Intuit | Breaking Into Tech

uh kick things off um welcome everybody um to the breaking Tech webinar with into it which is part of our stronger together series I'm Jay mansavage I'm the director of talent acquisition for the inate tech ecosystem and product development uh and I'm going to be your host and moderator today uh I'm joined by four great panelists and today what we're going to talk about things that might help you land a tech rooll um whether you're a job Seeker a career switcher or a recent grad I hope you find what we share today inspiring and helpful uh our panelists will tell their stories and give advice on navigating the job market networking skills building finding the right fit nailing interviews and advancing Your Role once you've landed the topic is incredibly exciting and I can't wait to dive in um we're going to do this as a guided conversation um so I'm going to be asking questions to each one of our panelists we will reserve the last 15 minutes uh for Q&A we have the chat turned off just given the volume of people attending um but we will be a have a a chance to ask questions in the last 15 minutes so if you have something to ask please put it in the zoom Q&A uh we know we're not going to get to everything but we will pick what we think is most relevant for this big group today um so let's say hello to our panelist uh that can now come off camera uh and we are going to start by getting to know a little bit more about our panel um so I will start and we would love to have you guys tell us a little bit more about you your role in your team so let's start with Marina hi everyone my name is Marina and I'm a senior business data analyst here at in in our AI data and analytics org um I'm on the operations team and I've worn a lot of hats in my short time at into it but my current work focuses on managing programs that increase Employee Engagement and managing our strategic and Tech coms for our org thank you Mara Taisha hi everyone I am Taisha and I am a software engineer too on our observability platforms team um basically my job my team makees sure that um our Engineers are able to monitor measure and understand issues um that may arise with our systems or just understand the state of our systems Sam hey everybody thanks for tuning in today I'm Sam Boon I'm an account executive for our software QuickBooks so basically I work with businesses to find the best solution within our ecosystem to help clients manage their finances get paid and manage their employees as efficiently as possible and Devin hey everyone my name is Devon Mercier um and I'm a product manager working on MailChimp so for those of you that don't know MailChimp is a marketing tool for small businesses and I specifically work on on helping our customers test their marketing emails and SMS to make sure that they're sending out the most effective content to Their audience and as a product manager I'm really responsible for determining the most impactful items for our team to work on making sure that we can measure that impact and I'm sort of the go-to subject matter expert for my area of MailChimp well welcome everybody thank you for joining us um so let's have a little fun before we dive in uh and we're going to start with three quick lightning round questions so first question what was your first ever job let's start with Sam um I worked at Sky Zone as a trampoline jumper love it Taisha um I worked at GameStop and I like organized games all right Devin I was actually a dietary aid at a nursing home awesome and Marina I worked at a movie theater and I did everything I cleaned the theaters ripped the tickets was at the concession stand and at the time it was my dream job I love it I love it all right very important question Mac or PC Marina let's start with you this time I'm a Mac girl Mac everything all right Devin also Mac for sure Sam Mac for sure and Taisha Mac okay Clean Sweep for the Mac got it all right uh and last question lightning round what's your favorite app right now let's start with Sam door Dash Devin infatuation so also on the same like food food train Marina Tik Tock and Taisha Tik Tock all right all right well thank you for the fun lighing round questions um so let's jump into the first question um how would you describe a tech company and we're going to start with Devin yeah I think I would describe a tech company in a very broad sense um I think at its core it's a business sort of focused on developing digital tools and software to solve real world problems ideally in a way that is making really complex tasks just more manageable and intuitive great Taisha um I would say tech company is a data driven company that's dedicated to solving issues for their customers um the company will use software or Hardware to empower customers to make their lives easier and also they drive the coffee industry because we need good coffee um to make good Tech so yeah very true whether it's the morning or the afternoon coffee is important uh Marina how about you uh I would describe a tech company as a company that is dedicated to finding innovative ways to solve society's toughest problems and this could be through Hardware or software or any number of tools but the through line is creating the impactful ways of making their customers lives easier let's go to the next question and as before I go on to the next question um we're gonna be jumping around and sometimes we'll answer have all of our panelist answers sometime we'll we'll we'll just have a few so the next question um and this one we're going to have everybody answer um can you tell us a little bit more about your career path and how you how you landed your current role in Tech so let's start with Devin yeah so I started out my career journey in politics actually um I studied politics at pona college and completed a few internships within the donor relations and government Affairs space at different NOS um I quickly realized that while I really enjoyed mission-driven organizations like that um I didn't really enjoy not being able to see my direct impact and the work that I was doing um so I ended up networking with some alumni at my college and kind of broke into Tech by getting into Enterprise sales and marketing uh internship at a very small startup um and those experiences sort of helped me connect with more alumni who helped me land my first full-time role out of college um as part of in rotational product manager program so that's my trajectory into Tech Marina how about you yeah so my background is actually in marketing and I graduated from San Jose State with a degree in marketing in 2020 which was kind of an iconic year to graduate in um I worked very briefly in marketing before covid happened and I was furloughed from my marketing team um and it was always