Speaker 1: I'm Will Lucas and black Tag Green Money. Did you
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Speaker 1: Every every employer is pretty much dropping the requirement to
Speaker 1: have a college degree. This non profit organisations like one
Speaker 1: ten a thing to constant of the audience, Shout out
Speaker 1: to one ten all these fortunate for our hundred copies
Speaker 1: that dropping the dequirement that have a cost to gree
Speaker 1: be because since the pandemic kid. One point four million
Speaker 1: people haven't stopped going to college and that enroll those
Speaker 1: enrollment numbers are dropping. And the reason why isn't because
Speaker 1: college isn't important. What people are starting to shift towards
Speaker 1: the outcomes driven education bottel and it's not just about
Speaker 1: did you graduate to get a certificate? Did this education
Speaker 1: get you a job? I'm Will Lucas and this is
Speaker 1: Black Tech, Green Money, afro Techo Austin, Texas, our very
Speaker 1: young Tearran pod rails on the main stage at afro
Speaker 1: Tech talking with Ruben Harris, who's co founder and CEO
Speaker 1: at Career Karma, and Sydney Sampson black Well, an engineer
Speaker 1: who came through the Career Karma programming about how to
Speaker 1: better prepare ourselves for the changing demands of the workforce.
Speaker 1: Career Karma is technology what helps match students with educational
Speaker 1: opportunities like boot kids, so we're better prepared for product
Speaker 1: and technical careers. Let's listen to the discussion. Hi, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'm Taran Powdrew. I am the director of People Operations
Speaker 1: for Blevity, and I'm really excited to be here with
Speaker 1: Ruben and Sydney today to talk about rescaling and breaking
Speaker 1: into tech. UM. So we have a lot to cover.
Speaker 1: We're gonna jump right in. UM. So, Ruben, can you
Speaker 1: start with just giving us the backstory on a career
Speaker 1: karma for those that don't know what is career karma
Speaker 1: and how did it come to be? Yeah, So career
Speaker 1: Comma gives product led career guidance for people or for
Speaker 1: workers that are seeking skills, peers, colleges, mentorships, job opportunities,
Speaker 1: but even ongoing career training after they're employed. UM. It's
Speaker 1: a product that we wish that we had when we
Speaker 1: were breaking in the tech when we realized that you
Speaker 1: can get jobs that pay six figures without going into college. UM,
Speaker 1: that was pretty interesting to me. Before career karma, UM,
Speaker 1: everybody wanted to break into finance. So there's things like
Speaker 1: breaking into Wall Street, UM, merging and inquisitions and we
Speaker 1: started a podcast called Breaking into Startups UM. And and
Speaker 1: that's how it all starts. The product that we wish
Speaker 1: that we had when we recommence set All right, UM,
Speaker 1: and Sydney, I know that you actually utilized career karma
Speaker 1: to break in attack yourself. Can you tell us about
Speaker 1: your backstory and what led you to a career Karma perfect.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, So I'm sitting me from East Stokland, California. Uh,
Speaker 1: I have had a long life. Um, I feel like
Speaker 1: my life is long. I feel like I'm an o
Speaker 1: G already. I'm only twenty four. I've been taking care
Speaker 1: of myself since I was sixteen. So the last eight
Speaker 1: years have been some of the longest, most hardest, and
Speaker 1: challenging times of my life. But now so um yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think back in twenty nineteen is when I
Speaker 1: fell upon career Karma and I met Reuben. And up
Speaker 1: until I found career Karma, I was outside during door
Speaker 1: dash delivering for Postmates, delivering for Instacart, caviar Um, every
Speaker 1: single app that you can think about to make money
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. I was doing it and I
Speaker 1: needed to figure out, you know, how can I use
Speaker 1: my skill set, my entrepreneur mindset to you know, get
Speaker 1: to a point where I don't have to work all
Speaker 1: the time. I could smile. You know, I can wake
Speaker 1: up happy about going to my job, and I can
Speaker 1: do things that not only motivate me, but motivate other people.
Speaker 1: So right, I think the day when I found a
Speaker 1: career Karma app, I was actually working as a SNA.
Speaker 1: So I went from delivering, you know, delivering food and
Speaker 1: to working in the hospital as a SIENNA and I
Speaker 1: was just like, this is not it. I'm not happy here.
Speaker 1: I got so much more to offer to the world
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to figure it out. My friends
Speaker 1: sent me the Career Karma app. I downloaded it and
Speaker 1: I've been with grouping never since. All Right, so I
Speaker 1: know that squads are a core component of what Career
Speaker 1: Karma offers. Can you tell us about squads? What are
Speaker 1: squads and why are they important? Yeah? So there's there's
Speaker 1: a few things that are important in career KMMA. So
Speaker 1: when someone like Sydney comes to Career Comma there they're
Speaker 1: looking for new skills. And the problem is that there's
Speaker 1: thousands of job training programs that exist. So the first
Speaker 1: thing that we provide is matching, UM to talk about
Speaker 1: it in the second so as we match you too
Speaker 1: a program. UM that can be very overwhelming because UM,
Speaker 1: as you're trying to go through interviews, it's hard to
Speaker 1: know you know what to ask in the interview. UM,
Speaker 1: it's hard to know who else in your neighborhood and
Speaker 1: in East Oakland, UM is actually going through this process
Speaker 1: as well. So rather than putting you into this huge
Speaker 1: network of thousands of people and the app, we actually
Speaker 1: focus on small groups. So the short answer is a
Speaker 1: squad is a small group. We actually connected the peers,
Speaker 1: coaches and mentors and and live audio rooms. Um. And
Speaker 1: so what the squad is essentially is a peer group
Speaker 1: of people that are enrolled in job training programs that
Speaker 1: help you stay psychologically motivated while you're enrolled going through
Speaker 1: a program. And Sydney actually created one of the first
Speaker 1: squads in Career Karma so that um, after they graduate,
Speaker 1: they could also find jobs since most jobs are offline
Speaker 1: and come to a frall. So this peer group stays
Speaker 1: with you during the program and then also when you're
Speaker 1: looking for a job, they let you know about opportunities
Speaker 1: that are not websites. Okay, and what would you say
Speaker 1: are some of the core skills that you would look
Speaker 1: for in a squad mentor like what makes the squad
Speaker 1: mentor impactful? Yeah, so there's a UM. The squad concept
Speaker 1: also was inspired by uh this concept called the mobile.
