0:00

You are listening to episode 156.

0:09

Welcome to the You Are Techie

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podcast, where it's all about

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growing in your tech so you can find

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the tech job of your dreams. And

0:18

now your host technology

0:21

learning coach, Ellen Tomi

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.

0:25

So many moms returning to work have asked

0:27

me how to get hired in a job

0:29

that pays well, but also

0:31

allows them to be the mom they

0:34

want to be. And I've seen so

0:36

many women make the mistake of taking a job teaching

0:38

English at 3:00 AM for $15

0:40

an hour. That's just backwards

0:44

because your skills are highly valuable

0:46

and so is your time. That's

0:49

why I put together this free training to help

0:51

you jumpstart your tech career by learning

0:53

about the fields of UX design and front-end

0:55

development so you don't waste one

0:58

more side hustle that

1:01

isn't a career and doesn't give you the flexibility

1:03

and income your family needs. I only

1:05

offer this training twice a year, and

1:07

it's available right now at the release of

1:09

this episode. So sign up now for the

1:12

helpful and interactive free training.

1:14

Three strategies to jumpstart your

1:16

UX design career, or three strategies

1:18

to jumpstart your front end development career. Sign

1:20

up for one the other, or

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both, it's completely free. Go

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to u techie.com/signup

1:27

. That's Y O U A R E

1:29

T E C H y.com/s

1:33

I G N U P . I

1:36

can't wait to see you there. Welcome to

1:38

the podcast. Today

1:40

we're talking about how to get hired faster and

1:42

for more money. Who doesn't

1:45

wanna do that? No one ever comes to me and says,

1:47

I'd like to get hired slower and for less

1:49

money. But I know we've talked about

1:51

this topic in a few different ways, and

1:53

today I wanna talk about it in terms of the

1:55

macro trends that are going on in tech as

1:58

well as with the nuances

2:00

that I'm seeing in some of my students. I think it's

2:02

gonna be really helpful to you and for

2:04

you to understand where you

2:07

wanna be when it comes to

2:09

the getting hired, the interviewing

2:11

period, and how to best prepare

2:13

for that along the way. Okay,

2:16

so to start off quickly, we

2:18

wanna get hired faster and

2:21

for more money for a few different reasons.

2:23

Number one, the value is there with technology.

2:25

So we're likely going to make more money

2:28

than we did before. Now one of the caveats

2:30

with that is that not everyone

2:32

makes more money immediately. Many

2:35

do, but not everyone. I've

2:38

seen some pretty high

2:40

salaries for things like tutoring and

2:43

being a va, but

2:45

the point is that the trajectory of tech

2:48

is much higher, right? Those

2:50

are not really scalable

2:53

in terms of leveling up in

2:55

your career. That's just the price is what it is. That's

2:57

what you're gonna make today. That's what what you're gonna make ongoing.

3:00

But when it comes to technology over the

3:02

course of your career, you're going to

3:04

get raises faster and

3:06

you're going to be able to add

3:08

more value in for the organization. And

3:11

so you're gonna top out higher. Really,

3:13

there is no high end , there is no upper end

3:15

of technology it , it just pretty

3:18

much keeps going up. But even if

3:20

you're someone who doesn't plan to go

3:22

into management or change

3:24

jobs a ton of times or anything like

3:27

that, you're still gonna end up at a higher salary

3:29

because of the increases and

3:31

the way that you can add value in tech. Now,

3:34

in terms of getting hired faster, two

3:37

reasons for that. One, my students

3:40

tend to overlearn, they tend to

3:42

learn things that don't really need to be

3:44

learned until you've been hired. And

3:46

so one of the things I literally advise my

3:48

students to do is filter

3:51

out those things that they really need to learn now

3:53

as a skill to get hired. And then

3:55

for those things that are still very

3:58

valid and relevant skills that

4:00

they'd like to learn throughout their career, just

4:02

document those so that you can learn them after you

4:04

get hired when there's less

4:07

pressure and more time and space

4:09

to work on those things. The

4:12

other reason for getting hired faster is,

4:15

besides for overlearning, being

4:18

comfortable throughout this process is

4:21

not really the goal. Any type

4:23

of personal growth that we have, and

4:26

make no mistake to transition

4:28

into a new field like technology.