my passion to work in Tech but being the first person in my family to go to college I never really knew how to do that so uh when I was fured I took it as a sign to kind of recalibrate my skills and I joined a data analytics apprenticeship and upon completion I was actually referred to join into its pilot software engineer program um for people with unconventional Tech backgrounds and I had the best experience I completed the program and I was offered conversion as a software engineer um but I advocated for my love of d data and I was re-offered a role as a data analyst here at in in the AI and data orc and it's now my dream job Taisha um okay so I uh went to Georgia State University and graduated with a film degree um but Mel chimp was actually at uh one of the college fairs before we graduated um so I applied um sent many messages on Facebook um and got an interview and I actually started in tech support and from tech support I just learned and learned so I became a specialist one of the first Specialists um and then I moved up to become a tech support advisor um now they're now called tech support engineers and then from there um when I was in that position I did somewhat of a Goldilocks um thing where I shout out teams I um said well what do I like what do I enjoy about this team um and then I went and learned um something and then I did interviews um and during covid I I actually met my current manager um and I was like oh yes I want to be on your team um so it co I didn't join the team right out of Co but there was a reorg and um my team came about and I applied for it the position and I join my team um now so not a conventional path but I got there Sam how about you uh so I graduated from college in 2021 got my first role at Robin Hood it's a tech company focused on financial services and my degree was in finance um so kind of Blended that with tech um after working there for a year I knew I wanted a more sales oriented role I just liked the idea of being compensated for my quality of work and being kind of in a more fast-paced competitive environment um so just through like personal net NW working and a lot of diligence following up and networking with different people I came across the opportunity to work in sales for into at QuickBooks and I already knew about the software because my dad owns a couple small businesses and he uses it so I already believed in the software and the impact it could have um and so after like a month or so got got into the interview um you know prep for it very diligently and um got that role and then since then after about a year I got promoted into an outbound role so been doing the outbound role for about a year working with our small businesses of uh every every different industry um just seeing where we can help them out there's a little GameStop Robin Hood connection but we're not gonna go there today let's move on to let's move on to the next question um what skills did you have to develop in order to to transition to your new role and Sam we're gonna start with you uh for this question yeah I mean I would say like initially there was a lot of product knowledge um so like I mean because I work with every different industry there's a lot of different workflows and just becoming familiar with those different workflows but a big difference was moving from a more customer service based role to a sales-based role um is that now the conversation you have to help customers identify pain points that maybe they didn't call in or they didn't reach out knowing that those were pain points um so when you have that goal in mind it introduces like more soft skills like active listening Advanced questioning kind of really probing in to see where we can help them out and so um yeah developing those soft skills as far as the sales go um and I think like that that approach can be applied to you know not only sales rules but any role you know could be selling your idea to peers or leader or selling your value as a prospective employee to a recruiter um Bri how about you yeah so with my marketing background I had a small bit of analytics and Reporting experience but I knew if I wanted to be a full-time data analyst I would really have to strengthen those skills so I had to focus on building up my SQL in Python and data analysis language knowledge I did that through a combo of like self-taught and also my apprenticeship experience but I think a huge part of data analysis that's kind of glossed over is the storytelling aspect of data so being able to hone in on those soft skills like presentations and public speaking is also really important dein how about you yeah I think it's actually similar to Marina that a lot of my role currently is rooted in storytelling and interpersonal communication and prioritization and so I think these are luckily all skills that I was able to start to Prime when I was working in politics being able to manage my time and then being able to expand that to managing other folks' time and and priority um so yeah those are kind of the things that were really crucial for me to develop to work to Pivot into product management thank you all um let's go on to the next question um what does networking mean to you or look like to you uh and how much importance do you put into networking and where do you do um uh most of yours let's start with you Taisha um I'll say networking it it can happen any anywhere it doesn't happen have to happen in a business setting or you know like a networking mixer um I I'm a kind of person like any room any any place I go I'll strike up a conversation and I'll make friends um um and so for me like I think of that as networking um when I go to conferences of course like wherever I will connect with people on LinkedIn but I'll just say like any human interaction that you have with someone is a potential networking opportunity Marina how about you yeah you know someone once told me that you go fast alone but you go far together and that always resonated with me because every opportunity that that I've had in my career has come from my network so networking is extremely important to me um coming from an unconventional background it can kind of be like really scary to navigate what networking looks like especially as a first-time college grad um but my biggest advice there is to just you know find a mutual touch point with someone whether you went to the same school whether you worked at the same company before or something and if you're early in your career it's a little bit easier because people will assume you're eager to learn you're eager to to just learn about what the company is doing or what the state of tech is doing um but yeah I mean I just can't emphasize the importance of networking enough having a foot in the door through knowing