Rising Star Jean-Luc Perron on Career Planning and CCLP Certification
We spoke to Jean-Luc Perron, CCLP about why he chose the CCLP designation and his perspective on professional development.
The logistics and transportation industry is one that includes a lot of moving parts (no pun intended). With an endless supply of goods to be moved across multiple modes of transport, from road to rail, air or sea, our industry is constantly evolving and only getting larger.
That’s why the broad education offered by the courses leading to the CITT-Certified Logistics Professional (CCLP®) designation can go a long way to helping build and evolve a career in this line of work.
To help understand the importance of the CCLP designation and how it can help shape career development, we spoke to Jean-Luc Perron, Senior Business Analyst at Bison Transport. A recent graduate of our program, Jean-Luc is also the recent recipient of the James T. MacKenzie Award for highest overall average in his cohort over the entire CCLP program of study.
Jean-Luc Perron, CCLP
Senior Business Analyst
Bison Transport
Following a degree in business from the University of Manitoba, Jean-Luc decided to pursue a professional designation to help him strengthen his career prospects. Already working in the trucking industry, he saw the CCLP as a natural complement to his work and decided to enroll.
I knew coming out of university that I wanted to pursue at least some type of professional designation to further my career. There are a bunch of [designations] out there but the CCLP seemed to dovetail with my university degree and the industry I work in, which is trucking.
In addition to perfectly aligning with his current job, Jean-Luc also explained that he valued the CCLP course work for the holistic overview of the logistics industry it provided. While studying for the designation, he explained:
It was nice to kind of take a step back and look at the logistics industry as a whole. When you're studying it like that, you get an opportunity to keep a bit of a broader perspective than what you deal with every day at your job. I definitely found that interesting about the course.
At my company, we do quite a bit of intermodal work. So, the cross-modal functionality component was very applicable. I think just understanding where you fit in kind of the broader logistics picture, versus just understanding your own world, can help you understand a bit more about the wider industry.
He also explained that in addition to appreciating the broader perspective offered by the CCLP courses, the designation can also help open doors in today’s working environment in which people change jobs more frequently.
You know, these days people change jobs very frequently. And while building up hyper-specific knowledge in one area is definitely a good thing, the more you know in a variety of areas the more options you might have in the future.
For Jean-Luc, pursuing the CCLP all comes down to expanding your knowledge base, deepening your knowledge and giving yourself a leg up on all the opportunities that are out there.
Be open to roles and career changes that you might not have considered. Even within my own organization, in the past few years my role has changed pretty dramatically across the business, with opportunities coming up and saying yes to them. So, I'd say definitely be willing to try something quite a bit different, even if it's not exactly what you'd envisioned.
If you’re looking to broaden your outlook on logistics, learn more about the CCLP program, courses and prerequisites today at www.citt.ca/cclp.