[? music ?] [Treehouse Friends]

[Pasan Premaratne] Here at Treehouse, one of our missions is to get our students into jobs.

Learning to code, while a big part of this challenge isn't all of it.

Today we're going to be talking to Rachel Parsons.

[Rachel Parsons] Rachel is currently a consultant iOS developer but has held many positions in different companies in a range of skill sets.

So I thought we could ask her what it means to be job ready.

Let's take a look.

So, Rachel, thank you for taking the time to do this with us today.

How are you doing?

I'm good.

Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, absolutely.

To start, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I've been developing apps on various platforms, primarily web, since the mid 90s.

I got into web development then and really found my passion for programming, mainly on the front end.

I dabbled a bit in the back end in college and throughout my career.

I've really found that my specialization comes on front end development with an emphasis on either web and, more recently, mobile.

>> Okay.

Not so much desktop, but I've written in just about every language you can think of—.NET, Java, CE—

writing iOS apps now.

I've done Android—all of the above.

What kind of made you jump around rather than—you know—do you have a favorite language

or do you just like kind of exploring different areas?

>> I like being diverse, and I like learning a lot.

I have a tendency to get bored with the same project and the same problems and the same solutions.

So I found that what has kept me most diverse is trying to be innovative with the technologies I have available

and finding new solutions for old problems or finding new innovative ways to apply old technology to new problems.

>> Gotcha.

So when I was kind of looking you up, I noticed that you had done a lot of different things and different languages—

big companies, small companies, consulting.

The theme for today's discussion is being job ready.

We have a lot of students here at Treehouse who go through our curriculum and learn to code,

whether its for iOS, Android, and you can speak to all of these areas.

Then they kind of look to what's the next—look at what the next step is.

You've been in the industry awhile and you've—you know—been in a bunch of different roles,

so I wanted to talk to you about what you think being job ready means.

>> Being job ready—that's a tough one because it encompasses so much.

I think one of the keys to being job ready in the technical world is be ready to learn and be ready to focus.

Despite the fact that I've had a pretty diverse technology experience or skill set, I have always focused at least some of my energy—

some amount of time to a technology.

So it's really rare that I'm doing .NET and Java at the same time.

I spent probably 5 years doing .NET and web development, specifically,

so taking—being prepared to devote 2 to 3 years to a technology, at least, if not longer, is really important.

Then being ready to learn.

You really have to be a fast learner if you're going to be in technology these days because it does move fast.

The JavaScript framework you use today is not the one you will use in 6 months.

Part of that is just the changing landscape of mobile, of desktop, and just the many different directions you can go.

So to be job ready, I think those 2 things are really important and that will help guide you on the path that you are meant to travel.

So you mentioned that for the technical side.

So what about—how important do you think are soft skills and are they necessary?

Things like—you know—networking and some of the cliched ones.

But just—you know—being able to work with teams.

How important are those things, and how can someone who doesn't go to a traditional school—

who uses something like Treehouse—

how can they shore up those skills to kind of prove that they're ready to enter the workforce?

>> Yeah—sure.

Soft skills are paramount, especially in the absence of extensive experience or in-depth technical skills.

That can actually put an employer over the edge as far as, yes, I'm going to hire that person.

Because anybody can learn technical skills, as you guys are fully aware,

anybody can pick up a book or sign up for a tutorial and learn Java or learn Objective-C.

But what it comes down to really is being able to interact with people.

You have to be able to talk to customers.

You have to be able to hold a conversation to present good ideas, to present bad ideas to clients,

and in software development everybody is your client, whether you're full-time or a consultant.

Everybody is a customer.

So you're constantly playing somewhat of a sales role whenever you're trying to push a feature or encourage a user to go a certain direction

with an implementation or architecture decision.

Those communication skills are paramount.

Presentation skills are really important.

Then, enthusiasm.

I think I have gotten at least 1 or 2 jobs based on my enthusiasm alone because that goes a long way from the hum-drum—

you know—here I am doing some software—that's no fun.

We all want to have at least a little bit of fun and energy at work.

Finding something that you're passionate about and bringing that passion to your work—that could take you so much further.

Now can you talk about how—you know—do you know of any ways people can improve—can gain these skills?

How can you learn these skills?

>>The best way that somebody can pick up these skills is practice.

Get in front of people, get out in the community, join the user groups,

start networking with people, figure out who your peers are, and participate.