Speaker 1: So it's a really good article in New York Times
Speaker 1: called the Power of Positive People, and so UM it's
Speaker 1: about Okinawa, Japan, and it's where women live, the oldest
Speaker 1: in the world. And the idea is it's easier to
Speaker 1: go through life if you have a safety net. So
Speaker 1: as a squad leader, you're someone that essentially is going
Speaker 1: to make sure that you hold it down for your
Speaker 1: people no matter what if they have a question that
Speaker 1: if they're they're seeking guidance, you're gonna look out for them.
Speaker 1: And in order to do that, you have to be
Speaker 1: a very good communicator. If you're having a hard day,
Speaker 1: you still have to be able to put a smile
Speaker 1: on your face to make sure that they stay motivated
Speaker 1: as well. Um, you have to make sure they're not
Speaker 1: just connected to educational resources, to financial resources. You might
Speaker 1: have to help them find housing or financial um innovative
Speaker 1: things like that. So those are some of the key elements. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's a good segue. Sydney. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: about your experience forming the squad that you formed and
Speaker 1: how that impacted your experience? Perfect? So, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: I started in Career Karma. I think it was maya,
Speaker 1: twent nineteen, So I remember the first day I downloaded
Speaker 1: the app. There's so much going on I'm hearing all
Speaker 1: these topics stuff that I don't know, you know, what
Speaker 1: is going on? What is this? What is HTML right?
Speaker 1: What is JavaScript? Um? Like? What is all of these things?
Speaker 1: And it didn't make sense to me. So Ruben had
Speaker 1: this thing where, you know, we can all go to
Speaker 1: a live zoom call. We could connect with other people
Speaker 1: all around the world who were also interested in the
Speaker 1: same thing. We connected, shared our stories and I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, boom, I got my squad. I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: my squad young and Ambitious, because we're all young and ambitious, striving,
Speaker 1: you know, to change the world. And I think one
Speaker 1: of my first members is in the audience somewhere, miss
Speaker 1: Danielle Madri who uh but yeah. We formed this group
Speaker 1: together back in twenty nineteen, and I think as of
Speaker 1: right now we're hitting about we're a little over thirty
Speaker 1: jobs right now that we have landed across our squad um.
Speaker 1: Not only do we help folks get jobs, we help
Speaker 1: folks level up at their current job. We help folks
Speaker 1: pass their interviews, We do resume reviews, we do open
Speaker 1: source projects. Everything you can think of to level up,
Speaker 1: break into the industry, or get to the next level.
Speaker 1: My squad is doing it right now and we've been
Speaker 1: doing it for the last three years. I mean, name
Speaker 1: some of the companies where people got jobs and what
Speaker 1: roles they had, so Boom Mamatic Centure. UM. I think
Speaker 1: the first job Danielle had she was at get Lab.
Speaker 1: My sister Lanie was at New Cella. UM. I got
Speaker 1: two people that got hired at Lows. UM, I got
Speaker 1: another guy, a couple of people that was at Twitter. UM.
Speaker 1: We we just be all over the place right and
Speaker 1: when people see why and they walk in the room,
Speaker 1: they know who we are and they know what we're
Speaker 1: standing for. That's amazing. UM. So, Sydney, can you talk
Speaker 1: to us about how having this squad impacted your experience
Speaker 1: as you went through boot camp? Like I said, the
Speaker 1: boot camp was very hard, and it was like if
Speaker 1: I didn't have my family to me, I don't know
Speaker 1: how I would have made it. Like there were many
Speaker 1: nights where a lot of us were trying to pass
Speaker 1: projects or trying to pass lads. We didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do or we would get into, you know, come
Speaker 1: into a roadblock. And I had some of my Wayne
Speaker 1: folks that would be online all night. So it'd be
Speaker 1: like twelve midnight and I'm posting the Slack channel. Yo,
Speaker 1: I ran into an issue. This project is due tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Who can come online right now and help me out?
Speaker 1: And I know that there's been several people that we
Speaker 1: didn't stayed up all night working through errors together, working
Speaker 1: through bugs together, and now like exactly exactly we cried.
Speaker 1: Some of us wanted to give up. Um. I remember
Speaker 1: during the boot camp. I think in the beginning we
Speaker 1: were all like, we can't do this, this is too much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Ruben was like, y'all started this for a reason,
Speaker 1: Like y'all got your family, Like y'all not doing it
Speaker 1: by yourself. So if you have a friend, you have
Speaker 1: a community, it makes it a little bit easier when
Speaker 1: you run into those bugs because you've got somebody to
Speaker 1: lend on. Yeah, okay, And were there any particular skills
Speaker 1: that you felt like translated well from your prior experience
Speaker 1: into the text base that was okay? Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: think one of the main things that help me get
Speaker 1: to where I am now is that I've always been
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur. I've been an entrepreneur since high school. I
Speaker 1: started building businesses in high school. I think the very
Speaker 1: first business I built was a cleaning company. And I
Speaker 1: was sixteen and seventeen cleaning houses for software engineers and
Speaker 1: data scientists in San Francisco, and I was just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have all of these skills. I know how to
Speaker 1: run a company. I know how to you know, manage people,
Speaker 1: I know how to manage teams. Now I need to
Speaker 1: bridge all of those things into what I'm doing right
Speaker 1: now in technology. Quick question, did everybody that get those jobs?
Speaker 1: Did they all go to college? Nope. I didn't go
Speaker 1: to college either. I think I I was in the
Speaker 1: middle of my college degree when I found you, and
Speaker 1: I started becoming a career coach at Career Karma and
Speaker 1: realized that people that are not saying that college is
Speaker 1: a bad thing. I'm not gonna tell you all that
Speaker 1: because I want everybody to get educated. I want everybody
Speaker 1: to do what's for them right. But for me, it
Speaker 1: was a lot going on. I was working three jobs
Speaker 1: and trying to go to school, where when I found
Speaker 1: a boot camp, they're like, Okay, you can do part time.
Speaker 1: You can still keep your jobs. We are asking you
Speaker 1: for no money. You don't got to pay no tuition.
