Interested in joining the Digital Orchards Fellowship to help jumpstart your tech career pivot along with a small cohort of ambitious individuals?
Join the waitlist here - Digital Orchards Fellowship
Well, it’s that time of the year where we all spend our weekends working on taxes that we should have done months ago…but who doesn’t love a good deadline to get the brain juices flowing?? I also wanted to say thank you to two individuals from my network who independently of each other sent me very lovely & personal thank you notes for caring about the people I work with and continuing to share great career advice. Sometimes you wonder when you put stuff out into the social media ether whether it connects with anyone - and it has been gratifying to continually get notes like these from folks who have never liked a single post, but instead actually read every single one. I think I’d rather have regular readers than semi-random likers.
#announcements
I enjoy helping people navigate through transition. It’s both challenging and empowering to navigate a career pivot, challenging as there is so much to learn and empowering as you start to see yourself & your skills in a new light.
I’ve also found that many of my clients could use a support community to help them with their pivot into tech. It’s a hard road to walk alone!
So I’m launching my first Digital Orchards Fellowship to jumpstart the tech career pivot for a small cohort of ambitious individuals. You can join the waitlist here to learn more about the fellowship before anyone else! digitalorchards.com/fellowship
#careertip : Top 5 Things You Should Do NOW to Pivot into the Tech Industry
I’m often asked by prospective clients: what should I do if I’m considering a pivot into tech? It’s a great question - and has opened up many good conversations about how to shift both your mindset and your skillset towards this new industry. Remember, it’s never too early to start preparing to make this shift! Even though there are a lot of tech job postings out there, just randomly applying is unlikely to get you the result you’re after: a great job in a top tech company.
Take Stock + Envision your Future There’s a reason you’re considering this switch, and you’ll have to explain it to others too.
Start by writing down where you see yourself in your current career, and where you envision yourself after a successful career transition into tech. Why are you leaving your current role/company? What kind of role will you be in after this pivot? What kind of company did you end up at?
It’s ok to dream here! This quick exercise will help you to define why you’re making this move, which will help keep you motivated along the journey.
Find Extra Time You will need to open up extra time & space in your life to make this pivot. How are you going to do that?
Sit down and estimate how much time you can realistically devote each week to making this career change happen.
Then write up a list of tradeoffs you’re willing to make with yourself, your spouse/partner/family, volunteer commitments, etc. Maybe this means getting takeout every Sunday night so you can spend your evening on your career change? It might mean you need to step back from a volunteer commitment for the next quarter.
Manage Your Current Job Consider how you’d like to handle your current job and what kind of departure you’d like to architect.
Think about bonuses and promotion cycles.
Are you close to getting a yearly bonus? Aim to make your transition after that date and use it as motivation.
Are you going to be up for promotion soon? I’d advise you to focus on your current role, get the promotion, and then start to make your pivot. You’ll be able to command a better salary and/or title in a new company by leveraging your recent promotion.
Not interested in bonuses or promotions? Maybe you just want to get out asap. Think about how to move your current job into ‘maintenance mode’ so there are no complaints about your work, but it then frees up your brain to learn new things about tech.
Identify Tech Connections Try and learn from trusted connections about the new industry you’re moving into.
Identify 3 friends/connections who work in tech. Look for people who are in roles and companies you are considering.
Don’t have those connections? Think about how you can leverage your current network to get to those who do work in tech. Fellow alumni?
Reach out to tell them you’re considering a move into tech and would appreciate their advice on how to get started. Schedule informational interviews to learn why they work in tech, what you need to know about company cultures/operating styles, and skills needed for your target role(s).
Develop a Learning Path Everyone who pivots into a new career needs to learn about their new target industry.
Use what you learned from your connections to write out 3 key topics or skills you’ll need to develop or refine.
Find the resources to help you learn. Online courses will cover tech topics like ‘What is cloud computing?’ or ‘What is cryptocurrency?’ as well as teach you how to use SQL or Tableau, often in 2-3 hour courses. (Check out sites like LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy, Code Academy.)
Then we can add these courses to your resume to demonstrate your growing tech domain expertise. Likely, you’ll also end up using this information during your future interviews - so recognize its value in the whole tech career pivot process.
BONUS: Consult a Tech Career Coach A tech-specific career coach can help explain the nuances of the tech job search process. Make sure you find someone who has worked in tech as a recruiter or has hired others into various functional roles within tech & startups.
Seems counter-intuitive that I only just mentioned resumes in the previous bullet. However, if you don’t do the 4 things above, it’s just not worth it to do much work on your resume or to start applying to jobs. Tech recruiters can easily tell when you haven’t spent any time getting to know their industry – and they also know it means you’ll likely fall out of the interview process later on.
Have you been struggling to design your tech career pivot? Schedule a call with me today to discuss strategy!
It’s never too late to make a career pivot! You deserve to be in a job that values your skills and expertise, and you should keep searching until you find the right one.
Once you’ve done these 5 steps, we’ll discuss how to convert this new knowledge into your resume & other job search materials.
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