With women making up the vast majority of career services professionals worldwide, their influence on how we define and pursue career success has never been more visible. This Women's Month, we sat down with four remarkable women from top business schools across Europe to hear their perspectives on careers, guidance, and what it truly means to succeed. In our #WomenCareerLeaders series, we hear from Anne-Sophie Berthelot, Career Consultant at Audencia Business School, one of the top 10 business schools in France.

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What is the best part of your job?

"The best part of my job — aside from doing what I love of course — is helping students and alumni accomplish their goals. And I'm not saying just achieving their dreams, but really accomplishing their goals, because we see them from the beginning, once they enter school, until they are graduating. To me, this is the best part of the job."

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What is one trait that all career advisors must have?

"The one trait that all career advisors should and must have is expertise — or experience, I would say. We definitely see that students come to us for guidance and advice, but if we can't tell them that we come from the field, that we have already been recruiters — because in my team we've all been recruiters before — then we lose something important. That experience is what we give to them. What did we do as recruiters? What relevant tips can we actually give you? So it would be relevance, expertise, and reliability — but I think it all comes together."

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How are women reshaping the way we think about career guidance and career success today?

"To me, the way women are reshaping career guidance — especially in a business school — is by taking their place and embracing their personality. I have seen a lot of women students and alumni over the past eight years, and I've seen real changes. In the beginning, women were gravitating more towards what you might call traditionally female-oriented fields — marketing, luxury. But in the past couple of years I have seen a lot of women turning themselves towards what we might call more male-dominated fields — finance, sports, consulting — just because that's what they wanted to do.

We as career advisors have been seeing those changes and helping them actually achieve those goals. We like leadership. We like bold women. By taking their place, being who they are, and just going after what they want without even asking 'is that okay for a woman?' — just saying 'I want to do that, I will do that' — honestly, we love that."

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Describe your impact on a student's career journey in just one word.

‍Hope.

"We definitely see a lot of students either feeling lost or lacking answers. They come to us not because they want us to approve what they do, but because they need us at a certain time in their life. I really love when I see students coming to me, talking to me for 30 minutes or an hour, and then leaving that appointment with hope. That's something I really love about my job and about the role of the career advisor — to say to them: 'you've done that, it didn't work, okay — but have you tried this? Have you tried that?' And they come back saying 'thank you, I feel hope again — that was the one thing that was lacking.' That is something really meaningful to me."

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Thank you to Chhaya Devarkhyani, Antonieta Silva, Maria João Santos, and Anne-Sophie Berthelot for sharing their insights, their stories, and their passion for the work they do every day. #WomenCareerLeaders

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