Urszula Rapacka
Ula has 10+ years of experience as a career consultant, coach and corporate / NGO trainer. She cooperated with the Warsaw University of Technology Careers Office in preparing its graduates for the job market and then joined the College of Europe to set up and coordinate a pioneering Career Service Center. Since 2017, she’s been an international career & transition coach at an international coaching company. Ula joined Career Angels in 2019 where she particularly supports young professionals, as well as international, non-standard candidates. She works proficiently in both Polish and English.
Why are you a Career Angel? What’s your favourite part of your work?
I am a Career Angel because I love meeting people from around the world and talking to them. I love helping them build a portfolio of professional successes and find ways to communicate their strengths to others. Thanks to that, they gain more confidence. They flourish throughout the process and it’s great to be a part of this journey.
I also like it when the clients arrive with the question, “What’s wrong with me?”. Through the process they receive relevant information, tools and good practices to look for jobs, and they ultimately understand that there is absolutely nothing wrong with them – and there never was.
What’s your life motto?
I don’t really have a life motto, but I’ve come across this line recently and it resonated with me a lot:
“Do not accept any I HAVE TO or any I SHOULD other than your very own.”
I think this also applies to planning your career, making sure that you stay true to your deeper internal values and motives.
What’s the best & worst career advice that you have ever received?
At this stage of my life I don’t even remember if it was a direct advice or just an implied belief circulating in my family. I come from a community where it was obvious that a career is something built within a large, stable, reputable, hierarchical institution – preferably headquartered in a 19th century building with marble flooring and some majestic stairways.
Thanks to my actual adult career experiences I discovered that even though such places are perfect for some people, I feel stifled there and I thrive in smaller, more agile, flatter teams, where I’m given more trust and independence (which further explains why I am a Career Angel).