How to treat your job search like The Incredibles
Gloria D’ltri, Senior IT Manager at Draftkings, went through a lot of “back and forth” in college. She didn’t know what she wanted to do or where she wanted to go on her career path, and at the same time, D’ltrl didn’t realize that her hobbies surrounding technology could be her profession.
D’ltri graduated from Providence College with degrees in English and Sociology. She chose these majors because she knew they could be used anywhere. D’tri decided that, “Instead of majoring in something so particular that it sort of locked me into going down that path for the rest of my career, I chose to build up those areas that can be applied to anything.”
D’ltri wanted her career to be like Elastigirl: flexible but calculated. She wanted to follow her passion and be a part of something real, but she didn’t quite know where that would take her.
After continuing to explore her interests in college, she realized she was drawn towards technology. To dip her toe in the water, she got a general specialist job at Apple. She moved up the ranks over time and became an Apple Genius about 2 years later. However, she soon realized she wanted to transition again and started to actively look for a new position.
As part of our interview, D’ltri offered us and other students some great advice for how to make calculated changes in your career, which she illustrated through her own story and experience.
D’ITRI’S RULES TO GETTING YOUR NEXT JOB
1.Give yourself a 60 day buffer before beginning your move to a different position.
After being offered a management position at Apple, D’ltri began to reevaluate her long term goals. She decided being a manager of a retail store, with only some technological aspects, wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to be hands on; a part of the action!
She determined that she was beginning to feel that she was at a stand still, not learning anything new. As part of her own reflection, she identified it was important to her to always be progressing. She decided she never wanted to be in a work environment where she already knew everything. In the case with her job at Apple, there weren’t any upcoming challenges or goals and D’ltri realized that she needed a new start.
The key though, in her mind, is not to jump right away. Instead, D’Itri recommends you to give yourself a buffer of 60 days so you can really examine if you are just having a bad week or if it is something larger. She feels that if after those 60 days you still feel disenfranchised with the job, it is a signal to look for other options. She applied the same technique with her position at Apple. After the 60 days, she was still experiencing these feelings even after working with her manager to try and find an alternate position, so she began to update her resume and look for things that may be interesting to her.
RULE #1: In sum, don’t just leave your insurance job and throw your boss through walls, only to jump into something illegal (*cough cough* Mr. Incredible). Do some research.
2. Give yourself a warm-up.
After she determined it was time to move on, she began to dip her toe in the water of the application and interview process. Instead of just jumping in and applying to her dream jobs, she started training. Just like sports where practice makes perfect, she applied this idea to her job search. She did this by interviewing at places where she knew she did not want the job.
Looking back, she told us, “even when I still wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted to leave, I wanted to get that experience of being in front of people and interviewing and talking about my experience again because it had changed from the last time I interviewed.”
D’ltri advises people to do this because it is good to have the preparation and to get the jitters out for when you have that high stakes interview.
RULE #2: Prepare yourself for Jack Jack. You never know what a super baby might bring. Same goes for interviews.
3. When in an interview, have a question!
Her number one recommendation to someone who is interviewing: have a prepared set of questions to ask during an interview. As a manager now herself, D’ltri says she often thinks to herself during interviews “C’mon you have to have one question!” To her, it signals that you are truly interested in what they are offering you. It also illustrates that you are paying attention and want to know more.
RULE #3: You don’t need to ask a billion questions and annoy your idol like Buddy. But one or two would be nice.
4. Know yourself and what you want out of a job.
When you are with an interviewer, remember that they are looking for the right fit as well. As a result, and often contrary to popular advice, D’Itri recommends that an applicant should be open about what they are looking for too, in order to see if the goals of each party align with one another.
For example, when job searching, D’ltri was looking for something she could grow into, that was tolerant or open to tattoos, and since she is a part of the LGBTQ community, she wanted to feel accepted at work. These are all things that she mentioned as she went through the interviewing process with DraftKings and as a result both sides knew that it would be a good match.
RULE #4: Pretending to be a fit for a job, is like wearing a cape: outlawed by Edna Mode.
THE RIGHT FIT
When finding DraftKings, D’ltri knew it was the right fit for her for a few reasons.
First of all, the needs of each side could be met. She had been wanting to work at a startup company for a while, and at the time DraftKings was much smaller which meant she could grow. It was also important, as we mentioned before, that she could be accepted in her work environment, which DraftKings wholeheartedly embraced.
Secondly, she did a lot of research on them and liked what she saw. She had friends who worked there and contacted them to get an inside idea of what the company was like. All of the reviews came back positive.
Thirdly, she simply liked the environment of the office, which is very important when looking for a job because that’s where you are going to be all day long!
D’ltri has now been working at DraftKings for almost 5 years and still enjoys what she is doing! She feels she gets the best of both worlds in her position. On the one had, she gets to oversee projects and people as a manager, but she also helps out on those projects, which is something she is passionate about.
Overall, when thinking of your career path, she recommends that you don’t have to be so rigid. It’s great to have goals in mind, but to her “the idea of a career path is that it’s forever changing.” When looking for a job, she encourages students to find something that meets their needs as well as the employer’s. Be flexible, but purposeful. And don’t go blindly into trouble.