Speaker 1: We want you to learn these skills and get a job,
Speaker 1: and when you get a job, then you can start
Speaker 1: paying us back. Sign me yet. Yeah, that's a great
Speaker 1: pivot point because I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what's going on, you know, kind of more at
Speaker 1: the macro level. Um. So there have been a lot
Speaker 1: of shifts in the post secondary education market, particularly in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. UM, can you talk to
Speaker 1: us about that, Reuben, what's going on in the post
Speaker 1: secondary education market? Yeah? I mean you you've heard sudainly
Speaker 1: talked about bootcasts multiple times, and like she said, it's
Speaker 1: not just about bootcapts first colleges. Um. There's a really
Speaker 1: good article called the post secondary education market is Unbundling.
Speaker 1: So there's there's Bootcaster, there's colleges. There's corporate led courses
Speaker 1: like Google Certificates. There's non degree courses like e Cornell.
Speaker 1: There's massive open online courses like Cours Sera UM. But everyone,
Speaker 1: every employer is pretty much dropping the requirement to have
Speaker 1: a college degree. There's nonprofit organizations like one ten. I
Speaker 1: think to contests in the audience out out to one ten.
Speaker 1: All these fortunate companies are dropping the requirement to have
Speaker 1: a cost degree because since the pandemic hit one point
Speaker 1: four million people have stopped going to college and that enrolled.
Speaker 1: Those enrollment numbers are dropping. And the reason why it
Speaker 1: isn't because college isn't important, but people are starting to
Speaker 1: shift towards the outcomes driven education model and it's not
Speaker 1: just about did you graduate and get a certificate? Did
Speaker 1: this education get to a job. Sidney has been talking
Speaker 1: a lot about Bootcasts. Book has pioneered short form outcomes
Speaker 1: driven education that is relevant for today's students. Most students
Speaker 1: aren't eighteen year olds. There thirty five plus with kids
Speaker 1: that can't go to schools full time. So even if
Speaker 1: you make education free, you actually can go to school.
Speaker 1: So you need part time and self pace options. But
Speaker 1: most schools aren't free, and so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: innovation happening with how you pay for education. So Sydney
Speaker 1: was able to take advantage of something called an income
Speaker 1: share agreement. There's things like their tuition, but these days
Speaker 1: there's now employers that are paying for your college and
Speaker 1: on the job training and starting to be a big deal.
Speaker 1: So long story short, um, the education system will continue unbundling.
Speaker 1: It won't just be every day that I mentioned. There
Speaker 1: will be individuals training people, um, launching their own courses. Um,
Speaker 1: there's organizations like reforge and on date that exists. Why
Speaker 1: Combinator is an education institution, so UM that optionality, those
Speaker 1: stacks of course are going to also create more difficulties
Speaker 1: in choosing where you want to go to school, which
Speaker 1: is this process by analysis, which is why matching to
Speaker 1: the right education matters, and why one education system won't
Speaker 1: train the entire world, and why you need some some
Speaker 1: some kind of directory. Yeah, so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunity then for people who are seeking a post secondary education.
Speaker 1: How should people be strategically thinking about how they invest
Speaker 1: in their education? I mean, I think it's really important
Speaker 1: to understand, like why are you signing up for education?
Speaker 1: I think most people that are going to school And
Speaker 1: some people will disagree with me on this, and that's okay, Um,
Speaker 1: is you're going to school to get a job in
Speaker 1: more money. Um. And for a lot of people, even
Speaker 1: after they graduate, whatever they studied and they're actually not
Speaker 1: using it in their employment. And so if I were
Speaker 1: you and you're trying to figure out where you want
Speaker 1: to go to school, I would ask them how many
Speaker 1: people have gotten jobs in the role that you want. Um,
Speaker 1: do they have an online or part time self pace options.
Speaker 1: This is really important because some people will say online
Speaker 1: education isn't for me. But after the pandemic hit, the
Speaker 1: remote work genie came out of the bottle. I mean,
Speaker 1: people are here at Avro Tech, so shout out to
Speaker 1: Afro Tech. But for the last two years this was
Speaker 1: all in the metaverse, right, That's what helped it survive.
Speaker 1: But now employers have to provide either fully remote work
Speaker 1: options or hybrid remote work options. So you actually don't
Speaker 1: have a choice but to learn how to work with
Speaker 1: other people online. So if that's going to be the
Speaker 1: case and people are always going to be learning, then
Speaker 1: you should probably find to learn. You should probably learn
Speaker 1: how to learn online because at some point in your
Speaker 1: life you're going to be educated in that way. In
Speaker 1: my opinion. UM. Third, it's important to find a cohort
Speaker 1: of people that are like you, that are going through
Speaker 1: this as well, because you're not always going to be
Speaker 1: able to cry on the shoulder of your teachers, like
Speaker 1: you'll be able to ask your teachers questions, but also
Speaker 1: your teachers might have limited amounts of time and especially
Speaker 1: as the world, because of world global because of remote work,
Speaker 1: you're not going to have that peer group of people
Speaker 1: that are going to help you along the way. And
Speaker 1: then finally you have to decide that you really want this,
Speaker 1: because I promise you, if you're trying to do anything
Speaker 1: that's hard, you're gonna feel like quitting and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to psychologically put yourself to go through this. Career
Speaker 1: navigation isn't about education. Career navigations about psychology. So you
Speaker 1: have to decide first today. All right, well, Sydney, can
Speaker 1: you tell us about some of the factors that you
Speaker 1: considered when you were weighing your options around post secondary education. Definitely,
Speaker 1: to me, it was all about my future, um, And
Speaker 1: it was like, I can either keep doing what I'm
Speaker 1: doing now, keep stressing, keep working hard, keep working two
Speaker 1: to three jobs, or I can imagine life ten years
Speaker 1: from now. Imagine you know, the house I want, the
Speaker 1: family I want to build, Um, Imagine just getting up,
Speaker 1: going to go clock in to work, you know, having
Speaker 1: stand ups, then going out for lunch, being able to
Speaker 1: run Like we don't get those things in these you know,
Speaker 1: regular jobs, these regular nine to five working labor jobs.
Speaker 1: You don't get these luxuries right, Like, so the fact
Speaker 1: that tech it gives you that opportunity, like to do
Speaker 1: things that you've never been able to do before for
Speaker 1: your family. Like right now, I finally got a house.
Speaker 1: I never had a house growing up. You know, like
Speaker 1: it feels so good. It feels so good that when
Speaker 1: I get paid, I can pay my bills and I
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about Okay, let me pay this bill,
Speaker 1: or let me eat top Romen for the night. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't gotta worry about those things because tech put
Speaker 1: everything in a place for me. So you gotta think
Speaker 1: about yourself. You gotta think about what you want. You
Speaker 1: gotta think about your life ten years from now, twenty
Speaker 1: years from now, thirty years from now, forty years from now,
Speaker 1: Like you got to think about that, what do you want?
