empjoyment

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CONTINUE THE DISCUSSION

Let’s be real, rejection isn’t pleasant. Often times, just the prospect of facing rejection is enough for us not to take action at all! But as high-performer coach Rich Litvin says “No isn’t the destination, but it is the path”.

Lucky for us, our featured Empjoyee Claudio Vallejo followed the path of No’s to land him in a type of role where he’s able to solve the types of problems that excite him through product design. Find out more about his journey, his outlook on design, and his suggestions on moving past rejection to get what you really want in life and work.

Enjoy!

Listen now to learn how to:

• Leverage a series of roadblocks to grow as a designer and build the skills that can lead you to your next role
• Approach your next product design project from inception to completion through a step-by-step process
• Describe the difference between product design and user experience design

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

• Take the time to find projects and activities that you like and use that to fuel you going forward
• Find mentors and good friends who won’t tell you what you want to hear but rather what you need to hear, so you can address the root causes of your challenges
• Improve your collaboration skillset and mentality to increase your value as a product designer

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

“Own your mistakes” – Claudio Vallejo

Claudio had very simple and straight-forward advice for action for you to take this week. Let’s take the time to do it, and then come share what we learned.

#Joyney25: Have a conversation with someone who is a designer, whether it’s someone you know, another Empjoyee, or someone you will talk to for the first time share with us one insight from that conversation within the Empjoyment Community.

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Connect with Claudio via:  Twitter | LinkedIn
• Check out Claudio’s Personal Site for more information on what he’s currently involved in.
• Learn more about how Claudio found empjoyment through his “How I Got Into Design” Medium Article
• Find out more about Claudio’s Company: Managed by Q
• Continue the discussion with other tech career changers who have been in your shoes in the Empjoyment Community

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Claudio Vallejo!

Claudio Vallejo is a product designer at Managed by Q working on making it easy to run and manage an office.

Claudio was born and raised in Northeastern Mexico and studied business at Baylor University where he discovered his passion for design.

Prior to joining Q in New York City he was freelancing as a web designer and developer in Mexico and worked for Parámetro as a web 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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SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

It’s tempting to construct and fall into a trap of feeling that you need to get a job in a space before you can actually start building your skills in it. We tell ourselves that we need “someone to take a chance” on us, so we can then build the skills to do the job. But we’re Empjoyees and we recognize that it starts with “us” taking a chance on ourselves. Believing enough in our skills or the development of them such that we can add value to the world now, without waiting on permission or a paycheck to make that happen.

That’s how Beth Awalt, our featured Empjoyee made her transition into the tech industry. By the time Beth was ready to find empjoyment through tech doing communications and social media, she had already organized a national campaign on a social media channel with tens of thousands of followers… through her volunteer efforts in her spare time. Beth takes the time to walk us through how you can also gain meaningful experience contributing to causes that you’re passionate about today.

Listen to this episode to hear Beth share:

• How she created a role based on her unique experiences to help non-profits with their online communications and social media
• How she took on an unpopular but much needed project to add meaningful and demonstrable impact to her organization and the people it serves
• Approach non-profit organizations with customized volunteer opportunities that align with your passions, commitment level, and experience that you can add to your career portfolio

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

• It’s ok to be strategic about your community involvement to build your portfolio of experiences and tangible projects for the roles you’d most like to have.
• Take on a problem/opportunity you experience at work right now take it upon yourself to create your own examples of your communication work – it’s even possible to do with free online resources (see below)
• There is beauty in doing the little things consistently and really well. Don’t lose sight of the impact you’re making even if there’s little fanfare around 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

Beth’s Guiding Quote: “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”  Mother Theresa

Beth found her empjoyment over time through various volunteer opportunities. With these, she found areas that she specifically wanted to contribute to in the way that she wanted to contribute (e.g. took on just social media for large national youth leadership organization). Her recommendation to Empjoyees for action this week: find an organization to volunteer with (use Idealist or Volunteer Match if you don’t have any offhand), and ask to contribute in a way that both adds value to them and builds your project portfolio for your career change.

#Joyney24: Share with us how you can build your experience in tech by creating volunteer opportunities with organizations you are passionate about within the Empjoyment Community!

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Connect with Beth on LinkedIn
• Find out more about the Non-profit Beth Cofounded: The Startfish Foundation (also with video)
• Free Online Communications resources
  • Canva – online graphic design made easy with templates and easy to use features
  • Jotform – online form builder and form creator
  • Unsplash –  Beautiful high quality free images and photos you can download and use for any project.
• Are you ready to experience Empjoyment as well? Schedule your complimentary 1-on-1 possibility exploration experience today
• Continue the discussion with other tech career changers who have been in your shoes in the Empjoyment Community

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Beth Awalt!