4:31

You need to grow as a person. You

4:33

are not there today. You need to become someone

4:36

that you are not today, but that you want

4:38

to be in the future. That requires personal

4:40

growth, that requires stretching and growing.

4:42

Think of yoga, you've gotta stretch where

4:45

you are, what you're comfortable

4:47

with. You have to stretch, and that's how you grow

4:50

into some of those fantastic poses.

4:52

Okay? So that

4:55

isn't always comfortable, but it is very valid

4:58

and helpful. Now

5:00

for some of the macro trends that are going on,

5:02

I know it can be really scary when we hear

5:05

of the layoffs from these large

5:07

companies, for example, Facebook,

5:09

right? They're laying off all these people.

5:11

What does that mean for the future of tech

5:14

chat? GPT is coming out,

5:17

AI is taking over the world. We're not actually

5:19

even gonna need developers anymore because

5:21

artificial intelligence is going

5:23

to handle that for us. Well, I

5:26

don't agree, and I think that having

5:29

a technical background is only becoming and

5:32

technical skills is only becoming more

5:34

important, not less important in this world.

5:37

And when we look at the layoffs of Facebook, they

5:39

actually did really well. The

5:41

quarter that they laid off. They just

5:44

wanted to redirect funds

5:46

towards different things, basically working

5:48

on innovation, new ideas

5:51

and the metaverse. And so that's

5:53

a decision that may seem cruel

5:56

or harsh, but it is a decision

5:58

that Mark Zuckerberg can make. And

6:01

you shouldn't let that scare you. You shouldn't

6:03

let that think, oh my gosh, they just let

6:05

go of all these people. That doesn't necessarily mean

6:07

you can't get hired at Facebook. It might mean

6:10

that they wanna hire people with lower salaries. It

6:12

might mean that you just need to work in their innovation

6:14

department. But regardless,

6:16

even if you don't wanna work at Facebook, you

6:19

are one human who

6:22

needs one job. And

6:24

so with a lot of these layoffs, a

6:26

lot of other people are hiring. They're

6:29

hiring like crazy, and you

6:31

just need one of those jobs. So I

6:33

encourage my students to really not

6:37

worried too much. I mean, pay attention to the macro trends

6:40

in terms of learning about

6:42

and listening to what's going on in

6:44

technology. But if it starts

6:46

to create paranoia in your mind, like,

6:48

oh, I can never get hired anyway, this is never gonna happen. That

6:51

is just drama. It's not actually something

6:53

that is moving you forward in

6:55

your career because with only

6:58

needing one job, you are

7:00

able to do that. You are able to build the skills

7:02

to grow as a person and

7:04

to be in a position

7:06

where you can get hired

7:09

in a job and not even necessarily

7:11

an entry level job. So we just have this

7:13

discussion in the membership. I

7:15

do not consider you an

7:17

entry level employee. When

7:20

an organization posts for entry

7:23

level , what they typically

7:25

mean is a recent college graduate.

7:27

Unless you are 22 years old and you

7:29

just graduated college, they're not talking about

7:32

you. I can consider you a

7:34

mid-career transitioner. So you

7:36

do need to acquire new

7:38

skills to get hired in this position, but

7:41

your previous skills do not go away.

7:43

Those are still relevant

7:46

and valid. So prior experience

7:48

plus new skills equals mid-level career

7:50

transitioner. Those are the types of jobs that

7:53

I encourage you to look at and to look

7:55

for. Okay? So

8:02

that's a little bit about the macro trends

8:05

and what's going on in UX and in

8:07

development and just tech generally,

8:10

and how it applies to getting hired faster.

8:12

And for more money, there are definite shifts

8:14

going on. So that's the piece for

8:17

the macro trends that I think you should

8:19

look at. There are shifts going on.

8:21

If anything though, you should be looking to

8:24

get hired even faster and for even

8:26

more money because the trends

8:28

that are coming out in ai, you

8:30

are gonna wanna be someone who

8:33

has a hand in creating the

8:35

future of technology. And those

8:38

people who don't have any of those relevant

8:40

skills are just getting further

8:42

and further behind. So it

8:44

is an important time to be in technology.

8:47

It is an important and interesting

8:49

world that we're living in, but

8:52

there are definite shifts that are happening in

8:54

terms of what type of organizations

8:56

are hiring and growing their

8:59

design and development needs, okay?