Speaker 1: Who do you want people to look at you as?
Speaker 1: What do you want people to look at you? You
Speaker 1: know when you walk in the room, Like all of
Speaker 1: that matters. And to me, like I said, I wanted
Speaker 1: to live luxury, so baby, I had to go get
Speaker 1: it all right, Uh, Ruben, can you talk to us
Speaker 1: about the role that employers play. How do they fit
Speaker 1: into the post secondary education ecosystem. Yeah, I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: take a step back and talk about the segment employers.
Speaker 1: So before I mentioned a career common house, job training programs,
Speaker 1: find qualified applicanst we have about two and a half
Speaker 1: million people a month that come to us looking for
Speaker 1: career advice, mostly women and people of color. And UM,
Speaker 1: what's interesting about this whole phenomenon now is that employers
Speaker 1: themselves wanted take an active role in people's education. UM.
Speaker 1: Sydney talked a lot about, um, the luxuries that education provides.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of fear in the market right now,
Speaker 1: a lot of layoffs, there's there's a recession that's coming. Um.
Speaker 1: But what a lot of people forget is that benefits
Speaker 1: were introduced during the depression, during the the Roosevelt era
Speaker 1: to compete in the market. And so there's health care benefits,
Speaker 1: there's for one, key benefits, but there's also education benefits.
Speaker 1: Now pretty much any employer can actually pay for your education.
Speaker 1: You know, the g I Bill which is available for
Speaker 1: veterans to pay for your education existed. So there's things
Speaker 1: like I says in the first tuition. But I know
Speaker 1: where Sydney works and at a lot of employers they
Speaker 1: will actually pay for your education. So there's actually a
Speaker 1: whole movement of people that are just going straight into
Speaker 1: education and the employer will either pay for your skills
Speaker 1: training or your college action. There's a whole big phenomenon
Speaker 1: called UM stackable credentials. So sometimes you can choose to
Speaker 1: do a boot camp and get college credit, and if
Speaker 1: you want to advanced to do college, you can. And
Speaker 1: so now Career Common started to work with employers UM
Speaker 1: providing product led career guidance for employees that want to
Speaker 1: continue up leveling their careers UM and and figure out
Speaker 1: how to get all these points solutions that they've invested
Speaker 1: in to talk to each other and really manage that
Speaker 1: experience and to end And why do you think that
Speaker 1: employers are kind of moving in this direction of like
Speaker 1: pivoting away from kind of the more traditional educational benefits
Speaker 1: and going more in this direction. Here's here's a cool
Speaker 1: step that I just learned. So fifty of babies born
Speaker 1: in the last decade are going to live until a
Speaker 1: hundred and four. Fifty percent of the babies in the
Speaker 1: last decade are going to live until a hundred four.
Speaker 1: What does that mean is that means that we're gonna
Speaker 1: switch from a three stage career where you go to
Speaker 1: uh school, work and retire to you know, fifty age
Speaker 1: fifty being the new thirty, right, so you're gonna actually
Speaker 1: be working longer, so you're gonna go to multiple schools
Speaker 1: and multiple companies in the lifetime, or if you decide
Speaker 1: to stay at the same company. You know, you saw
Speaker 1: what happened with the Great Resignation. This is a weird
Speaker 1: recession where there's still a lot of open jobs, a
Speaker 1: lot of employers here that are hiring heavy, but they're
Speaker 1: also focused on retaining you because, like like Sydney said,
Speaker 1: a lot of the employers want to take care of you.
Speaker 1: And you can't take care of your people only by
Speaker 1: paying them good money, because you can get good money
Speaker 1: wherever you go. Right. So um, because technology is changing
Speaker 1: the world so crazy. Um, the skills that you have
Speaker 1: will get outdated. I think the half life of the
Speaker 1: skill is like a year and a half or two years.
Speaker 1: So employers are really getting active and providing ongoing training
Speaker 1: to their people. But also community. Right. One of the
Speaker 1: early elements of community inside companies is e RG groups.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of RG groups represented here, and I
Speaker 1: think it's one of the biggest like examples of kind
Speaker 1: of a squad inside of a company that exists that
Speaker 1: isn't fully levelaged as much as it should be or
Speaker 1: it could be. Um, some people do this well. I
Speaker 1: mean even when you have large employers that are not
Speaker 1: thought of as tech tech companies, like a big bank
Speaker 1: or a big logistics or truck and company, they're investing
Speaker 1: heavy and technology. But if you're heavy investing like driverless
Speaker 1: cars or in electric cars, or in robotics in the warehouse,
Speaker 1: what happens to all the other people? You know? You
Speaker 1: guys heard Mark Cuban yesterday talking about cost plus drugs.
Speaker 1: You saw a big pharmacies investing in digital shutting down
Speaker 1: the retail stores. What happens to their people? Right? So
Speaker 1: for us, if you go to Career, Commedy, Constus Enterprise,
Speaker 1: you'll see it says every company is a tech company.
Speaker 1: Bring your people to the future with you. The way
Speaker 1: to bring your people to the future with you is
Speaker 1: by investing in their education, because all of us are
Speaker 1: students and need to always be learning. Um. All right, Sydney,
Speaker 1: is there anything that you would want to add to that?
Speaker 1: Just from a perspective of why is this important for
Speaker 1: employers to do? Yeah, like I know right now, Like
Speaker 1: I said, I'm a software engineer UM at a centre.
Speaker 1: UM and Accenture is very much invested in us, right
Speaker 1: like we are their products. So if they can't you know,
Speaker 1: sell us and sell our skills, they don't make money. Right.
Speaker 1: So ever since I've been there, I think I didn't
Speaker 1: gotten like two to three certifications in the last year.
Speaker 1: For the last two months, I've been working on Google certifications,
Speaker 1: AWS certifications. Everything they send me on my email, I'm
Speaker 1: signing up for it, right because what company do you
Speaker 1: know that's that much invested into their people? We all,
Speaker 1: day by day, you know, are trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do, how are we gonna feed
Speaker 1: our families? And then we find only get that job,
Speaker 1: and a lot of us like to take a break.
