Gigs) are short term, defined projects or on-the-job experiences that match an employee’s skills or interests. Gigs allow organizations the ability to get work done and employees to enhance their skills and establish new connections.
Gigs are typically short-term experiences or project-based opportunities that promote:
Skill Sharing or Skill Development:
where you can share your expertise with others or learn new skills that tap into your interests.
Leadership Development:
where you can gain experience in a role with advanced or broader responsibilities compared to your current position.
Connection with Others:
where you can establish connections with other individuals, groups or organizations that may be of interest to you.
Why Participate in a Gig?
Benefits for Employees
A Gig is an excellent way to gain practical experience, invest in your career, and demonstrate your skills and abilities. A Gig can open doors to new career opportunities, and make your current work more enjoyable. Consider a Gig if you'd like to:
Skills: Share your current expertise, gain new talent to position yourself to take on a different or supervisory role.
Confidence: Build self-confidence in your own skillset.
Network: Build bridges to other departments, connect with others and see what working in another department would be like.
Engagement: Re-engage by contributing in different ways that appeal to you.
Efficiency: Learn how other colleagues handle projects similar to your current job.
Benefits for Managers
Skills: Participants share their skills and gain new skills that can benefit your team.
Flexibility: Increase staffing levels during peak times or for special projects.
Efficiency: Tap into an already proven university talent pool.
Strategic: Develop current staff to meet future department goals.
Engagement: Provide job variety for staff to increase engagement and productivity.
Reward: Recognize valued staff by supporting their career development ambitions.
Network: Build bridges and connect with staff in other departments to create and reinforce relationships across the University.
Types of Gigs
Project:
Short-term assignments aimed at providing staff members the ability to share their skills, gain a new experience or skill and better understand other areas/processes of the organization while expanding relationships with other employees.
Shadowing:
Spend time working with another staff member to gain a greater understanding of their role and expertise. If you’re interested in moving into a different career area, this is an effective way to learn what you’ll need to know, and see firsthand if it might be a good fit.
Volunteering:
Is there a particular area, Cornell event or opportunity of interest to you? For example, perhaps helping out at an undergraduate career fair, leading botanical garden tours or serving on a Title IX hearing panel..