9:02

In terms of nuances, some

9:04

of the things that have been going on with my

9:06

students that I think are

9:08

really gonna help you look

9:11

at the future and the

9:13

result that you're looking for. And

9:15

that's what we're talking about today. How to get hired faster and

9:17

for more money and look at what

9:19

that is going to look like for you,

9:23

and then backtrack so

9:25

that you are starting with

9:27

the right steps and the right pieces. So

9:29

here's what I mean. We've been talking

9:31

a lot in the membership about the

9:34

interview phase and

9:38

the application applying

9:40

and interviewing and asking people

9:42

for a job. And I literally mean

9:44

looking them in the face and saying, do

9:47

you have a UX design job position

9:50

for me? Are you hiring developers

9:53

right now? I'd love to be considered. So

9:56

I literally mean that. So you didn't

9:58

hear me just say applying. Do not

10:00

get caught in this applying process.

10:04

Applying cold is

10:06

not a good position to be in. And so if

10:09

you're just doing that, you are unlikely

10:13

to make great progress.

10:15

Okay? And if you're saying, well, what else do I do?

10:17

We're gonna go through that. But in this interview

10:20

phase, looking

10:23

at your story, I

10:26

wanna just offer you this piece

10:29

that your story of prior

10:31

experience plus new skills is

10:33

your story. And I encourage you to journal

10:36

on it, to talk to your friends about

10:38

it, to talk to your husband about it, to get

10:40

comfortable with that story. But

10:43

that is not the story to

10:45

deliver to an

10:47

interviewer. And the reason

10:49

for that is that interviewer has

10:52

a problem. There's something wrong

10:55

with their product and they need help

10:57

figuring it out. Maybe it's a design

10:59

problem, maybe it's a development problem

11:01

that is what they need help with. And

11:04

your story of transitioning from

11:06

being a nutritionist to a UX designer

11:10

is not immediately relevant to them.

11:13

But your story as

11:15

a UX designer solving real-world

11:17

problems in this

11:20

example, and that real life

11:22

example in this example is

11:25

highly relevant to them. Okay?

11:27

So again, we're backtracking. So let's look at

11:29

the end result. The end result is, I wanna get hired

11:32

faster and for more money. Okay, what does

11:34

that look like? Well, when I get to the interview

11:36

phase, I'm gonna wanna talk to someone

11:38

about UX design

11:41

experiences I've had , or

11:43

development experiences I've had. Here

11:45

was this time that I wrote this function that did this, it

11:48

solved this problem. Here was this time

11:50

that, you know, this was the design

11:52

challenge that we were looking at, and this

11:54

is how I came up with a solution. And it was really helpful and

11:57

it was really interesting. So

11:59

when you sit down with the interviewer, you

12:02

wanna be talking as if you are already

12:06

in that position, maybe not

12:08

for that company, but I'm already a UX designer.

12:10

You're hiring me as a UX designer, I'm already a

12:13

developer. You're hiring me as a developer.

12:16

Now, for those of you who are just starting out, you're

12:18

like, yeah , that's backward. Can I

12:20

be that? If I'm not that? Okay, well, let's

12:22

take it a step back. So what do I teach? I teach You

12:25

need two projects, one self-selected

12:27

and one free in quotes,

12:30

Lance project. So one project in

12:32

exchange for use

12:34

in your portfolio, you do the work.

12:37

Those two are

12:40

the way that you build

12:43

that. You begin to build these

12:45

stories of yourself as

12:48

a UX designer, as a developer, right?

12:51

You build your story in tech. You're

12:53

no longer a

12:56

physical therapist transitioning

12:58

into tech. You're no longer

13:00

a nutritionist turned UX

13:03

designer. You're a UX designer,

13:06

and you solve these problems. And

13:09

as they dig, you

13:11

may reference prior experiences, but

13:13

the more relevant experiences are going

13:15

to be in that field of technology

13:18

because you are solving a problem for

13:20

them. So this is the meta piece of UX

13:22

design, is that you really need to be empathetic

13:24

and think about the user. Just play

13:27

that role with the interviewer. What

13:30

do they care about? And what

13:32

happens is we lack the confidence.