Speaker 1: You know, we think just because we got the job
Speaker 1: that we're here, we don't have to keep learning, we
Speaker 1: don't have to keep getting up skilled and getting certified.
Speaker 1: And that's not true. So if you feel like that
Speaker 1: you got your job, and you feel like you made
Speaker 1: it and you can sit down, you should move over
Speaker 1: for somebody else because you wasting time. Right Like, you're
Speaker 1: there and you have these companies that are invested in you.
Speaker 1: The world is moving, like he said, right now. You know,
Speaker 1: we're about to go into you know, a recession. People
Speaker 1: are getting laid off. So why would you get high
Speaker 1: You're at a company and choose to just sit down?
Speaker 1: Why would you choose to not keep learning? You know,
Speaker 1: keep getting educated, keep trying to reach to the top.
Speaker 1: You know, when I sit in meetings at Accenture and
Speaker 1: people are asking me about my experience and who I
Speaker 1: want to be, I'm telling everybody that's at the top,
Speaker 1: I want to be like you. I want to re
Speaker 1: running you know, the company. I want to be sitting
Speaker 1: next to Julie Sweets in a few years, you know,
Speaker 1: like I want to be at the top. So show
Speaker 1: me what I gotta do to get to the top.
Speaker 1: If I gotta do to three four, five, seven, nineteen
Speaker 1: certifications a month to get there, then I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1: It is what it is, but you gotta want it.
Speaker 1: You gotta be hungry. And I think that's one thing
Speaker 1: that set me different when I came to career Karma,
Speaker 1: because I came hungry I came ready to win, I
Speaker 1: came ready to take over, and yeah, my brain is
Speaker 1: filled with knowledge and certifications right now. Well, speaking of
Speaker 1: being proactive, if you're at a company that doesn't offer
Speaker 1: these kinds of benefits or programs, what are some things
Speaker 1: Sydney that people can do proactively kind of on their
Speaker 1: own to come joinin? There? We go, there's there's there's
Speaker 1: an option. Um, what are some things that people can
Speaker 1: do on their own to advance their skills? Find mentorship
Speaker 1: outside of a more formal program. I would say the
Speaker 1: number one thing is to find your community, find your
Speaker 1: people that you want to sit with, that you want
Speaker 1: to win with, that you want to be great with,
Speaker 1: and you guys come up with a plan of how
Speaker 1: you guys are going to get there. My entire squad
Speaker 1: we all went to boot camp together. The majority of
Speaker 1: us went to flat Earned School because we said that
Speaker 1: we didn't want to do it alone. One of us
Speaker 1: got enrolled and it was like a boomerang effect. Right
Speaker 1: after one person got enrolled, the next one did, the
Speaker 1: next one, and then I remember at one point it
Speaker 1: was like eight of us in Flatterer and School at
Speaker 1: the same time, in different cohorts, but we were all
Speaker 1: able to you know, pivot off of each other, help
Speaker 1: bouncing the ideas off of each other, and still help
Speaker 1: each other. So the number one thing is finding your community,
Speaker 1: finding the people you want to eat with and you
Speaker 1: want to win with. And then from there is now
Speaker 1: you know, maximizing the opportunity. See what's hot in the
Speaker 1: market right, See who you want to be if you're
Speaker 1: somebody right now, there's a recruiter right and you're seeing
Speaker 1: all of these, you know, other black engineers becoming engineers,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to figure out how they're doing it.
Speaker 1: Go sit down and have lunch with a black engineer.
Speaker 1: See how they got to where they got, See what
Speaker 1: they're doing to keep their job, and see if you
Speaker 1: can even just you know, get ten minutes on their
Speaker 1: calendar a week just to talk to them and see
Speaker 1: what's that life like and how you can get there.
Speaker 1: But if you don't take that initiative, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: in that position or wherever you are, stuck forever. You
Speaker 1: gotta be the one to take that leap of faith.
Speaker 1: And if you want to find that community and you
Speaker 1: want to get those skills to go to career coming out,
Speaker 1: call slash apply and will connection and then after you
Speaker 1: do that. Fine, all right, So Ruben, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about another player in the post secondary education market. Um,
Speaker 1: can you talk to us about the public sector and
Speaker 1: how they fit in? Yeah? Um, I think the public
Speaker 1: actor actually fits into also what you can do if
Speaker 1: you're working out a company. So if you had a
Speaker 1: company that isn't paying for education, there is a tax
Speaker 1: code that exists, a tax code I see, so pretty
Speaker 1: much every employer can pay for your education is five thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty dollars um. It'll be tuition reimbursement, which
Speaker 1: still requires you to go out of pocket, but they
Speaker 1: will pay for education. So you can talk to your
Speaker 1: HR team and say, hey, do you offer education benefits? No? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean can you you know follow this task? Could
Speaker 1: actually one twice seven? You can actually do this. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also a bill called the upskilling and reskilling coming
Speaker 1: out to double that amount as well. But a lot
Speaker 1: of employers are moving towards employer funded education because most
Speaker 1: people don't have that money in their pocket to be
Speaker 1: able to do it, so they'll pay for up front.
