Ten years. Eight positions. One company. A decade into her career at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska (BCBSNE), Lyndsay Williams continues to find opportunities for growth and change.
Williams began her career at BCBSNE as a wellness intern. After graduating from Northwest Missouri State in 2008, she accepted a dual human resources and wellness role at BCBSNE.
Nine years and five positions within the wellness and human resources departments later, Williams, who was working as a talent acquisition specialist, wanted to take her career in a new direction in a new department: information services (IS).
She considered pursuing the position of Agile project manager, a role in which a person eliminates obstacles to help their team complete tasks and achieve their goals. Williams was familiar with the duties of Agile project managers because of her job as an IS recruiter.
“At the end of my time in HR as a recruiter, I was the sole recruiter for IS, so I worked very closely with all the different IS hiring managers,” Williams said. “I had recruited for scrum masters – or Agile project managers – a lot, so I knew what they were looking for and what type of people they wanted.”
Williams thought she’d be a good fit for the role and reached out to her colleagues to get their thoughts.
“To me, it felt like a really, really big career move, so I either wanted to get validation that absolutely, I could do it or feedback on why I may not be ready yet,” Williams said.
With a green light from her colleagues, Williams stepped away from the IS recruiting process to avoid ethical complications, applied for and received an offer for an Agile project manager position in March of 2017.
Less than a year later, she made another career change and transferred over to the business side as an Agile project manager where she continues to work today.
“Normally, I would never recommend that or do that myself, but it was an opportunity that was too good to pass up,” Williams said. “It was very appealing to me because there was no set playbook, no written plan for how this position was supposed to work. I could kind of go in and make it my own.”
Williams credits those who “took a chance” on her for her opportunities for career changes and growth.
As for now, Williams has no plans to pursue other positions, but wants to continue to grow and explore. The one constant through her first decade as a working professional has remained BCBSNE.
“Whenever anyone is like ‘you’re really still there?’ I say, ‘I’ve never had a reason to leave,’” Williams said. “Blue Cross has been good to me. I love the people. I love the culture.”