13:35

We feel insecure because we haven't

13:37

done that before. And so when we come

13:39

from that place, it's really all about us. So

13:43

when we're insecure, it's about us. That

13:45

is a hard thing to step out of . The

13:48

more you can focus on them, the

13:50

interviewer and solving a problem

13:52

for them, the more confident

13:55

you'll sound and the better you will come

13:57

across. It's also

13:59

nice because it relieves you

14:01

of your insecurity, even literally

14:04

in the moment. It relieves you of it why you're

14:06

too busy thinking about them and the problem that

14:08

you're solving for them. So think about a cover letter

14:11

and this nuance of a cover letter telling your

14:13

story. Use UX

14:15

design and development examples

14:18

from these two projects. Okay?

14:20

Now, when you start these projects,

14:22

these self-selected almost

14:25

universally, the beginning, it

14:27

feels overwhelming. And like you're never going

14:29

to possibly be able to finish this in

14:32

the middle. It's exciting. You're

14:35

cranking it out, you love doing it every day

14:37

. It's super fun. And at the end, it

14:39

feels like it wasn't very much. This

14:43

is exactly the mistake

14:46

that you need to not make. You

14:49

need to look at that work that you did as

14:51

highly valuable. Now,

14:54

I would be remiss. So that's all about building your

14:56

portfolio. I would be remiss if I did not say

14:59

that getting hired faster and for more money

15:01

means going to a meetup on week one. Even

15:03

before you start yourself selected, even before

15:05

you start your freelance, you don't even know exactly

15:07

what's going on. And going to

15:10

those events, going to a meetup, talking to people,

15:12

letting them know, Hey, this is my

15:14

goal. I'm willing to do the work

15:16

in exchange for use in my portfolio. Do

15:19

you hear me keep saying that? That's because it's so important

15:21

that you understand that this work is going in your

15:23

portfolio. You are doing it, you're doing the full

15:25

project, it's going in your portfolio. You're not doing it for

15:27

free. You're not doing it to be nice. You're doing it

15:30

in exchange for use in your portfolio, but

15:32

you're also meeting people along the way

15:34

and taking them on your journey. Hey, remember

15:36

when I told you I was breaking into tech? Hey

15:38

, look, I've made my progress on my project

15:41

this far. Hey, look how far I've

15:43

come. So getting hired faster and

15:45

for more money means having stories

15:47

to talk about at the end to

15:50

an interviewer about that

15:52

you've been working on. And it

15:54

also means having someone

15:56

to interview you who isn't . Maybe

15:58

it's one of those people you met at at the meetup.

16:01

Maybe it's someone that they connected you

16:03

with, but it certainly

16:05

is someone that you met alone

16:07

. The way, because you're building your community

16:10

or someone that you already knew, someone

16:12

that you knew from a prior life who

16:15

trusts you and understands that you'll gain the

16:17

skills. So building your community is about

16:19

hate leveraging, talking to people that

16:22

you worked with a long time ago. Can

16:24

they help you out? And building new

16:26

relationships. You don't know where

16:28

it's gonna come from, right? Could be from one

16:30

the other, both. Some combination

16:33

isn't that great when there's a combination. So

16:36

that piece is really important. The

16:40

building your community piece. The

16:42

sooner you start that, the

16:45

better off you're gonna be. But when you say, okay, Ellen,

16:48

I'm at the beginning, I'm starting that. I

16:50

can't talk like a UX designer, that

16:52

is still your goal. That is still

16:54

your lens when you get to

16:56

the interviewing piece. And so every day

16:59

or once a week, you can look at

17:01

it and say, am I working towards

17:04

that? Oh, yeah, I can see what I've done. This is,

17:06

I definitely have people who might interview

17:08

me one day. I definitely am building

17:10

some stories that I can talk about in that interview. It's

17:13

really, if you think about

17:15

it, at its core, that's what you're doing. Am

17:17

I talking to people who could potentially interview me?

17:19

And am I, and am I building the

17:22

skills that I could potentially talk about as

17:24

relevant stories of

17:27

a tech professional in design or

17:30

development? That is how you can get hired

17:32

faster and for more money is to look at everything

17:34

through that lens. Okay?

17:37

So there's another piece about, remember

17:40

that you are not just,

17:42

you are not talking about your transition

17:45

from your prior work to this new work. And let

17:47

me tell you my story in the interview, they

17:50

don't care that much. And it's not because

17:52

they're mean or they don't love you, it's

17:54

because they have a problem and your job is to

17:56

solve it. And so you wanna talk about what is

17:58

relevant to them. Okay ? If

18:00

they ask you why did you make this transition

18:03

into tech? Then you can go

18:05

into that. But I would still

18:07

look at why you

18:09

love UX design, why you love development,

18:12

what excites you about it? What's interesting?