Speaker 1: So a quick way to do this action ADOM, go
Speaker 1: to the HR team, child them this and we can
Speaker 1: figure it out. Going back to the public sector, UM,
Speaker 1: the public sector puts more into workforce development than the
Speaker 1: private sector ever will UM. You know, if you look
Speaker 1: at job Core, you look at GI Bill, you look
Speaker 1: at even just the funding for college, it's mostly coming
Speaker 1: from the government. I think student loans is like what
Speaker 1: what point seven one point eight trillion dollars now, UM,
Speaker 1: But it's clear that this has to change. That's why
Speaker 1: you're hearing things like student loan forgiveness. You're starting to
Speaker 1: see these big like I think it's National Apprenticeship Week
Speaker 1: this week. But a lot of these initiatives from the
Speaker 1: public sector are very low volume. So you know, you're
Speaker 1: not going to really move the needle with like fifty
Speaker 1: year hundred people. We need thousands of people, need millions
Speaker 1: of people, like we want to have a billion people
Speaker 1: in the next ten years, and so long story short,
Speaker 1: I think that if UM, if employers provide, if the
Speaker 1: public center house provide incentives for employers that want to
Speaker 1: invest in the education, for the employees and for the
Speaker 1: people that they want to attract, that's going to be
Speaker 1: really important. Another thing that the employers can do is
Speaker 1: like really embrace uh technology training, provide free online WiFi access,
Speaker 1: give devices to people. We actually have a campaign powered
Speaker 1: by the care poor centers. So shout out to Capital
Speaker 1: Capital Mischief free to care poor. Uh they actually uh,
Speaker 1: we actually have employers that donate laptops to us and
Speaker 1: we give wait for free to people that wanted to
Speaker 1: roll into books. She actually got a lap to us,
Speaker 1: So that's that power her too loud to us actually,
Speaker 1: so if you all want to get loud, test will
Speaker 1: give away lad talks for free. But I think the
Speaker 1: public said that can help a lot and do a
Speaker 1: lot and doing things like that. Yeah, that's great. It's
Speaker 1: good to know. Um. All right, so I do want
Speaker 1: to get into some actionable advice in a minute. But
Speaker 1: before we do that, UM, I would love to just
Speaker 1: kind of hear what's next for both of you? What
Speaker 1: can we expect to see in and beyond? Um, So
Speaker 1: we'll start with you, Ruben, what's next for career Karma? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so our big focus right now is just really working
Speaker 1: with employers on on that product led career guidance that
Speaker 1: this career management for employees across all levels. So if
Speaker 1: you are an employer that's here. You're part of an
Speaker 1: HR team and you are really thinking about internal talent mobility,
Speaker 1: building out external talent pipelines, about offering UM education benefits,
Speaker 1: and thinking about coaching a mentorship. We would love to
Speaker 1: speak with you. So that's career commam slash Enterprise and
Speaker 1: then all ways. We're forever going to be focused on
Speaker 1: serving people. So if you are someone that's looking to
Speaker 1: break into check right now. Just career COMMA to comp
Speaker 1: slash apply. We were initially UM expanding into higher education. UM.
Speaker 1: We are still working with higher education institutions, but really
Speaker 1: focused on skills training. So a lot of these educations
Speaker 1: are are launching these these bookcat formats that are tagabook credentials,
Speaker 1: so we're not necessarily matching people directly to college. So
Speaker 1: if you want to get a job in a year
Speaker 1: or less, come to us. If you want to job
Speaker 1: in two to four years, don't come to us. I'm
Speaker 1: Will Lucas and black tag Green Money. Did you know
Speaker 1: this podcast was nominated for an ACP Image Award, But
Speaker 1: we are and I need you to support the a
Speaker 1: CP has opened up the opportunity for the public. That
Speaker 1: means you to weigh in and vote on our category,
Speaker 1: and the opportunity for you to vote ends this Friday,
Speaker 1: So head over to vote dot ACP Image Awards dot net.
Speaker 1: Scrolled to the Podcast and Outstanding News and Information Podcast
Speaker 1: category and vote for Black Tech Green Need. It's not
Speaker 1: often that we see a podcast for us by us
Speaker 1: which highlights the stories of black innovators, technologists, venture capitalists
Speaker 1: and angel investors, scientists and engineers with this big of
Speaker 1: a spotlight. So I'm asking for you to take a
Speaker 1: moment out of your day and vote for Black Tech
Speaker 1: Green Money. Do it now. Voting closes this Friday. Um
Speaker 1: and my Um, I guess I would really say that
Speaker 1: over the next year, I'm gonna be working a lot,
Speaker 1: not sleeping. Right now, Wyna is building an open source project. Um.
Speaker 1: So I told you guys, we work on upskilling and
Speaker 1: leveling up. So I have a lot of people who
Speaker 1: come to me that are either already working or they're
Speaker 1: in career karma right now trying to go through a
Speaker 1: boot camp. They need to get their skills because they
Speaker 1: never had a job in tech before, and they their
Speaker 1: resume is shallow, right, you need that experience on your resume.
Speaker 1: So Yna gets you that experience. You come into yn
Speaker 1: A and like I said, you can be a cruder,
Speaker 1: you can be somebody. You can be a data engineer.
Speaker 1: And you want to learn software engineering. So I'll put
Speaker 1: you on a team, you know, with the developers, and
Speaker 1: you'll start right then and there learning how to code
Speaker 1: or learning a new technology that you never learned before.
Speaker 1: We also have a project management pipeline. I'm building the
Speaker 1: DevOps pipeline right now. UM. So everything that you know
Speaker 1: you can see yourself doing, you can come to yn
Speaker 1: A and make happen. So our plan is to launch
Speaker 1: our first m v P for our project next summer. Um.
Speaker 1: Right now, I think we started for October Fest. So
Speaker 1: it was a month long of October hacking. UM, stuff
Speaker 1: getting broken, Uh, people messaging me at night like you know,
Speaker 1: you'll see, I need you to come fix this issue. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm waking up in the middle of the night. But
Speaker 1: I love those things. I love those things and I
Speaker 1: love them a lot. And I think from what I'm
Speaker 1: doing with wy and A and then so I didn't
Speaker 1: tell you guys. I also manage a store. Um so
Speaker 1: I print and design clothes in Stockton, California, and my
Speaker 1: company is called ship tech Prints. You can learn more
Speaker 1: about us or ship tech prints dot com. And right now,
Speaker 1: my priority is to amplify Oakland. I want to get
Speaker 1: you know, all of my babies out the streets. I
Speaker 1: want to get them involved in tech. I want to
Speaker 1: get them jobs. I want to teach them entrepreneurship, teach
Speaker 1: them how to run their own company. So from now
Speaker 1: until y'all next time, y'all see me, That's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be working on. All right, well, I'm inspired. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to see what you both do um in
Speaker 1: the next year and beyond. So let's talk about some
Speaker 1: calls to action here for people who are looking to rescale,
Speaker 1: up skill, maybe leading changes within their organizations around education.
Speaker 1: Um So, first question, UM, we'll start with you, Ruben.
Speaker 1: What are the top three skills? Um it, you would
Speaker 1: recommend reskilling or upscaling and t ging a competitive edge attack. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people listen to Nevoll, but
Speaker 1: Neval has a great podcast and he has a really
Speaker 1: good uh thing called how to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky? Um.
Speaker 1: And he says, if you want to learn two things,
Speaker 1: So if you learn how to code and you learn
Speaker 1: how to sell. You're unstoppable. So I think the quickest
Speaker 1: way to break in the attack if you want to
Speaker 1: be technical is learn how to code. And if you
Speaker 1: learn how to sell, you'll never go hungry. That's the
Speaker 1: first two things, UM. But the last one that I
Speaker 1: just said, UM, is tied to both of the other ones. UM.
