Following up from my previous post <\/a>about the very inspiring ACT-W NY conference\u00a0with a write-up of my notes.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, I could not\u00a0attend all of the presentations, but they were all interesting an inspiring. Below are notes from just a few of the speakers I heard.<\/p>\n Her advice came in two parts, due to being a speaker in two presentations at the conference. I liked what she had to say in the first one, I went to the second.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her advice was about diversity and the importance of being yourself. There were two main take-aways:<\/p>\n One:<\/strong> Diversity is important because<\/strong> if everyone is the same, it means they can all fail the same way<\/strong>.<\/span><\/em> She went on to give an example about how, as a new member of the engineering team, she solved a critical error that all the other experienced team members failed to recognize. Her value to the team was her knowledge about their customers, not her skill as a software engineer.<\/p>\n Two: It’s important to be honest.<\/strong> In her example, she recognized that you’re not an impostor if you say you’re 2nd best<\/strong>.<\/em><\/span> She again related a story where her manage told her that he didn’t hire her to be the best engineer. He hired her for her customer expertise.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Natasha’s second talk, she presented a list of career aphorisms based on what she had done well vs things she wishes she could have done better. I think the first list mostly speaks for itself. But I’ll explain the second a little more, because I think it’s interesting and helpful.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This talk was given by two people from General Assembly. I think their job was to help students find jobs, or help them find\u00a0support. (Another example of working in tech, but not being technical.)<\/p>\n At first, I was really annoyed when this talk started. I thought it would be about building a personal brand, which is an area where I felt I could use help. Instead the dual presenters gave somewhat detailed stories about their backgrounds, which I was kind of annoyed by.\u00a0However, they helped make it useful by talking about how to use your story to convey to employers how you can help them.<\/p>\n The Q&A and Summary section really clarified a few points from them, about what employers are looking for when it comes to the non-technical qualities of an employment candidate:<\/p>\n In addition, in combination with YZ Chin’s story above, I came away with the idea that I should think of my story into tech as unique to me – and I shouldn’t feel ashamed or embarrassed to talk about how I didn’t go to design school or study engineering. I’m not being an impostor by admitting that my path into the tech industry was a straight line. Some employers might find that meandering experience valuable.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My last talk of the day, I actually cannot remember what it was called. But it was about finding peace at work and learning to cope with difficult situations.<\/p>\n In this story, the presenter talked about how she created her own job, at her current company, after running into resistance and unhappiness in her previous role.<\/p>\n If you think it, you will say it. If you say it, you will do it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They attributed that to Confucius but many people have said something similar.<\/p>\n Speakers and Notes\u00a0from \u201cAdvancing The Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W)\u201d New York 2017 Conference Following up from my previous post about the very inspiring ACT-W NY conference\u00a0with a write-up of my notes. Unfortunately, I could not\u00a0attend all of the presentations, but they were all interesting an inspiring. Below are notes from just a few of … Continue reading “Event: Advancing The Careers of Technical Women (ACT-W), Details”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[420,80,1,8,373],"tags":[350,451,412,453,452,450],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2309"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2408,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2309\/revisions\/2408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPresentation\u00a0One: Advice about promoting yourself, by\u00a0Natasha Awasthi<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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\nPresentation 2: A story about diversity, by YZ Chin<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\nPresentation 3: What she did well \/ What she wishes she done better, by Natasha Awasthi\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
What she wishes she had done better<\/h5>\n
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What she\u00a0did well<\/h5>\n
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\nPresentation 3: How to Tell Your Story \/ Personal Brand, by General Assembly<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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\nFinal Talk of the Day<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
A quote:<\/h5>\n
A few more:<\/h5>\n
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