Beth Awalt graduated from Villanova University in 2010 with a degree in Mathematics, and completed her Master’s in Emerging Media from Loyola University Maryland in September 2017. She currently works at a church and a school in Baltimore, focused on communications and social media coordination.

Beth also co-founded The Starfish Foundation, a nonprofit that provides educational support for students in Ecuador through scholarship, tutoring, and leadership development (http://www.thestarfishchange.org/)

Beth volunteers extensively for HOBY, the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Seminar, a non-profit that empowers youth to be the best leader they can be. She also serves her community as a leader with the young adult ministry in her parish, as well as collaborating on various committees for interfaith action in Baltimore, improved College of Liberal Arts & Sciences programs for graduate students, and more.

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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Join us as Matt Plaks shares how you and others like you can start getting involved now with opportunities in the growing space of the “internet of things”. From a personal and professional development standpoint, you’ll also gain strong insight into carrying out each day with purpose even when the opportunities may not seem to exist in your current role.

Listen to this episode now to learn how to:

• Be purposeful in all aspects of your job to bring more empjoyment sooner in your career
• Avoid making hiring decisions you’ll later regret
• Understand and leverage opportunities related to the “internet of things” so fuel your creative endeavors

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

• Speak up about and/or create opportunities that you are passionate about that also contribute the the company’s mission
• Hiring only for skill set without regard for the impact of the personality on the team and company culture can be even more painful and time-consuming than hiring someone with the right personality and potential
• Create your own value for yourself and your organization without feeling tied to having to wait to be asked from your boss or manager

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

Matt’s Mantra: “Ever Forward!” 

Matt encouraged Empjoyees to find a company and role that aligns with their current purpose in life and work. His suggestion to make that happen was simple: research a different companies, find a few that you like and connect with a few people in that organization (maybe even over coffee).

#Joyney23: Share with us what your purpose current is as well as one company that aligns with it within the Empjoyment Community!

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Check out opportunities at Matt’s company: Temboo
• Connect with Matt on LinkedIn
• Are you ready to experience Empjoyment as well? Schedule your complimentary 1-on-1 possibility exploration experience today
• Continue the discussion with other tech career changers who have been in your shoes in the Empjoyment Community

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Matt Plaks!

Matt Plaks graduated from Harvard University in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in Visual and Environmental Studies.

Matt started his career as a bread baker working at a wholesale bakery in Philadelphia before making a switch to Temboo to work on business development in the Internet of Things space.

He currently leads Temboo’s efforts to upskill the global workforce.

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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Anna Jordan (Higher Education Admissions to Implementation Consultant) shows us the opportunity that comes from being a career changer who is underestimated…and then over delivers on today’s episode.

Enjoy!

Listen to this episode now to learn how to:

• Become a subject matter expert on a specific topic within your first months on the job
• Add value to your clients and organization as an implementation consultant through a hypothetical project example
• Deal with criticism (both internal and external) driven by being new to your role or industry

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

• Be honest about what you know and don’t know – the expectation isn’t to know 100% of everything, but to be resourceful in figuring out options
• Don’t assume that the next promotion you get will automatically give you empjoyment – take the time to understand the key aspects and responsibilities of the role to ensure they are aligned with where you’re looking to head next.
• It’s OK to plan and move towards your goal with calculated risks and incremental actions taken consistently over a period of time

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

Anna’s Mantra: “The Best experiences are either below or above your paygrade AND out of your comfort zone ” 

Your Joyney: Share with us one time that you have been underestimated in a work setting and the way that you over-delivered and exceeded expectations within the Empjoyment Community (use hastag #joyney22 )!

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Check out opportunities at Anna’s company: Tyler Technologies
• Connect with Anna on LinkedIn
• Are you ready to experience Empjoyment as well? Schedule your complimentary 1-on-1 possibility exploration experience today
• Continue the discussion with other tech career changers who have been in your shoes in the Empjoyment Community

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Anna Jordan!

Anna Jordan graduated from Shippensburg University in 2014 with an MS in Organizational Development and Leadership and from Gettysburg College in 2006 with a BA in Psychology.

Anna has held many positions in education from teaching to admissions.  After grad school Anna found herself wanting to go in another direction but did not have a clear sense of where, she did a short stint in supply chain management before joining Tyler Technologies in 2015 where she works as an implementation consultant for Court related software.

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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SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Do you have to get lucky to get a role role in tech? What if you could create a plan to get from your current job to your next career opportunity in tech and implement it at a pace that you’ve set for yourself, over a time-frame that feels comfortable for you? How would it feel to give your current employer a month’s notice before moving to your next role.

