News today from the Labor Department bodes well for job seekers at all levels of experience. The unemployment rate is falling, wages are increasing, and yet there is still a strong sense of demand, as employers continue to struggle to fill roles within their organizations.
Everyone at Udacity is elated this morning with the news from CNBC, that we have been named to their prestigious Disruptor 50 list for a third time—and at #8, our highest ranking yet! It’s certainly thrilling to find ourselves in the company of such world-changing organizations as SpaceX, Airbnb, and Didi Chuxing. We appreciate the continued recognition from CNBC, and take heart that our efforts are having a sustained impact.
Obi Felten’s rather remarkable job title is “Head Of Getting Moonshots Ready For Contact With The Real World, X, The Moonshot Factory.” In March of this year, she delivered a keynote address at our annual Intersect event. The title of her talk was “Daring Greatly: How to Fail Gracefully on the Way to Success.” In her speech, she addressed what she described as “one of those Silicon Valley cliches.” She was talking about the idea of failing fast. What she had to say about it was wonderful:
“We don’t want to fail fast, but we do want to learn very fast.”
In a world where emerging innovators all over the world are seeking new paths to success on the strengths of their unique backgrounds, novel ideas, and deeply-felt passions, this is a critical distinction. What is important is not that we fail, but that we learn. When people are committing to making their dreams come true, and they’re finding inspiration in the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley, it’s vital that we be clear about failure’s relationship to success.
It is virtually impossible to overestimate the importance of networking when discussing the job search process. You might even say, networking IS the job search!
While learning for the sake of career advancement is critical to your long-term success, it’s only part of the equation. Job seekers often have a difficult time moving from learning to acting, but it’s only when you act, that you produce opportunity.
In simplest form, networking means getting out the door, both literally and figuratively. It means proactively connecting with people. It means building relationships, and embracing the truism that relationships are a two-way street—networking is as much about helping others as it is about being helped.
Networking takes on an added dimension of importance when you’re changing careers, or if you come from what might be considered a “non-conventional” background. In these cases, you have to effectively contextualize your experience, tell your story, and make the case for why you’re right for the job, even if your background doesn’t line up with the role’s requirements. This is best accomplished by forging direct connections, and pursuing opportunities to speak openly and directly with individuals in positions to lend their support.
Put another way, you have to enable people to know the real you. Because you know you’re right for the job. But do they?
Below you’ll find 5 things you need to know to network effectively.
We’re excited to announce that Udacity and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Educate are teaming up to support our students as they go beyond learning AI, to actually building powerful AI models in the real world!
Starting on April 19, all Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree program students are eligible for complimentary AWS Promotional Credits to explore AWS services, including Amazon SageMaker. This means that our students will be able to harness the incredible computing power of AWS to train and deploy machine learning models faster than ever, without having to worry about hardware.
AWS is the most successful cloud infrastructure company on the planet, and we’re thrilled to bring the power of their services to our students.
Job interviews are stressful. There is no getting around this. No matter how accomplished you are, how experienced, how qualified, interviews are high-stakes affairs, and a wicked case of nerves is to be expected.
Can meditation help?
It can, provided you still perform the rest of your due diligence. You still need relevant skills and experience. You still need to prepare. You still need to research the company, rehearse your answers, and be ready to prove yourself in challenge or test. And therein lies the real problem with interviews, and the real reason why meditation has something important to offer.
Even when we ARE prepared for a job interview, we often still fumble. Why? The answer: Pressure. Even the best of us crumble under pressure. And that’s where meditation can help. When you meditate, you slow down, and you calm down.
Your story—and more importantly, how you tell it—is one of your most important assets when it comes to competitive differentiation in the hiring landscape. Your story is comprised of those things that make you unique, and if you can contextualize these items effectively, your story becomes your greatest strength.