empjoyment

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One thing that holds a lot of us back from making the career change we know that we’re meant to make is the nagging feeling that we don’t know enough about the job/ product/ company industry/ [insert limiting belief here] to truly excel in a new career in tech.

We’re imperfect people, which lead to imperfect decisions. So the question may not be “how do I avoid making mistakes” but “what do I do to move forward when things don’t go as plan”. In the fast-paced environment of tech, that frame of mind will carry you far.

Mila Singh, our featured Empjoyee today shares her journey of leveraging 3 different career changes to land her first job in tech, her approach to overcoming a difficult setback in her first month on the job, and a simple, yet powerful tool to bridge every knowledge gap you come across at work.

Listen now learn from Mila’s experiences on how to:

• Ask questions and adopt a curiosity mindset to make you a better teammate
• Overcome mistakes you will inevitably make early in your new tech career
• Find opportunities in your current role to build experience and pursue your passion even before you transition into tech

TL;DL (Too long; Didn’t Listen): 3 Actionable Takeaways

• Steer your career and life in the direction that you want at any time – You are in the driver seat and you are in control
• ASK QUESTIONS and constantly be curious – people are always willing to help, even when you think they are too busy.
• Use the opportunity to wear “many hats” when working in a small startup to your advantage.

Share your #1 takeaway with today’s featured Empjoyee and other Empjoyees in the Empjoyment community!

From Insight to Action

“To know and not do is really not to know” – Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Mila stressed the impact of asking questions throughout her tech experience – especially as a career changer who joined her first tech startup only months earlier. Let’s get used to asking (and answering) questions from each other so we can build that skill as well.

Your Joyney: Ask 1 Question and Provide 1 Answer (to a separate question) within the Empjoyment Community that will help you and others move forward in your journey !

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional References to help your growth

• After the conversation, Mila brought up a book that she’s reading call Designing your Life by Bill Burnett.
• Find out more about Mila’s company: CultureIQ
• Check out the Empjoyment Glossary for our interpretation of some of the tech-specific words used throughout the conversation

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Mila Singh!

Mila is a Culture Strategist at CultureIQ, a culture management software and services company committed to helping organizations measure and strengthen their culture. She is passionate about creating great places to work and building company cultures that drive business results.

Prior to CultureIQ, Mila spent time on the Market Development & Insights team at IBM and in the management consulting practice at Accenture. She has also worked in education operations at Achievement First.

Mila has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations and MPA from Cornell University. She also holds an MBA from Yale School of Management. Outside of work, Mila loves to travel and recently hiked Mt. Fuji with a group of friends.

Spread the Joy to Help Others Experience Empjoyment

Kudos to you for taking another step towards experiencing enjoyment through employment through today’s episode.

If you find this podcast helpful, we would greatly appreciate if you took a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast in iTunes. They’re extremely helpful when it comes to helping new Empjoyees know that this is a podcast that really has their interest at heart. Plus, we read each and every one personally!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes to make sure that you never miss an episode, share the episode with one person you know who would benefit from today’s episode, and let us know if you’d like to share your story as a featured Empjoyee to help others learn from your experience too.

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You got this! Deniz Cebenoyan, our featured Empjoyee, reminds us that you already know what you need to know to be able to be widely successful in tech. It’s not about the specific skill sets that you possess, but rather how you approach problems, adversity, ambiguity, and more that plays a key a role in your ability to add value in a tech company.

Deniz sheds some light on the Imposter Syndrome and how she has transformed her view on her non-technical background from that of a hindrance to a form of strength and differentiation in the workplace. Deniz’ own career journey has taken her from research to product management and she still leverages that background daily.

Through that journey, she’s developed a confidence and a mindset that will help you embrace the postive power of being non-technical in a tech company. Enjoy!

Listen now to learn how to:

• Determine which product features to pursue and when through a product management process
• Use a background outside of tech to your advantage to design products that end users would enjoy
• Work through the fear and Imposter Syndrome of not being super knowledgeable in tech

TL;DL (Too long; Didn’t Listen): 3 Actionable Takeaways

• Find a friend who has a background in tech to go over your resume to help you translate your experiences to incorporate terms a potential employer would understand
• Surround yourself with people you trust to help fill and support your gaps (and vice versa as your personal experience and view of the world is valuable)
• Do your own research on potential features and suggestions prior to pursing product enhancements to confirm the value that you are looking to provide to both your company and your customers

But wait there’s more! Share your #1 takeaway with today’s featured Empjoyee and other Empjoyees in the Empjoyment community!

