Standing out from the crowd
in a rapidly changing environment
LEARNING
Learning and building your skills should be a core fundamental aspect to your career because learning about technology, industries, people, the product under test, yourself or your co-workers is what will make you an awesome team member.
Going to work, doing fine with the minimum and playing video games all your free time will not make you great…unless of course your work is in the gaming industry or you are a professional DOTA player ;).
Having the ability to learn will help you standing out from all the crowd. Your ability to learn will mean you can diversify, specialise or take on almost any challenge thrown at you.
But, you know what? We also have to be sure of WHAT we want to learn, HOW are we going to apply it and also understand ALL the obstacles we will be facing. When I moved to a new city to study a Computer Science degree while still working as Software Quality Engineer, not three months passed and I wanted desperately to throw the towel… and this feeling is so rare to me. I was prepared in many aspects of this new life back to school, but I never thought that things could get rough very early. Thankfully, I was able to reorganise obligations and endure the hard work. If you really want something, you have to take it and make the most of it.
Please don’t get comfortable and rely on these common excuses for not getting involved in learning efforts:
•I don’t have the money
What a beautiful time to be alive! Nowadays there are tons of free resources like Coursera, eBooks, Community Groups, training courses, libraries, podcasts and blogs.
• I don’t have the time
Take a little bit time to annotate all the things you do each day. You’ll spot some spaces available. Learning under a constrained schedule will require from you to be thoroughly organized and efficient. Also make use of the technology available to make your learning easier.
• I don’t have the skills
PFFFT. NONSENSE! Maybe there are things that you’ll never be able to do, but unless you try, you’ll never know. Learn what you can and keep on practicing.
• I don’t need to learn.
Don’t get me started on this one. There is always something to learn. If you don’t learn anything new or get to apply your knowledge, the arms of conformity will drag you out. And let’s remember that in a sea of conformity we need to stand out if we want recognition, salary increase or getting a better position.
• I rely on certifications for all of my training
No, no, no. -_-
ORGANISING YOUR LEARNING
Each person has a preferred learning system of some sort. Experiment with different ways and find out what works for you. Go outside, stay inside; sit, stand; use a computer, don’t use a computer.
Hack your own learning system. Try to test new ways of learning in a “trial mode” so you can evaluate them and discard them if they don’t apply to you.
How I learn
Handwriting stuff makes me feel like I am absorbing and understanding more of what I am trying to learn. I try to use different pen colors, sticky notes, mind maps, drawings, acronyms, etc. In few words: NOT JUST TEXT. That’s not very useful. Plus, I always try to synthetise everything.
In some contexts it has helped recording myself narrating something and then revisiting the recording several times. A good addition is looking for the topic I am learning in YouTube; this delivers another perspective of the theme.
And I think the most important part of my way of learning is planning. I know we tend to leave everything until the last moment BUT, it is a nice practice to study little bits frequently and then the previous day to the BIG date just review everything you have been studying.
Reality is that forcing stuff into your brain in the last minute only serves to pass the test but it doesn’t work very well for long-lasting learning.
SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE
One of the best ways to be sure that what you studied was well learned is to share the knowledge or mentor somebody else.
Think about it as a reinforcement.
It can happen by giving a talk, a workshop, applying certain process or methodology, mentoring somebody else who is also learning, etc.
COMMUNICATING YOUR PASSIONS AND VALUES
Communicating your passions and values helps to create an image of yourself to the outside world. Getting them to know you.
I am pretty sure others can relate to you and you could serve as an inspiration. It helps me keeping in mind the following question:
Are others wondering what it would be like to work with me?
CREATING AN ONLINE PRESENCE
I always remember this friend’s anecdote when he postulated for a job in our company: after a first round of interviews it was noted that he was weak in certain skill areas. He dedicated to study these deficiencies during a month and created a blog explaining everything he had learned. This caused a great impression during the second hiring round and the rest is history. He was an important and reliable member of our team during a couple of years.
We have many online tools in our reach and just like this ex-collaborator, we can use them for our benefit, like using a blog to pour all of what we have learned or to let others know how we solved an issue. Sharing material that you find interesting and useful is also a good way to be present.
NETWORKING AND CONNECTING
Hackathons, workshops, talks, conferences are great situations to make networking and to achieve connections to other fellows in your working environment.
Don’t forget your own company. We lose ourselves in the job and daily tasks not able to get in touch with other team mates. Try to participate in leadership teams, promoting events, internal talks, to get to know other collaborators. At least recur to small talk during coffee breaks; you never know who can help you in the future.
If you are interested in reading more about the topic, you can support the author by buying and reading his book in which this post was based:
Remaining relevant and employable in a changing world by Rob Lambert.
Artemisa Yescas Engler, Software Quality Engineer @Nearsoft.