someone or being able to to leverage your network is so so important in your early career and it'll take you very far Sam how about you um to me networking is creating relationships with an intent to provide value find Common Ground um you I think it's definitely vital success in any career field like personally I wouldn't have had opportunities without Advocates that helped me get my foot in the door so I think the networking gives you that chance and then proper preparation will allow you to take advantage of that chance all right let's go on to this next question and this next question I will ask you all to answer because it's a very important question and based on what I was seeing in the poll results definitely top of mind for an audience here uh what tips do you have for job Seekers who don't have a technical background or never have worked for a tech company what's the best way to express a lack of expertise um or is willing to learn enough um and let's start with you Devon yeah I think first I think that having a technical background means a lot of different things for different functions um so for an engineer that may mean having experience with a particular language while as a product manager having a technical background essentially means knowing enough about how applications and services are built to have a point of view and to be able to accurately discuss those trade-offs with your engineering Partners um I think a willingness to learn is definitely something that should be conveyed but I think that you go the extra mile by actively demonstrating an effort to self- te those desired skills um and I think there are so many different opportunities to learn product management engineering ux design like technical skills online and you can go I think even further than that by demonstrating an actual application of those skills so not only have you actually tried to learn those skills but you've applied them in a project um so for a PM like have you done a product tear down of your favorite applications or done like a SWAT analysis for a business have you built a Chrome extension um like all of these projects are things that you can highlight that I think will demonstrate your willingness to learn but then prove that you've gone the extra mile to develop the skills and actually apply those skills without needing to actually be within the exact role which skills you're learning Isa how about you um I would say like uh projects are important like Devon mentioned um like for engineering have you created like your own self-hosted website on a lamp stack um also just by like looking at the application if you don't have a skill I I'm a person that I will take a course um so I can you know know what I'm talking about in the interview even if I am not 100% in that skill and also highlight in the interview hey I took this course um I'm willing to like expand on my knowledge in this area um but also like the technical skills are all like they can always be taught um as a person that's learned a lot on a job but what's important is how do you solve the problems how do you handle stressful situations um just like some of those skills that you'll need as an engineer that are really transferable in any career path um so yeah Sam how about you uh my number one tip would be to overly prepare um kind of similar to what they're saying as far as demonstrating that you're willing to learn um because willing to learn sounds great but ultimately your preparation can demonstrate your willingness to learn as opposed to simple stating it you know without any evidence um so most people are going to present themselves as willing to learn if you go into an interview and show that you've done in depth research on the company and the company values and product the hiring managers will know that you're going to improve and adapt quickly to that role Ria yeah I think that my number one tip that helped when I was breaking into Tech was shifting my mindset from seeing my lack of tech background or my unconventional background as a disqualifier and seeing it more as a valuable ass that I was bringing to the table because I had this unique background I could bring a unique perspective to problem solving and I want to double down on what everyone said here about being able to hone in on your hard skills as well that's very important um you know the sequel the coding whatever the hard skills look like for the role you're applying to is great but being able to demonstrate that and speak to it is just as important and like Taisha said your approach to the problem and your willingness to be passionate about the work in front of you is what sets you apart from other candidates great advice thank you um next question and we talked a little bit about this too you guys talked about preparation but what what did you do to prepare for your interview um do you have any tips or recommendations you can share to stand out in a tech interview uh let's start with uh Devin yeah I think in general when I approach interviewing I start where I think a lot of people start and that's by checking out glass door and seeing how others interview experiences may have gone um I think it helps me understand like at a high level what the overall process is going to be like and frankly the the vibe to expect from the interview um they can it can vary greatly from the different company that you're that you're applying for um if I have access to a recruiter throughout the process I try to proactively ask them if is there anything that I should focus on during my interview to be to be most successful if they haven't already uh provided me with that information um I also try to make sure I know what the company's values are and how it talks about their employees and then as I'm prepping questions either more uh situation-based questions or behavioral questions is maybe the better term for it um I'm I try to prep my answers to pull in sort of one of those qualities into each answer that I have um and it's important that like with each answer that I'm preparing I am activating almost a portion of that job description uh within my response and so that like at a very high level is how I typically approach interviewing um but yeah I'm curious what other folks what other folks do let's hear from Sam how about you yeah I mean going into that interview um I mean I knew into it was where I wanted to work and seeing you know firsthand what it did for my dad's business and I knew the culture align with what I wanted from an employer so when opportunity presented itself spend hours and hours re researching products um you know prepping for the interview um kind of what like Devin was saying I prepared and answered my questions on work experience and personal background in a manner