My company just put on a hackathon and a lot of people were a little nervous—you know—what's that going to mean,

what's a hackathon?

What it really—what we were trying to encourage people to do is come out and try things, come out and practice,

maybe play with a technology that you are not familiar with, or interface with some people on a team that you're not familiar with—

that you don't work with on a daily basis because getting that different perspective—

and I see this just by going out into user groups and communities.

Getting that other perspective can shed a lot of light on a problem you're working through or a skill you're trying to practice,

and really the only way to prepare yourself is to practice—just get out there—you know—throw yourself out there.

Put yourself in an uncomfortable position and see what happens.

Now does that relate to the same—in the same way to learning technical skills?

Say you were to hire someone who just taught themselves how to code,

what kind of things are you looking for technically?

>> I am looking for technical acumen—not so much specifically with a language.

But more an underlying understanding—conceptual knowledge.

So study what you already know and then study maybe some things that you don't know,

and that—I think in technology we get so focused on a language or a platform,

and we forgot sometimes about all the other things that play into it.

In fact, today I was just trying to solve a math problem—to run algebra—all those skills that you learn in college you might not get

from an untraditional education track, but you can supplement that.

You can go out—seek those things out on your own.

Read a philosophy book.

read a math book or blog post or whatever.

That is an investment in yourself, and I think that's another angle of preparation that you can do on your own that will help build that.

Now I've noticed, like I mentioned earlier, that you've learned a lot of languages,

you've kind of done a lot of different things,

how did you learn?

Did you teach yourself?

What—can you kind of explain that process?

The majority of my technical skill has been self-taught.

I learned Java in college because they taught it.

I learned C and C++ a little bit.

I learned a little bit of the technology in college.

But really so much of it is self-taught, and you have to be able to learn that way if you're going to be technical.

It's just the way that the brain works and the platforms go.

What we were developing 10 years ago, we're not really writing that code anymore.

Even going from—for instance, right now, I'm writing iOS apps.

Even going from iOS 5 to an iOS 7 app is—it's a pretty big leap to try to make that connection and to get ramped up

on the frameworks and the APIs and all the things that change throughout.

Again, it really goes back to being able to learn quickly.

I think that's something I have learned.

I can learn quickly.

I figured out my mechanisms, whether it's practice or class or just throwing myself into it first.

What is that mechanism, if you don't mind me asking?

For me, personally, it's getting a book, and I've just recently switched to ebooks because that's a huge thing for me

to go technical—ebooks because now I can set with my Kindle or the app—the Kindle app up—either one, and actually write code.

I walk through examples, and that helps me learn really quickly because then if I have a real-world example

I know exactly what things are going to map to in other languages.

I can start relating—okay, this is Hello World, this is label in this language,

that's just like a label in .NET or in Java or whatever.

Learning—I learn by example—just actually doing something.

Okay.

Now let's switch tracks a little bit now.

What are some of the ways that—you know—you highlight these skills?

For our students who are just coming into these fields, what are different ways that they can highlight their skills,

whether technical or non-technical, that would—say—make you want to hire them?

>> I think it's really important to give specific examples.

Being able to give a concrete example of something that you do and you do well is—that's huge.

Because when you're interviewing, you could tell somebody anything.

But a skilled interviewer will be able to see through any nebulous or ambiguous words that you use—

any ambiguous stories that you tell or examples that you give.

It's pretty clear generally when you've done something and when you haven't.

The more specific an example you can give, even if it's just you being enthusiastic about something.

That goes—that's a lot better than just saying, "Well, I helped out on this app and I helped out on that app."

Those kinds of things tell me that you didn't really do anything, as opposed to I helped design and implement the

active directory scanner that pulled out employees and sorted them by name.

Specific examples go a long way.

Gotcha.

Now—you know—we talked about soft skills, what are ways that—like do you recommend kind of like going out to meet ups

and those kinds of things—user groups when looking for jobs?

What is kind of the best place for someone who's learning to go out and look for their first job?

>> It's really important who you know.

That's really what it comes down to.

You can talk to technical recruiters all day.

You could talk to non-technical recruiters all day.

As somebody who has hired people, I am looking for recommendations from people I know.

I'm looking for more of the story of somebody and less about what some recruiter is telling me about this person—

how this person may or may not fit.

Recruiters—I'm a bit skeptical of—sorry, recruiters.

We're all skeptical.

Ultimately, making those connections.

I have recommended people to certain jobs, and that's worked out really well.

