As a career changer, there is a natural level of risk associated with an employer taking you on for a role. In fact, the fear of making a mistake with a “risky” higher can be a common roadblock to getting into a new field.

Great – now that that’s out in the open you can use this to your advantage. Why? Because you can make sure you’re taking steps to proactively mitigate that risk for an employer.

James Kaikis shares several examples of how to set, manage, and exceed expectations for both employers and clients through his incredible career journey. You’ll want to listen to this several times to capture all of the actionable lessons he provides!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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)!