that fit into the culture of in it and requirements for the role um I think you know catering those specifically to that role is really important it can't just be like you know a cookie cutter response that you use for every role um so I mean I went through countless mock calls where I acted as the sales consultant for QuickBook books um and then prepared like a list of questions for the hiring managers which I think I mean it shows them that you're invested in that specific company and opportunity and so I mean when it came time to do the final interview the hiring managers didn't really have any hesitations on bringing me onto the team Rea how about you yeah my experience interviewing I think it's best to always overly prepare for the interview but it's a bit ironic because for my current role my interview was same day notice so I didn't have a ton of time to prepare for my interview um but it was it was kind of a blessing in disguise because I was able my nerves didn't build up a ton beforehand so I was really able to have a very genuine conversation with my future manager about what the role looked like very specifically what success looks like in this role and understand the team's initiatives and connect my own personal experience and my own personal passion to how I could add value to that team because my manager was looking to hire not just a job description but a person who was going to provide that value so I wanted to make sure I always connected that through line of what my experience was I I had a portfolio of prepared work that I could speak to that demonstrated my skills but seeing it as more of a mutual selection process where I want to work for her just as much as she wants me to work for her um really helped me kind of understand the breath of work I would be doing and connect like my genuine passion for what I could provide hia how about you um I'm in the boat with Marina um my interview for my current role I found out an hour before my interview started and I had that was because I just came from vacation and um scheduling but um to prepare I just like reviewed all of the technical terms like I like I knew it but I had to like quiz myself because interview J Jitters were are real um but also I had questions because I was coming from support I had questions about work life balance um because that is something that is very important um you know like the culture of engineering even though I Shadow teams I wanted to know you know hey if I merge something and it causes an incident like how how does this team handle that because that's you know as a new engineer that's scary but that's also like you want to know the answer to that question um and just understanding the job overall so I had questions for my managers I had questions for my teammates um and since we all knew each other but I still had those questions gathered um so I can have an honest conversation and I know in my interview I said look I'm nervous please give me some Grace um and and I I prepared for this but I want you all to know that I am nervous um don't count that against me um so just just just be honest like you know as honest as you can be and just be human in your interview um and I think like those short notice interviews are probably the best in my opinion all great advice so I heard trying to do you can't be overprepared but sometimes those short notice interviews are actually a blessing disguise but you just be yourself and be authentic and all great advice so thank you all um next question um what suggestions would you have for updating your resume or demonstrating domain knowledge when looking for a change in a career so more specifically like how would you frame your work history would you put it in if you want to kind of go into a different field um let's start with you Devon yeah I think one of the more sort of rudimentary points of advice for this is focus on like those transferable skills that you developed and whatever that career is that you are pivoting from that are valued in the career field that you are pivoting to um and so that is one of the things that key things that I did when updating my resume from from a politics Focus to a product manager Focus um so pinpointing those transferable skills and rewriting my bullet points to uh focus on those skills that I had acquired in the politics World um if I were looking to make a career field change I'd probably also want to focus more on the impact that I was able to drive maybe a little bit more so than how I actually did that um because I think that you by demonstrating the value of having you on a team the impact that you're able to drive I think that there is a lower barrier to entry for you if you do that alongside highlighting those transferable skills um so like in other words like what was the outcome of what I was able to do and then follow it with the how by highlighting those transferable skills and frankly to be like completely transparent if I was doing this today which I'm not FYI um I'd probably like run my resume through like a couple jet chat GPT or Gemini sessions and ask it to reframe my experience with my existing resume to whatever like industry or role I was looking into next um just be careful doing that proof free all that stuff but I think it's a good place to start Marina how about you yeah I love Devon's answer I feel like he covered all the major things when I was starting my journey into breaking into Tech um I actually had a couple like cold messages coffee chat with a few people in roles that were a data analyst because I wanted to understand what those transferable skills are from the person who was actually working in the role and once I identified those transferable skills I popped them in my resume and like Devin said being able to identify the transferable skills is important but quantifying the impact of those skills is super duper critical um I ideally it would be in a quantifiable way to show the impact you've had in your previous roles um but being able to highlight them or call them out in like demonstrative projects is even better um I work with a lot of early career individuals trying to break into Tech and oftentimes they say you know I I don't have Tech experience or I don't have experience in technical projects before and I always encourage them if you don't have work experience you can always include projects or passion projects you've worked on on your resume that can demonstrate those technical skills it can demonstrate your impact that's super valuable because it shows even in your free time even if your day job isn't dedicated to this role you're trying to break into you're dedicated in your free time to being the ideal candidate for this company um and then my last tip also similar to Devin is formatting is