From Insight to Action

“Do the thing and you will have the power” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Deniz fueled us all with tangible examples of how she’s leveraged her non-technical background to help her succeed at her job. Now we’d like you to figure out how you can do the same and start changing your story from a place of scarcity and weakness to a place of abundance and confidence.

Your Joyney: Share one skill / trait from your background outside of tech that could translate to a unique contribution in a tech company within the Empjoyment Community (feel free to drop in a video explaining it to us if you’d like).

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Build up your foundation in tech through free courses online: Khan Academy | Coursera
• Visit Deniz’ medium page to keep up with more of her thoughts and insights
• Find out more about Deniz’s company: Revinate
• Check out the Empjoyment Glossary for our interpretation of the tech-specific words used today

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Deniz Cebenoyan!

Deniz Cebenoyan has a B.S. in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon.

She spends her day time solving problems for a tech company and my night time writing stories and songs to no one.

An east coast transplant, Deniz also enjoys sitting in cafes and wondering why everyone is hiking all the time.

Spread the Joy to Help Others Experience Empjoyment

Kudos to you for taking another step towards experiencing enjoyment through employment through today’s episode.

If you find this podcast helpful, we would greatly appreciate if you took a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast in iTunes. They’re extremely helpful when it comes to helping new Empjoyees know that this is a podcast that really has their interest at heart. Plus, we read each and every one personally!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes to make sure that you never miss an episode, share the episode with one person you know who would benefit from today’s episode, and let us know if you’d like to share your story as a featured Empjoyee to help others learn from your experience too.

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Jon’s journey is one of perseverance and making consistent strides towards an overall goal: to become a software engineer. We’re happy to share that at the time of this recording, he was just transitioning into his first role as a software engineer.

Leveraging a computer science major from years passed, he harnessed his skills on-the-job as a testing analyst writing scripts to test the code written by other developers. The road there wasn’t easy or brief, but Jon takes the time to walk us through each step of the way there.

Listen now to learn Jon’s:

• Approach to doing the work you love even when you’re not in your dream role
• Method to re-framing problems to in a way that fills him with confidence instead of doubt
• Toughest lesson learned while transitioning to a new role and his mindset to push through mental barriers

TL;DL (Too long; Didn’t Listen): 3 Actionable Takeaways

• Write out something once and then throw it out and do it again to when you’re stuck on a problem or a deliverable
• Build “evidence to suggest” that you are good at the job you’re looking to take on throughout your resume. It’s up to you to communicate and translate your past experiences into something your potential employer will understand.
• Uncover the core philosophies and primary tenets of the type of work that you’re looking to do and then find opportunities to do that RIGHT NOW in the job that you have.

But wait there’s more! Share your #1 takeaway with today’s featured Empjoyee and other Empjoyees in the Empjoyment community!

From Insight to Action

“Do the thing and you will have the power” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jon pointed out the importance of your resume containing “evidence to suggest” that you’ll be good for the job, which is particularly important for career changers.

Your Joyney: Share one thing on your resume that provides “evidence to suggest” that you have relevant experience for the role that you want with us in the Empjoyment Community.

If it’s not on your resume yet, let us know how you plan to build that experience in your current role using Jon’s suggestion on finding one way to demonstrate your readiness for the role.

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to help your growth

• Find out more about Jon’s company: AppNexus
• Check out the Empjoyment Glossary for our interpretation of the tech-specific words used today

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Jon Fosdick!

Jon is a mathematics major from Haverford College (’13).

After working in the IT world for two years, Jon turned to an analyst position on the Engineering Quality team at AppNexus, and is currently working towards a transition to a Software Engineering position on that same team.

Spread the Joy to Help Others Experience Empjoyment

Kudos to you for taking another step towards experiencing enjoyment through employment through today’s episode.

If you find this podcast helpful, we would greatly appreciate if you took a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast in iTunes. They’re extremely helpful when it comes to helping new Empjoyees know that this is a podcast that really has their interest at heart. Plus, we read each and every one personally!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes to make sure that you never miss an episode, share the episode with one person you know who would benefit from today’s episode, and let us know if you’d like to share your story as a featured Empjoyee to help others learn from your experience too.

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Interested in putting your skills and passion for writing to good use in tech? Are you prone to find ways to connect and build relationships with people through text?

Regardless of your writing background and aspirations, today’s episode with Katie Sawyer, Content Marketing Manager at Eventbrite, is bound to shed some light on how you can truly delight customers in tech through content marketing.