18:14

So that is what you wanna talk about. But this

18:16

other nuance that I'm seeing from

18:18

my students, and it's not something I'm

18:20

seeing from just my current students, it's

18:22

definitely been a consistent

18:25

theme from my students throughout the

18:27

years. And so to

18:29

kind of encapsulate this, I want to tell you

18:31

a story about Kevin, right? My

18:34

my husband. And it's a

18:36

story. It's pretty funny. So

18:39

this took place before he and I

18:41

were together. He was in high school. This

18:44

incident, he worked at a fancy

18:46

restaurant, just kidding. It was fast

18:49

food called rallies, and

18:51

it's like a hamburger joint, but

18:53

not as nice as McDonald's. Okay? So

18:55

that you've got the piece, you got the picture there. And he

18:57

worked at the drive-through window. And

19:01

here's what he literally did. He

19:04

moved the condiments that go

19:06

on the burger into a different order.

19:09

That would be an accurate description

19:11

of what happened, okay? But on his

19:13

resume, so in college, now we're

19:15

together and he's writing about this prior

19:18

experience. Here's

19:20

how he describes it. I'm not gonna get it perfect, but

19:22

this is close, improved

19:25

throughput through increasing

19:27

efficiency of pro

19:29

. Something about system or process

19:32

. And that's basically

19:34

the word, right? Ef effective <laugh>

19:36

efficiently produced increased

19:38

throughput for the system, and they did

19:40

get ranked based on how quickly the car could

19:42

go through the drive-through. So this is what he was referencing.

19:45

I mean, he had an internship at Chrysler, so

19:47

it worked. <laugh> we're gutless

19:49

of whether you think that's embellishment,

19:52

it doesn't exactly describe what happened in

19:54

detail. He was describing the highest value

19:58

way to look at that situation. And

20:00

it's a little bit funny. I remember making fun of

20:02

him at the time when he did it, but it's

20:04

really relevant because this

20:06

is a broad generalization. But

20:08

in general, I see

20:11

men making statements like that,

20:13

doing something and then selling

20:15

it really when they're talking about it,

20:17

selling it like it's this huge value add

20:20

activity. And what I described,

20:22

what I just described, I

20:24

mean, you probably did 20

20:26

things like that in a day. I

20:28

mean, from what the moms that I see,

20:30

they can do amazing things and they're

20:33

like, oh, it's nothing. Oh, it's no big deal. So

20:36

my challenge to you is that I don't

20:38

think you're describing your work with

20:41

enough value. And

20:43

I believe that if you look at it through

20:46

the lens of what is the highest value

20:48

way to describe what I'm

20:50

doing, I do not think that

20:52

you're going to lie or even

20:55

exaggerate. I would challenge

20:57

you <laugh> to go that extreme,

21:00

because in my experience,

21:02

you're not going far enough. You don't

21:04

go far enough to describe the value

21:07

that you are providing. So

21:09

why don't you try to stretch it a little bit like

21:11

that? Yoga stre , you know, we gotta stretch.

21:13

You gotta feel the pain a little bit to get

21:15

the output, try

21:18

to stretch it and say, how valuable

21:21

can I make this sound? Because what

21:23

I suspect is you're doing great

21:25

things. And

21:27

then at the end you're thinking that it's

21:29

not really that big

21:31

of a deal. But remember,

21:34

like before you did it, it was kind

21:36

of a big deal. It seemed really hard and

21:38

maybe even impossible. And

21:40

then you figured it out. And then once you figured it out,

21:42

then you diminish the value. So

21:45

check yourself, see if that's true for

21:47

you, because I think that's true for my

21:49

students. I think it's true for my current students, my previous

21:52

students, that may be the

21:54

one nuance and change that will

21:56

change everything in your trajectory and

21:58

help you to get hired faster and for more money.

22:01

I had so much fun being with you here. Thank

22:03

you so much for sharing your time with me. Hey, if you enjoyed

22:05

listening to this podcast, you have to

22:07

sign up for the techie email list.

22:09

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22:12

Join me to get the strategies training and

22:14

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22:16

Sign [email protected]. That's

22:19

Y O U A R E T

22:21

E C H y.com . I'll

22:23

see .