super duper important so I would feed my resume through like an ATS scanner just to make sure that the format is great because the last thing you want is to have this beautiful resume that has your impact and your experience um and then it to be thrown out because it has double columns or something that's going to kick it to the curb so those are my main tips for resume building samam how about you um I mean I think Devon and Marina had great points in crafting your resume to highlight the impact you had um you know I think your resume should be more than just a job description but show the value that you provided in that role in order to cater your skills and experience to the job that you want thank you all um so let's moving on um with the competitive uh landscape and large volume of applicants what's the best way to connect with a recruiter and or hiring manager after you apply let's start with Tanisha um I will say it's uh going back to your network um so if you apply for a job and you know someone that just works at the company um that you applied for uh reach out to them and if if you don't have the name of the recruiter and the hiring manager more than likely they can ask around and get that name um and then share linkens um I if I refer someone or if someone asks hey do you know the recruiter for this role I'll reach out try to get the answer and then I will reply back to them with LinkedIn URL so they could go ahead and reach out uh if they if they're local I'll see if the hiring manager is open to like doing a zoom call or just meeting with them I think having that personal connection with the recruiter or the hiring manager um just helps to put a face to the name Dev how about you yeah I think I tend to be pretty Direct in my coms of the recruiter Andor a hiring manager especially if that information is openly available wherever I'm applying like I think that's almost in most senses like an open invitation to to reach out um so I'm really not afraid to reach out over LinkedIn after I apply or even sometimes before I apply um but I think when doing so I try to make sure my connection message is is really personalized ideally pointing out some sort of connection between the two of you or myself and this person if there is one um even if I don't know they live in Iowa and oh my gosh I've always wanted to go to Iowa it shouldn't be a lie I mean I don't want to go to never mind um but like there should be some sort of a personal connection there even if it's like a little bit of a stretch um I also make sure to mention the job I'm applying for when I applied and I attached my resume to that message if I can because you don't want them to go searching their database and trying to uh find you you want to make it as easy for them to locate you as a candidate in their system with your experience sort of all wrapped up together together and so um in terms of like over messaging I think one follow-up message is okay if you don't hear back from the first message but I think I generally try and take the hint if my second message goes by without a response but so I think there's always that balance of trying to be like an eager applicant without going too far and burning any Bridges and so just just be uh aware of that EXC Mar how about you yeah I think that Devon and Taisha had really great tips um I want a plus one that if the hiring manager or recruiter information is available to definitely reach out to them before or after you apply um it seems kind of like a no-brainer but you would be surprised how many people don't do that and it can really help set you apart from the mass applications that are coming in for a job um and I also want to plus one again what Devon said about like finding that Personal Touch Point whether it be again School same company or leveraging your network to find like a mutual connection like oh we both know this person from so and so again it's a really great way to set you apart from the crowd um I think those two combined is a really great strategy for coming through the the noise of applications I guess to put it bluntly um and then also if you're not aware of who the hiring manager is or if that information is not available again going back to leveraging your network maybe you do a quick scan through Linkedin and you see if any of your alumni or anybody who you worked previously with is working at this company or even if not sometimes even cold messaging which I know can be scary but trust me it has its benefits um can be a really great way to kind of break in and just have a conversation especially if your early career breaking to Tech I find that people are very receptive just talking about their experience um so like Devon said you know Walk the Line make sure you're not sending like 10 full messages or you'll end up being blocked on LinkedIn um but yeah I think I think just being personal being kind and being open is always the best way to to have that connection with either the hiring manager your network nice um I'm going to keep us moving to the next question um what big misconceptions were revealed to you once you were established in your role so you know example what did you what what you learn versus what you appli to your daily work was there any disconnects mistakes incorrect assumptions or just overall bad advice and we'll start with you Sam yeah I would say when I first started into it I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the expert on almost everything that customers brought up to me in conversations um but over time recognized that leaning on my team and you know resources for help is not only critical for my success but also critical to providing the best experience for our customers um you know working together as a as a team to achieve results is something that I think int does really well um and I'd highly encourage anyone who's joining a tech company to seek out teams that are willing to help each other and support each other's goals are you sure um I think my thing Engineers don't have all of the answers all of the time um when I was aspiring to be an engineer I thought wow they know everything um and then when I got into the role um it was like I don't know everything and I'm but I'm able to find the answer um just give me a moment I can find the answer and I've also found myself um where I am the subject matter expert um usually it's like I need an adult to help me answer this and then it's like oh I am the adult that will find the answer that can answer this thing um so I realized that while you're engineer you're you're always learning you're constantly learning and it's okay if you don't have all of the answers right away um that's a part of the journey excellent Devin how about you my answer is actually oddly similar to Tia's answer