Katie spends time shining a light on some of the myths and misconceptions that she had when she was transitioning into tech and offers us all a way to feel comfortable realizing that “It’s OK not to know”. Enjoy!

By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to:

• Describe what a content calendar is and at least one method to building and managing a calendar
• Articulate how content marketing managers interact with other members of the organization to create relevant blogs and articles for target customers
• Discuss the difference in process and timeline on being on a team of writers in a fast-pace tech environment as opposed to other industries writing at a high-level

TL;DL (Too long; Didn’t Listen): 3 Actionable Takeaways

• Act like a human and don’t worry about the insider jargon that people throw around – most people don’t use on a daily basis, and it usually doesn’t indicate any additional degree of knowledge or expertise
• Embrace not knowing the answers or approaches as you transition into new roles and projects – It’s OK not to know
• Take advantage of projects to help establish guidelines and processes to make a lasting creative and operational impact on your organization

But wait there’s more! Share your #1 takeaway with today’s featured Empjoyee and other Empjoyees in the Empjoyment community!

From Insight to Action

“Do the thing and you will have the power” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Katie pointed out how important having a system (even a low-key one like post-it notes) to keep yourself on track are in order to keep up with the fast-paced nature of tech companies.

Your Joyney: Share your system of staying organized to keep yourself on track to short deadlines (3-6 months aka 1-2 quarters) within the Empjoyment Community (pictures encouraged – let’s get some ideas on systems we can adopt).

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Hootsuite Academy: Online courses and certification on social media and the Hootsuite platform (free and paid)
• Find out more about Katie’s company: Eventbrite (and see Katie’s writing live online)
• Check out the Empjoyment Glossary for our interpretation of the tech-specific words used today

CONTINUE THE DISCUSSION

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Katie Sawyer!

Katie Sawyer is a Content Marketing Manager at Eventbrite, the world’s largest event technology platform, where she helps event organizers throw awesome festivals, food and drink bonanzas, and cultural events.

Katie spent more than nine years working in marketing and communications in higher ed before transitioning into tech, and sharpens her writing skills through workshops, online certifications, and freelance projects.

Spread the Joy to Help Others Experience Empjoyment

Kudos to you for taking another step towards experiencing enjoyment through employment through today’s episode.

If you find this podcast helpful, we would greatly appreciate if you took a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast in iTunes. They’re extremely helpful when it comes to helping new Empjoyees know that this is a podcast that really has their interest at heart. Plus, we read each and every one personally!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes to make sure that you never miss an episode, share the episode with one person you know who would benefit from today’s episode, and let us know if you’d like to share your story as a featured Empjoyee to help others learn from your experience too.

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Have you ever heard the quote “If you build it, they will come.” from the movie Field of Dreams? That might have worked at the time that it was released, but in today’s economy that phrase speaks more to the dreamer than the successful person in technology.

Why? Because in today’s global economy, where there are lower barriers to entry for new businesses, products, and marketing, there are far more options for a customer or user to choose from.

To meet this shift in consumer behavior, companies are putting an increase focused on the consumer or user experience. This translates to understanding what problems users have, and building solutions that not only solve that problem, but also designing it in a way that is easy, useful, and intuitive to the end-user.

That’s where product designer Angélique Bélizaire,  steps in as she leverages her passion in design to help companies build online products, websites, and features that potential customers will actually use (and enjoy themselves while doing it)!

Listen now to learn how to:

• Apply a 7 Step process to design thinking and implementation to create customer-centric products that people want and will use
• Utilize concepts like low, mid, and high fidelity to obtain consensus and test ideas quickly
• Collaborate with stakeholders of varying functions/ backgrounds to accomplish results faster

TL;DL (Too long; Didn’t Listen): 3 Actionable Takeaways

• Leverage the design process to design your next product, website, app, pitch, etc. so it’s actually used by your target audience
• Invest in your growth through courses, bootcamps, and real-life experiences by focusing on your ability to realize returns on the investment rather than the cost (e.g. time, money)
• Iterate in the real world to find solutions that don’t just “exist” but instead transform lives by making it easy and desirable for people to use it

But wait there’s more! Share your #1 takeaway with today’s featured Empjoyee and other Empjoyees in the Empjoyment community!

From Insight to Action

“Do the thing and you will have the power” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Angélique’s journey contains several times where she made an investment in herself to not only learn new skills but also demonstrate those skills in a tangible fashion.