I have been recommended to jobs, and I've gotten more jobs through word of mouth than anything else—or personal recommendations.

So yeah, go to meet ups.

Go to user groups.

Go to presentations and conferences.

I've gotten job offers at some of those places.

Just from talking to people, talking about what you're doing—it's at those places where you'll have those casual conversations

about what you're most passionate about and make connections that are a lot more meaningful than searching Dice.com

or talking to the guy at Joe's staffing company down the street.

So it's as important to put in time away from your computer, as much as it is to sit and hack away?

Most definitely, unless you're one of those hacker types that just wants somebody to slide pizza boxes under the door.

I mean if you actually want a job out in the real world, you have to get out there.

You have to put yourself out there.

You have to practice those interpersonal skills.

Because that is 50 percent of what people are looking for, unless you just want the job writing COBOL—

>> Right.

—which I know a couple guys.

That's great to hear because one of things we really try and—you know—we primarily teach how to code.

But as a business teacher here, it's kind of like my—I try to push as much behind those lessons that, yes, you're learning to code.

But you also need to kind of go out there—do as much of an effort in getting to know people and get to know your community

and those kinds of things.

Yeah, definitely.

Again, when looking through your history—kind of—I think—correct me if I'm wrong,

you did a brief stint—and you mentioned that—did a brief stint as a designer before realizing that you preferred programming.

Yeah, kind of—not so much designer as I explored the designer aspect of things.

I actually went to the Art Institute for Multimedia Web Design.

I was doing web development and knew I kind of wanted to take that to the next level, but I didn't really know what that meant.

So I went to the Art Institute, and when I discovered that I wasn't a very good designer,

I decided to switch tracks and go to something a little bit more technical.

I left there and went back to a regular university because I had already finished half of a degree program.

For me, it was about trying something different.

I don't regret any of that.

It was 9 months well-spent—a lot of money but 9 months well-spent.

Just to find out that something I tried didn't work out.

I have no question now that I am not a designer.

Yeah—sorry—go on.

I'm just a little too logical for that side.

Yeah.

The question I had out of that was do you recommend that as an approach?

Did it—was it—I guess it was useful for you to figure out what you really wanted to do.

Do you recommend people trying out different things or just—like bunkering down and going with one—

I want to learn how to write iPhone apps so let me just focus on Objective-C and Xcode for the next 8 months or a year?

>> Yeah.

I think it should be moderated.

It's—you can't keep switching tracks every week.

You can't—I mean, you can if you want, but it's not very productive,

and I don't think it's fair to a technology or a platform or an approach or to yourself to invest so little time that you can't really evaluate it.

With art school for me, that was 9 months.

At the end of 9 months, I realized this is not taking me down the road that I want to go,

this is—I'm not happy going this direction.

I wasn't happy the other way, but this is really not what I want to do.

So I gave it 9 months of solid effort and investment before I made that change and said, "Okay, I need to go do something different."

Yeah, I encourage it, but I think you really have to make sure that you give every option its fair opportunity.

If you're going to learn mobile, pick one of the technologies—Android, iOS, and do it for—

you have to do it for at least 6 months, in my opinion.

A language or a platform—that kind of thing needs at least 6 months of real, solid effort because for most people

that's how long it's going to take for you to get a full grasp on it.

If you're a slower learner, you might need more time.

You really just kind of have to figure out what that time-frame is for yourself.

But for me it's about 6 months, and I try to devote a little bit more because I like to get a little bit more advanced.

I like to see what else can I do with this technology.

How far can I take it?

I am at 2-1/2 years in iOS development right now, and it's getting a little bit hum-drum.

As they come out with new stuff and I have new ideas—

I'm starting to play with some different aspects of the framework and doing different things with the technology.

Cool.

To kind of wrap up, I just wanted to ask you one final question.

What advice do you have to people who are just entering the field—if you had just one piece of advice to give them?

>> Be persistent.

Be persistent.

If you have a passion for this, keep at it.

There is a lot of competition for jobs and for the fun projects.

But if you're really good at what you do and you keep at it, you will get what you want.

So just keep pounding.

Well, thank you very much, Rachel.

>> Thank you too, John. >> It was a pleasure talking to you.

If any of our students want to get in touch with you, what's the best way?

Twitter is probably the easiest way to find me.

I am out there @pinkeerach.

Cool.

That's an interesting name.

Yes.

That's Pinky and the Brain.

Nice.

Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you.

[? music ?] Treehouse Friends]