and it's I don't I I think one of the things coming in is that I thought like a PM is supposed to be sort of the one who has all of the information about like a product how it works why do customers want to buy it um how are we selling it sort of have all of the answers and so while uh PM for my expertise is definitely supposed to be the subject matter expert for their product area I really see my superpower and the superpower of other PMS is the ability to connect the expertise across so many different disciplines and use all of those inputs to arrive at a decision like in other words I may not be the one to give the point of you or give the decision but I can make sure that all of the people who hold the knowledge like ta and Marina and Sam that we can all get together and take all of our expertise and facilitate a conversation to make sure that we can find the answer um but I don't need to be the one to necessarily have that without before connecting with all of these like brilliant people um and so I early on I realized that I needed to pretend or I needed to stop pretending to have all the answers and know that I needed to take advantage of the folks around me uh to really get the answer for myself or whoever was asking excellent Marina yeah my answer is also very similar to my previous two panelists Devon and Taisha um I used to think and this is very common with women in Tech that you need to have all of the information before you speak up in a room or before you ask a question um for fear of you know not being well prepared or asking a stupid question you know there are many reasons but um when I actually began working in Tech I learned that the smartest people in the room are old always asking clarifying questions the leaders are always asking clarifying questions um and that's when I it was tough to learn but it's very important skill to flex um to not be afraid to use your voice in the room you're in the room for a reason so it's encouraged to speak up um and the way that you gain a deeper understanding of a technical concept or of a technical program or or any program is by challenging yourself to ask a question and challenging others around you in their room um what their understanding is and sometimes you ask a question that nobody knows the answer to and that uncovers you know a gap in process or a gap in the program um so never be afraid to ask questions never be afraid to speak up in a room even if you don't have all the information if you don't have all the information that's even more of a cue that you should be asking a question love it great advice thank you all let's go to the next question um what resources so think communities group groups books workshops courses boot camps podcasts YouTube videos um do you recommend for someone just starting on their Tech Journey um so let's go with um Devin yeah I think for folks that are specifically interested in breaking into product management then there are definitely a couple of books that I'd recommend like cracking the PM interview I think is sort of the Holy Grail of um getting a PM uh job and I think there's like cracking the blank interview for many functions out there um and the second one is inspired by Marty Kagan that is a very very good one for folks getting into Tech and then the third would be measure what matters um for LinkedIn groups sorry I'm trying to be very prescriptive like these are the things you need to go do um for LinkedIn groups would definitely recommend the product folks um and then for a boot camp slash training for PMS specifically I'd recommend reforge reforge is a really great resource for uh sort of cohort based learning and active application for PM competencies and so that's a really really uh great resource EXC Marina how about you yeah so um for those looking to break into Data an analytics I highly recommend it's like a boot campf Fellowship called Co-op and it's free um it was the apprenti ship I did right before I joined into it and it has a really great holistic approach to a lot of different da skills because any analyst will tell you that the job can look very different depending on what kind of analyst you are um for other learning resources for hard skills I love SQL bolt or code academy lead code those are all really good resources to keep your SQL skills your python skills really sharp um if you're more of a reader storytelling with data is like Devon said our Holy Grail a lot of analysts read that book and site that book often um a pro tip is that it's free online like there's a free PDF on GitHub so just Google Google storytelling with data PDF and it comes up don't spend the10 or $15 on Amazon to buy or do or do support support the author whatever you're open to um and then my last tip is uh I also like the book data Story by Nancy Duarte um that's a really fantastic book on visualization and the storytelling aspect of data which again is very critical if you want to be an analyst Sam how about you I'd say for those looking to break into Tech sales or just tune their sales skills for other professional applications I like this guy named Jeremy Miner um he approaches sales training from a consultative standpoint so like not every client's going to be a good fit for your solution but by asking the right questions you help your clients realize their inefficiencies and their room for growth and I mean that's the only way they're actually going to make any changes excellent all right well let's keep us moving I know we're running a little bit short on time but next question um and we're going to just go to you Devon on this one what has been the biggest challenge you faced in your Tech Career and how did you overcome it I think this actually ties back to Marina's response in the previous question about like not feeling like you had all of the information so you couldn't make a decision um and for me that very that is like a symptom of imposter syndrome and that was definitely the biggest uh like challenge I've faced in my Tech Career especially like breaking into Tech early on um I don't this for me and being more vulnerable here but not something that is unique to my Tech Career but definitely moving into an industry that I had previously had very little experience and certainly exasperated existing feelings of imposture syndrome that I have felt like in other parts of my life and so throughout my various experiences with impost syndrome I've realized that there's no real overcoming it like it's sort of always going to be this like Baseline emotion that you're going to feel but it it es and flows um but I think there are ways to reduce it and I think two like very or I guess three really concrete ways that I have found to help me is one keeping a list of your accomplishments like I think that is