Your Joyney: Share how are you planning to build and/or demonstrate your skills over the next two weeks to get a job in tech within the Empjoyment Community.

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Visit Angélique’s personal portfolio to see more of work in action and explore her design process.
• Find out more about Angélique’s company: Managed by Q
• Check out the Empjoyment Glossary for our interpretation of the tech-specific words used today

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Angélique Bélizaire!

Angélique has found her EmpJoyment through the world of design, which she applies in tech through produce design. Angélique graduated in 2009 with a degree in Design.

She has worked as a freelance Designer in social media before making a switch to User Experience (UX) and Product Design. To accomplish this, she took a 3-month immersion class with General Assembly and then got a job working as a UX consultant before getting a job in tech at VenueBook.

She now works at a startup called Managed by Q as a Product Designer.

Spread the Joy to Help Others Experience Empjoyment

Kudos to you for taking another step towards experiencing enjoyment through employment through today’s episode.

If you find this podcast helpful, we would greatly appreciate if you took a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast in iTunes. They’re extremely helpful when it comes to helping new Empjoyees know that this is a podcast that really has their interest at heart. Plus, we read each and every one personally!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes to make sure that you never miss an episode, share the episode with one person you know who would benefit from today’s episode, and let us know if you’d like to share your story as a featured Empjoyee to help others learn from your experience too.

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If you’ve been trying to figured out how to keep the security and structure of a well-established, large company while pursuing a life in tech, you’ll definitely want to listen to today’s episode with Alaric Eby (probably multiple times)!

Alaric’s journey starts right at the beginning of the most recent economic depression in the United States working at a Citigroup, a large financial institution in New York City. He’ll share his struggles in making his transition into Product Management at a smaller hospitality-focused tech company and how he’s currently solving problems through digital solutions at American Express.

Alaric has found his Empjoyment by asking himself “how and why” to build Jenga towers out of Legos (you’ll get it when you listen), which he applies in tech through product management. We dive into Alaric’s view on what a product manager is and what skills, approaches, and mindsets can lead you to success as well.

Enjoy!

Listen now to learn how to:

• Gain experience in tech while working in large companies and industries not known for their tech approaches
• Leverage the words “Why” and “How” in your current role to build work examples that can translate to product management positions
• Embrace a mindset that will help you be successful in tech regardless of your previous background

TL;DL (Too long; Didn’t Listen): 3 Actionable Takeaways

• Accelerate your time to completion to set yourself apart at work and give yourself opportunities for new projects
• Look for opportunities to own a product or idea from beginning to end to build the type of experience many would consider indicative of product management work
• Continue to sow your seeds in the job market even when facing initial rejection while focusing on how you talk and about the work you’ve done for others to understand how it applies to the work you’re looking to do

But wait there’s more! Share your #1 takeaway with today’s featured Empjoyee and other Empjoyees in the Empjoyment community!

From Insight to Action

“If you want to be, do” – John Lee Dumas

Alaric brought up that the way to gain experience is to find a problem and solve it. We want your resume and interview experience to be filled with relevant experiences, so let’s make sure you build one more today.

Your Joyney: Come share “What problem have you seen in your work life (incl. volunteer work) that you can address and how will you go about solving it”within the Empjoyment Community.

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Find out more about Alaric’s company: American Express
• Connect with Alaric on LinkedIn
• Continue finding empjoyment by learning how to leverage design principles to create the best experience for your users with Angélique Bélizaire (Product Designer)

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Alaric Eby!

Alaric graduated from Cornell University in 2010 with a degree in Applied Economics and Management.

He has deep experience working across companies both large (200K+ employees) and small (<1000 employees) across a variety of industries, focusing on creating new digital products for a wide population of businesses and consumers.

While most of his expertise may commonly be oversimplified as product management, Alaric has extensive firsthand knowledge of the challenges and opportunities which present themselves when driving new initiatives from ideation through launch.

Spread the Joy to Help Others Experience Empjoyment

Kudos to you for taking another step towards experiencing enjoyment through employment through today’s episode.

If you find this podcast helpful, we would greatly appreciate if you took a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast in iTunes. They’re extremely helpful when it comes to helping new Empjoyees know that this is a podcast that really has their interest at heart. Plus, we read each and every one personally!

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes to make sure that you never miss an episode, share the episode with one person you know who would benefit from today’s episode, and let us know if you’d like to share your story as a featured Empjoyee to help others learn from your experience too.