Speaker 1: The third skill that I think everybody should master is communication.
Speaker 1: Communication is not just verbal communications, not just written communication
Speaker 1: is how to speak emotion emohi meme gift, especially in
Speaker 1: the remote work worle like. One of the biggest things
Speaker 1: that I'm still learning as a leader is the value
Speaker 1: of communication. And UM. As an engineer, if you want
Speaker 1: to get promoted, you you're not gonna get promoted from
Speaker 1: just being a great colder. It's going to be your
Speaker 1: communication skills, the way that you manage, the way that
Speaker 1: you you organized projects. So really mastering communications is the
Speaker 1: third thing that I would say. It is key for everybody.
Speaker 1: That's great, Thank you, Sydney. Anything to add to that, UM, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that I have some skills that I
Speaker 1: want you to learn, UM, that I feel are very
Speaker 1: marketable right now. And like I said, considering that company,
Speaker 1: the company right state to state, we got layoffs and
Speaker 1: it's my my people getting laid off, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And I feel like, not only do these skills help you,
Speaker 1: but my number one is always entrepreneurship and building your
Speaker 1: own brand. Right, Like, just imagine as a collective if
Speaker 1: people started forming squads and forming groups, you know, and
Speaker 1: they started coming together, building their own companies, hiring their people,
Speaker 1: hiring their friends, hiring their family, and we don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about people getting laid off, you know, and
Speaker 1: doing certain things. So my number one besides like leveling
Speaker 1: up yourself and building your own personal brand, stay and
Speaker 1: what's hot in the market. Right three things that's hot
Speaker 1: in the market right now is cloud data science and
Speaker 1: Python and DevOps, which a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: that DevOps is becoming very very very popular right now, Um,
Speaker 1: just because of how much DevOps has changed things. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: I've worked on projects where we didn't have any type
Speaker 1: of DevOps tools in place, and there were certain things
Speaker 1: that took hours to do, you know, took hours to
Speaker 1: figure out, and it's simple. That's adding a DevOps tool
Speaker 1: in there. You can automate something in the in minutes
Speaker 1: in seconds, right, So to the crowd. I would tell
Speaker 1: you guys to go learn about the cloud, Go get
Speaker 1: certified in the cloud. Um also get skilled you know
Speaker 1: in data science AI. Python is taken over right now,
Speaker 1: and then the devlops will be the takeaway. One other
Speaker 1: thing related to this is I remember when you first
Speaker 1: drained UM and we're talking about personal brand. A lot
Speaker 1: of people were very shy about social media and putting
Speaker 1: themselves out there, and they were just focused on resume.
Speaker 1: They didn't have LinkedIn profiles, they didn't have Twitters, and
Speaker 1: we will say, um, you know, if your resume is
Speaker 1: essentially what pops up when people google your name, right,
Speaker 1: And so if you don't tell your own story, other
Speaker 1: people are gonna touch joys about you. A lot of
Speaker 1: people talk about how every company is a media company,
Speaker 1: every every VC is a media company, but every person
Speaker 1: is a media company. So you need to tell your
Speaker 1: own story, right, And this is this is really important
Speaker 1: because people program computers and media programs people, right, and
Speaker 1: so you need to take control of your own narrative
Speaker 1: if you want to really um stand out in this
Speaker 1: world in my opinion. Okay, so I want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about kind of the mental barrier component here.
Speaker 1: So you know, for people who do want to put
Speaker 1: themselves out there, they want to rescale, upscale, UM, but
Speaker 1: they're doubting themselves or questioning the timing. What's your advice
Speaker 1: to people to overcome that mental hurdle? UM. So, I think,
Speaker 1: first of all, the way you frame uh imposter syndrome,
Speaker 1: which is what a lot of people call this, it matters.
Speaker 1: A lot of people have different definitions for imposter syndrome,
Speaker 1: and my definition for imposter syndrome is when you are
Speaker 1: fully qualified to do something, but you've convinced yourself that
Speaker 1: you're not all right. Everybody here is fully qualified to
Speaker 1: do whatever it is that they want to do, but
Speaker 1: you're telling yourself that you're not. Something else that we
Speaker 1: used to talk about is how whatever you feel is
Speaker 1: weird about you and it's probably your superpower that you
Speaker 1: want to double down on. So a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that you might be embarrassed to share about your
Speaker 1: upbringing and your story, you need to figure out how
Speaker 1: to double down in that regard. And when she talks
Speaker 1: about spreneurship or the project that you might be building
Speaker 1: while you're going through a skills training program, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna just the tech industry is interesting because every every
Speaker 1: company is going into this hiring format where credentials don't
Speaker 1: tell you if you've got to skill. Your degree doesn't
Speaker 1: tell you if you had a skill, your output does.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people are going to have a project.
Speaker 1: We're moving towards project driven resumes. But the best type
Speaker 1: of projects are aligned with something that's personal to you
Speaker 1: in your life. Right, and so you might feel like
Speaker 1: it's not right to talk about how you were a
Speaker 1: bartender trying to break into tech, for example, there's no
Speaker 1: shame in in any role janitor, pick any role waste
Speaker 1: garbage waste management like build a a project related to that,
Speaker 1: and then applied to republic services of waste management. And
Speaker 1: now you're not a fortune year veteran of collecting trash.
Speaker 1: You're a seasoned logistics waste management expert that happens to
Speaker 1: know how to code. It's how you frame it, how
Speaker 1: you talk to yourself really matters. And and and now
Speaker 1: you actually have more to bring to the table than
Speaker 1: the code that's never worked in the industry that you're
Speaker 1: trying to go to. I would say you need to
Speaker 1: weigh out your pros and cons and figure out exactly
Speaker 1: what you want to do. Right. Like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: you know, we have people you know that get jobs,
Speaker 1: you know, and stay in one place. They don't feel
Speaker 1: like they want to level up and get to the
Speaker 1: next level. Me personally, I know where I want to
Speaker 1: go and i know where I'm trying to get. So
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to do something to help me level up.
Speaker 1: Your your biggest critic, right, So if you're telling yourself
Speaker 1: that you can't do it and you're not good enough
Speaker 1: and you don't know how it's going to turn out, well,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna turn out right, right, because you're you
Speaker 1: already putting that in the air. So I always tell people,
Speaker 1: and I tell people in my group to stay positive.