always super super helpful what I started to do is like I have a deck frankly that um has a slide for my kind of main accomplishments and every time every like quarter I try and go back back and update that deck with new things that I've accomplished in a similar vein like actively solicit and monitor feedback from other folks um that was really hard for me especially like similar to Marina and maybe I I forget Sam and Taisha when yall graduated but I also graduated in 2020 and so I was starting product management um I feel that I had never no experience in uh fully virtually so I had no idea how I was doing how I was comparing to others in the field and so the only kind of uh Beacon that I had was my feedback from others and still to this day it is so so valuable to be like okay even my cross functional peers have this this view of me and sure there are constructive things that I can work on but ultimately like the feedback is positive and then third Mentor others I think like it really is helpful to realize how far you've come in a career and how much you know if you're able to pass down that knowledge to other folks that's made me feel like very secure in my role knowing that I have knowledge to help and Mentor others along the way um and so time is also sort of the last thing that I'll mention like the longer you stay in a role the more confident you'll become um but imposter syndrome is sort of always always the monster in my closet awesome thank you all right uh just two more questions um how do you continue to develop your skills and stay up to date in the constantly evolving world of tech Taisha let's go with you um I will say into it has a massive learning portal um there there's a lot of courses that you can take um so if there's a course relevant to my role of course I'll will take that um sometimes it is like a instructor Le course it's like 24 hours um sometimes it's you can do it at your own pace uh I also for the systems that I manage I'm on the email list so I get an email from them every week um sometimes they'll have a convention and I'll like it's virtual so I'll jump into some of those um sessions and learn about what's new or I'll see a product work through um and then as of recently uh I went to a conference render ATL and there was a observability um session that I joined in and of of course I I'm doing observability but it's from a different perspective so um I just learn like oh I can do this instead of this um so I'll just email this uh conventions anything virtual uh I will just constantly learn from those excellent de how about you yeah I think a few things that I do to say up to date are listen to podcast about changes in the tech industry um I think as a PM you're always sort of trying to think forward and think strategically and so one of the ones that I listen to frankly religiously is New York Times as hard Fork podcast um that's a really really good one I also follow influencers in my product space and so like Emily Ryan is an expert in like small medium business marketing and so I follow her on LinkedIn and all the socials to make sure that I know what's happening within my individual product space um and similar to Taisha like I attend like in Tech talks and demos because there's a lot of really really smart people that work Ed into it that are leveraging and working on Amazing Technologies um and so I try to Leverage The also the folks that are sort of within my immedia sphere of influence as well yeah so for the ways that I like to keep up to date with all my skills I kind of have three buckets so for hard skills um I like to practice problems on lead code or code academy like once or twice a month I really like those platforms because they use real data from real companies so it's kind of like a really hands-on experience if you're doing a coding problem um for soft skills uh I really like to challenge myself to do something like this or go to a conference speak on a panel um network with people that I haven't met before to keep my presentation skills and my personal uh elevator pitch up to date and ready to go and then um to keep up to date on the world of tech I also highly recommend like following influencers in your space one that I really love is is a YouTuber her name is Julia Fay and she's a data analyst um previously at Spotify and she's around the same stage in her career that I am so it's really interesting to see like what her day-to-day work is like and and how analytics kind of transfers over different kind of niches in Tech um I also like going to into its Tech talks as well especially because I work in the AI org there's a lot of really cool stuff happening and into it with generative Ai and so I always reference it as like the wild wild west of AI we're all kind of learning something for the first time so I think keeping up to date on kind of the greater ecosystem of of AI and how it kind of affects my personal role and how I can leverage it in my role um is super important so those are what I do excellent all right last question um and this is reading the question you guys have been giving great advice throughout the day so um this is a little bit of a different side of question um and just in the spirit of time just trying to keep it uh brief what is the number one piece of advice that you received during your job search and we're going to start with Sam I would say be comfortable being uncomfortable I used to think that people who achieved a great career must have never felt intimidated as they grew their careers but everyone has moments when they feel might feel out of their comfort zone um there's always going to be a project an interview question or a scenario that might be intimidating to you at times but embracing those circumstances as learning opportunities instead of shying away from them out of fear is the best way to approach any role continue to develop excellent Taisha how about you um I would say um it's good to be humble but in the interviewing process you need to Showcase your skills and achievements um so tell your story um so you can show without any doubt that you are the best candidate for the position uh I Know Myself personally I'm really humble I won't say oh I worked on this I worked on this I worked on this because I feel like it's like bragging but when you're interviewing that's not the time to be humble at all uh well have a balance with it um so just don't don't shoot yourself in the foot um by being like overly humble that's what I'll say yeah I think especially for folks that are working on breaking into Tech like be mindful of the story that you're telling um like if two folks have the exact same experience nine times out of 10 the person who can talk about their experience in a more cohesive narrative and in a compelling