The year is 2009. It was time to be an adult and find a career. How do I choose?
Like most of my generation, I grew up around technology. While in school, I became interested in programming. I ignored that interest and starting working as an operations manager at an IT consulting firm. When a difficult problem would arise, I regularly heard “go ask [insert network engineer’s name], they’re the [insert technology name] expert”. My name was never used in that sentence. My competitiveness didn’t like that.
I thought about what I can learn, work on, and be an expert in. Hm…
I felt like I was creative, but I didn’t know how to express it. I always wanted to learn to draw. I loved the idea of creating something I’ve thought up and being able to produce it on my own. The freedom that comes with drawing seems limitless to me. Also, the way I see it, artists have an endless supply of motivation and material. As long as they can imagine, they can create it. Oh! Bird! I’ll draw it! Sadly, I never took the time to learn to draw. I blame my brother because he was amazing at drawing. He took all of the drawing genes :-P. (Raul, for the love of God, please start drawing again.)
I wonder what skill I can learn, be creative, and invent with… Hmm…
I’ve always been math and science inclined. My dad is basically a mathematician. (I say “basically” because I don’t know what it takes to be officially labeled as one.) I guess I got it from him. I love puzzles, escape-the-rooms (when they were only available online and before they were cool), and I become fixated on problems until I’m able to solve them. I definitely got my obsessiveness from my mom.
If only I can find a career that provided endless problem solving opportunities and puzzles. Hmmm…
Hmmmm…
Do you… you don’t… maybe…maybe I should become a programmer?
YEAH. That seems to tick all of the boxes. Or should I say: it meets all of the conditions 😛 ?
That was easy. Time to program!
Hmmmmm…
Program what? I had no experience in programming.
You see, at this point I only had my Bachelor’s degree. I went to school and earned my degree in the Management of Information Systems (MIS). In my school, MIS students went to the school of business, and not engineering or computer science. The only exposure I had to programming was at a very high-level. We didn’t have time to learn hard skills in the classes I took. They were busy preparing me to be a CIO, CTO, or Director of Project Management! I was going to graduate and become the top dog at a company! They told me “you should look into a business analyst position, then maybe something in the realm of project management, and BOOM!, in a couple years time, you’re going to be CIO.”
So… what do I do about my first “career” job? I used what I had at my disposal: that crazy/young/fearless ambition, an inextinguishable fire in my gut, willingness to weather any storm, and I remember a class talking something about “VB” and “ASP.NET”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I created a LinkedIn account, filled out a bunch of applications (each resume is slightly adjusted to better fit the job I applied for) and waited.
A couple recruiters called me, but I didn’t know what they were talking about. They wanted experience. I remember one offer in particular that scared my young self poop-less. They wanted me to become a traveling consultant for Microsoft and teach this solution called “Sharepoint” across the United States. Traveling consultant? Like leave my parents and wander from hotel room to hotel room on my own? :-/ Cool thought, but definitely wasn’t for me. (Note that more likely than not, recruiters will play a major role in your career if you get into IT. Accept it.)
And then it happened…
I received a phone call from a nice young lady. She said she was the talent acquisition manager (what a fancy title) for a lead generation company in Boca Raton, Florida. She saw my resume online and thought I was a good fit. Within minutes she invited me in for an interview.
I’m in! This is all I needed, an opportunity! I’m the biggest believer in the fact that the truth will always prevail and lead you down the right path. All I had to do was go into this interview and let them know just how bad I want to learn and become the best programmer ever! I need to show them that I am the hardest worker.
I should prepare. What should I study? Ahh, forget studying. These people are about to meet their future CIO. My school prepared me to go into this interview and dazzle them with buzz words. Enterprise resource planning (ERP), agile methodology, operations management, data warehouses, online transactional processing (OLTP), and its prettier cousin, online analytical processing (OLAP). I barely knew what these words meant, but, I placed them in my arsenal anyways.
I’m ready for my first job interview for a junior developer role. 😀
Lessons Learned
- 10 years ago LinkedIn (along with other sites) got my foot in the door. It has only gotten better. If you’re looking to build your resume, do it on LinkedIn. Look at the applications you want to apply for, and if you meet a requirement, put that in your LinkedIn profile. Also, the best time to update your profile is when you land a job. You obviously qualified for the position, so, take that application and use it to fill out your resume and LinkedIn profile. Do it early so you don’t forget. (As a kid I was told that creativity is overrated. I agree. You don’t have to be an inventor, you can be an innovator. We can get into this later.)
- Stop doubting yourself. Give it a try. Don’t ask “why?’. Instead, ask “why not?”. There is a running joke regarding job requirements in the IT world: The requirements are asking for 5 years of experience in a technology that came out 2 years ago! Most of the requirements are laughable. I’ll let you in on a little secret: the person who created the requirements is either A) an HR/talent acquisition staffer or recruiter who doesn’t know much about the field or position and memorized a bunch of the buzz words. They ask the position’s manager for what they need and decide what they think is important enough to put on the application OR B) a pretentious IT personnel. IT is filled with pretentious people. Nice, but pretentious. Including myself. Creating a job requirement is one of the few times they get to test their skills. It’s all a game. Step up to the plate!
- It’s never as bad as you think it is. Most of the times, attitude and aptitude both matter, but attitude comes first. What’s worse than a snotty nosed, fresh out of college, buzz word rattling kid (me)? Nothing. So, give it a shot.
- Adjust your resume to better match the job application. Remember, the person who created it is asking for those skills. Give it to them. They need to see similar words in your resume. Also, many resumes now in days go through an automated system. Those programs are not human (literally). They’re not there to be nice or read into what you meant. They need to see the words the application requires.