Speaker 1: You know, when we were all going through the job search,
Speaker 1: it was a horrible time, you know, like we all
Speaker 1: finished bootcare during the pandemic and everybody was laying people off,
Speaker 1: which is what's happening right now. This was just two
Speaker 1: years ago when we were sitting at home, everybody was
Speaker 1: getting laid off. We were finishing boot camp, trying to
Speaker 1: get jobs, and this is when the poster syndrome hit hard.
Speaker 1: Because it's like we didn't did all this work, and
Speaker 1: now we're here, we got the work to show for it,
Speaker 1: and nobody will hire us. So you know what I said, y'all,
Speaker 1: Let's just keep getting skilled, Let's just keep learning, Let's
Speaker 1: just keep putting ourselves out there, Let's keep interviewing, Let's
Speaker 1: keep reaching out to people on LinkedIn, Let's keep meeting
Speaker 1: up with Ruben, you know, like, let's just keep doing
Speaker 1: all of these things. Because if we give up on ourselves,
Speaker 1: then why should anybody in the world take a chance
Speaker 1: on you. That that's real. Like, if if you don't
Speaker 1: believe in yourself, how how can everybody else? But how
Speaker 1: can anybody else believe in you? The way you taught
Speaker 1: yourself matters. Like something we used to talk about a
Speaker 1: lot too, is you might feel like you're not you
Speaker 1: don't you're not an engineer until you finished the boot camp.
Speaker 1: But if you decided that you're going to be an
Speaker 1: engineer today, you are in engineer. Think about it like music,
Speaker 1: I play music. So you might not be a greatest artist,
Speaker 1: but you might be a struggling artist or starving artist,
Speaker 1: but you're still an artist, right, So whatever you decide
Speaker 1: to do, that's who you are, And if you don't
Speaker 1: believe in yourself, the interviewers are going to also see
Speaker 1: that fear. They're gonna smell that fear. So you have
Speaker 1: to you have to talk to yourself in a unique way.
Speaker 1: Because something that Keisha from the Winds, why I used
Speaker 1: to say, is is words are spells. That's why they
Speaker 1: call it spelling. So talk talk right, I love that. UM.
Speaker 1: All right, this is going to be our last question.
Speaker 1: So if you are sitting out here today knowing what
Speaker 1: a unique opportunity it is to be here this week
Speaker 1: at the largest black tech conference, UM, what is one
Speaker 1: simple actionable thing that you would do this week to
Speaker 1: maximize the opportunity the opportunity here at that fro tech UM.
Speaker 1: I mean something that that's sitting really emphasis aalized this
Speaker 1: the value of networking UM. And I would also say
Speaker 1: the value of serendipity or a randomness. UM. I think
Speaker 1: once you have intention and you and you know where
Speaker 1: you're going, I mean you believe in yourself, a lot
Speaker 1: of magical things happen if as as you go go
Speaker 1: around here. So I would encourage you to have conversations
Speaker 1: with people, yes, with intention, but really just to understand
Speaker 1: people's stories and so that you can help them with
Speaker 1: no expectation into a return. A lot of times people
Speaker 1: talk about the emotional bank account and like putting deposits
Speaker 1: into people's emotional bank account so they can make a
Speaker 1: withdrawal without a deficit. I think there's value to that,
Speaker 1: but I actually don't think you should fully think about
Speaker 1: it late that because when Sidney talked about that boomerang
Speaker 1: effect and just that good career comma that you're putting
Speaker 1: out into the into the ecosystem. When you do that,
Speaker 1: the world is gonna gonna you'll never go home because
Speaker 1: people are gonna look out for you. So if you
Speaker 1: haven't taked to somebody random, I would encourage you to
Speaker 1: speak to at least five people today just to get
Speaker 1: to know them and see how you can help them
Speaker 1: in some kind of way without any expectation to return,
Speaker 1: and I promise you'll pay off. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: people here, right, It's a lot of people here. You're
Speaker 1: sitting next to somebody, is somebody behind you, in front
Speaker 1: of you, and on you know, the right side of you.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest takeaway that you guys can do
Speaker 1: is form a group, form a squad, form a community
Speaker 1: like or come joining. Ain't it community? It's all up
Speaker 1: to you, you know, But these communities are very important.
Speaker 1: I think I heard you say something about e r
Speaker 1: G AT companies and how important those are. I don't
Speaker 1: know if your company has the r g s, but
Speaker 1: mind does. And ever since I became I'm a leader
Speaker 1: in the e r G at my company, it has
Speaker 1: made me love work so much more because not only
Speaker 1: you know, am I just going to work to do
Speaker 1: my project. I know that I have other people and
Speaker 1: other events to put on, you know, happy hours that
Speaker 1: I'm you know, helping put on, and other events in
Speaker 1: the office that brings people together. So you need people.
Speaker 1: Nobody can do it alone. Nobody can do it alone.
Speaker 1: Nobody can do it alone. Everybody needs somebody. So with
Speaker 1: all these people here, if you leave here without getting
Speaker 1: nobody's number or joining the squad or creating your own community,
Speaker 1: sleep fast. And if your company doesn't have an arg
Speaker 1: an Employee resource group, start one. I think that's that's
Speaker 1: very very important because community is gonna get you everywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're going to multiple schools, multiple companies in lifetime,
Speaker 1: we say networks, not credentials. Move careers, so make sure
Speaker 1: you get part of the network Black Tech Green Money
Speaker 1: to production of black of the Afro Tech on the
Speaker 1: Black Effect podcast Networking I Hired Media. It's produced by
Speaker 1: Morgan in the Bonding Me with Lucas with addition to
Speaker 1: productive support by Saying Argony Rose mcluca us special thank
Speaker 1: you to Michael David Something that's a surrounto learn more
Speaker 1: about my guests, other tech disruptus and innovators at afro
Speaker 1: tech dot com. Enjoying Black Tech Green Money, Share with
Speaker 1: somebody go get your money, peace and love. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Lucas and Black Tech Green Money. Did you know this
Speaker 1: podcast was nominated for an double a CP Image Award.
Speaker 1: Where we are and I need your support. The a
Speaker 1: CP has opened up the opportunity for the public. That
Speaker 1: means you to weigh in and vote on our category,
Speaker 1: and the opportunity for you to vote ends this Friday,
Speaker 1: so head over to vote dot ub a CP Image
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Speaker 1: taking your money. Do it now. Voting closes this Friday.