way will land the job and I think breaking into Tech can actually be an advantage and really allow you to be a unique applicant um and so use that for your advantage and so for me like I had to weave The Narrative about how like my pretty brief career in politics prepared me for Tech and now it's all about you guys sort of crafting that narrative for yourself as well how your experience influenced your decision to break into DET Tech what are those skills and so I think that narrative and that story you're telling um is extremely important so Mar now want to bring us home yes I'd love to um I I want to kind of piggyback off what Devin said the greatest piece of advice I got when I was breaking to Tech was that uh people work with people and you can have all your hard skills down P but what truly will set you apart from other candidates is your ability to tell your story and to let your personality shine through in your work and so being friendly and being eager to learn and like really understanding the perspectives that you bring to the table especially being someone that's breaking into Tech you know that's a very brave thing to do and and you know being able to to leverage that sort of perspective in an interview is so so valuable so um being confident in that and it'll take you very far in your job search thank you all um those are all the questions we have I know we ran a little bit short on time I see a lot of questions that were in the Q&A looks like a lot of them have been answered so thank you for those that have been answering the questions let's just go to one because this this topic came up a little bit today is um there's a question said what are your thoughts on how AI is changing the systems that into it who wants to take that one I'd be happy to take that one go for it AI is a tool at into it that we are using to leverage across all of our capabilities and we're using it not only to make our customers lives easier which is priority number one but we're also using it in our workflows to be able to make our jobs easier to be able to streamline our processes to create uh more efficient ways of making decisions so that we can get to the end customer goal and make their lives easier um into it uh we we leverage generative AI in lots of different ways that into it I'm actually not entirely sure like what I'm allowed to say so I will say that we are just using it in capacities all across the company from analytics to engineering to to product to product management it's at the Forefront of everything we do because our goal is to be an AI driven expert platform and so it's at the Forefront of all the conversations we're having anyone else want to add anything okay well here's a question that's going to be directed to you Devin um there is a question um would love to know the desired skills required to be a successful product manager and into it yeah I think the really interesting thing about product management is that it can vary greatly between the company that you're applying for like what skills are valued um I think add into it the skills that are really really important is your ability to go deep with customers and build that really deep customer empathy and then be able to extract that and apply it to priority and insights and be able to create a datab backed roadmap from that um and so I would say there's for the majority of product management roles less of an emphasis on what I would refer to as like a technical product manager and more so those sort of cross team team collaboration um that is definitely the most important thing that I think into values in its PMS um one more question here I'll answer it here what are some of the daily tasks of the data folks that into it apart from the agile ceremonies uh and is Credit Karma I don't think we have anybody on Credit Karma is Credit Karma team looking to expand can answer the Credit Karma question as a talent acquisition yes we are always looking to expand the Credit Karma team is hiring and growing just like we are at into it um so it's a great question um but is anyone can answer the data question um or around the data folks that into it apart from the agile ceremonies sure I can answer a little bit of like the day in the life of like a data analyst that into it um aside from like your standups and your agile ceremonies um the answer is and it may not be like the most most perfect clean cut answer is that every Analyst at into it kind of has a different Focus so their daily tasks are going to look a little bit different for example I'm a business data analyst opposed to a technical data analyst so my daily tasks include um like metrics Gathering uh data gathering for my metrics dashboarding and then analysis to propel decision-making for the programs that I help contribute to um but a different analyst who's more on the technical side maybe doing modeling maybe doing more querying maybe doing a little bit more of like the hard hard skill stuff um and it it kind of varies there's also analysts who are doing very little hard skills and are doing more of like the presentation aspected into it they're in those product meetings providing their expertise on you know how to set up uis or uxs and how to improve the user experience on certain features so I guess my clean answer would be it varies across Focus but you can definitely expect to be collaborating with your product/ program team on the best ways to utilize your data especially if it's clean data um to provide the best outcome for the customer excellent well thank you all we're GNA use that we're right at the hour here we're gonna use that as the last question I really love all the questions uh and engagement I want to just thank the panel Marina Taisha Devin and Sam for some great answers and some great advice um if we are um if you've liked what you heard today and I don't know if we're going to pull up some slides here I think we are um um and if you like we heard today about intu and about our culture we are hiring so if you want to kind of scan the QR code we just did a sample of some of our roles here you see we have some software engineer roles some product manager Jo roles we have a sa staff data scientist and a midmarket sales Business Development so scan the QR code I know Aon had put in the chat I believe all the links to our roles you can always check out our careers at in.com careers um but I want to just thank everybody for attending today and hopefully uh you guys learned some uh some great advice oh yes and please take our short survey uh we'd love to learn from you into its a feedback culture so please give us feedback on today so we can improve this this is part of a series so we appreciate all your input

2024-08-02 05:12

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