Eugene Nam, today’s featured Empjoyee, shows us a way to navigate our career transition and job changes with a sense of security and organization. In doing so, Eugene highlights ways to minimize a feeling of risk involved with changing paths from a professional, personal, and financial perspective.

Enjoy!

Listen to this episode now to learn how to:

• Take incremental steps towards your career change goals through planning, organization, and constant execution
• Balance your current full-time role while still spending extra time learning and taking action for your next role
• Access your skill sets to help you get your next role through a step-by-step process that’s both easy and quick to do

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

• Surround yourself with a key group of people who can not only support you but also provide honest truths to you along your transition
• You don’t need to rush in or take large financial risks to pursue your dream of working in tech
• It’s OK to plan and move towards your goal with calculated risks and incremental actions taken consistently over a period of time

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

“Rise Above it. ” – Eugene’s Matra

Eugene’s recommended that we take the time to truly access our skillsets as the next step that Empjoyees should to move one step closer to their goals this week. At the end of the conversation, Eugene laid out a step-by-step process to accomplish that assessment which we encourage you to listen and implement. From a high-level, that approach included identifying your current skills and desired skills for your role, analyzing gaps and priorities, and then developing a growth plan to address gaps as needed.

Your Joyney: Share with us one skill that you are looking to build based on your skill set analysis and the plan that you will use to bridge that gap within the Empjoyment Community ( use #joyney21 so we know what we’re all truly striving for in this next stage of Empjoyment)!

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Get to know Eugene’s company: VenueBook
• Connect with Eugene on LinkedIn
• Continue the discussion with other tech career changers who have been in your shoes in the Empjoyment Community

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Eugene Nam!

Eugene Nam graduated from The University of Notre Dame in 2007 with a business degree in Finance. Eugene started his career in corporate banking at various financial institutions.

After 8 years, he made the decision to leave a lucrative and comfortable career in finance to pursue a more creative career in Product Management. Currently, he is a Product Manager at a NY based startup.

In his spare time, Eugene is passionate about food, coffee, and whisky; micro-blogging about it on Instagram whenever he encounters an interesting restaurant, cafe, or bottle

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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Reinventing yourself and your career is not an easy feat. In our pursuit of enjoyment through employment, it can often feel like a daunting and unsurmountable roadblock to overcome. How do you pivot your brand from being an expert in one thing (and quite frankly being exceptional at it) that doesn’t fulfill you to a new brand that positions your unique experiences as your value proposition in a business role in tech.

Luckily, Sumant Yerramilly, our featured Empjoyee, lays out a step by step roadmap based on his experience. He takes it a step further by also sharing the top 2 pillars for successful career transitions into tech and what he looks for when hiring people for his team.

Enjoy!

Listen to this episode now to learn how to:

• Articulate your experience when you have variety of skill sets that don’t seem to lead to a specific role (at least not on paper…)
• Leverage two key principles to differentiate yourself from other candidates applying for a role
• Approach product management with a “sell before you build” mentality to enhance company success and client satisfaction

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

• Don’t overthink it – rather than focusing on eliminating risk from all possible scenarios, keep it simple and take action on what you can control right now.
• Sell before your build – find ways to sell potential customers (incl. employers when looking for a job) on your ideas through tangible mockups, projects, etc prior to investing significant resources on items that you feel would be important but others aren’t interested in
• Practice how you articulate you past experiences to employers so that you are positioning who you are and the value you’ll bring and not just what you’ve done

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

“Don’t overthink it!” – Sumant Yerramilly

Let’s continue today’s discussion by exploring ways to let go of overthinking problems and opportunities in our professional journey and instead, prioritize the actions we can take right now and execute on them.

Your Joyney: Come share with us 1 thing that you are currently overthinking in your career journey and the 1 action you will take today to help you break the cycle of over analysis within the Empjoyment Community using the hashtag #joyney20 so we can jump in no matter when you see this!

SHARE YOUR JOYNEY

Additional Resources to Accelerate your Growth

• Get to know Sumant’s company: Edmodo
• Connect with Sumant on LinkedIn
• Continue the discussion with other tech career changers who have been in your shoes in the Empjoyment Community

Getting to Know Today’s Featured Empjoyee: Sumant Yerramilly!

Sumant is a serial entrepreneur in the digital advertising and commerce space.

He currently is the Head of Advertising at Edmodo, the largest education social network in the world with over 80M registered users across 190 countries. He currently oversees product, go to market strategy, and sales execution.

Previously, he was Director of Product at Unified and the VP of Product at Compass Labs. He started off his career by co-founding Amp Idea (acquired by VTS), an out of home digital advertising startup based in Boston, MA. Sumant was responsible for developing the first interactive taxi payment and entertainment product, now available in over 20,000 taxis around the country.

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.