JobTok: Level Up with Career Growth and Job Hunt Tips From High Achievers

Looking at the salaries, demand for Software Engineers nowadays, have you ever wished you had opted for computer science or some sort of programming course, rather than following your current path in operations, marketing, HR, or anything other than software engineering? Well, the good news is that you can actually make that transition even now, even if you are mid-career, and you might not even need to go back to college to make it happen. Today we are speaking with Paolo Garde who made the transition to Software Engineering after eight years in F&B which is the food and beverage industry and in operations. He's going to help us understand how he went about making that transition, and what to expect if you decide to go down that route as well. Show Notes available here.

If you work for a few years in the corporate world, you might have realised that the working world is divided into two kinds of people, generalists and specialists. And while it might seem that being a generalist gives you maximum flexibility, and maybe even the chance of getting to the top as CEO, the reality is that companies don't really run and cannot actually run without the help of a strong cast of specialists, HR people, lawyers, finance people, facilities, and maybe to an extent, even sales. And as such, specialist careers could well be a lower risk way of building a career, since these skills kind of always remain in demand in one way or the other. But on the other hand, it might seem very daunting to build a career like this, how does one stick to one thing for 20, 30, maybe even 40 years? What could possibly keep one motivated to stay in the same function for long enough to be valued and indispensable to the corporate world?  Well, today we are speaking with Pallav Patni, who has spent his entire 20-year career so far in finance, and in fact, focused on the consumer goods industry. So we are going to ask him, what keeps him motivated and challenged and what are the lessons he would like to share from all of those years, building a career in a specialised function. Show Notes available here.

If you're like me, you might wonder why everyone likes to do so much small talk before they get to the point. Why not just get down to business and just get the work done? So efficient, right? But what you gain from a transactional conversation with someone and what you might gain in the short term is actually hurting you in the long run? So today we talked with Maita Gaerlan, head of Australia, network optimization for Sendle, whose ability to build quick claws and long lasting work relationships. It's something I've always admired. She seemingly is able to work with literally anyone, even those whom we might consider difficult to work with. So I'm going to ask her today how she does it so we can learn something from that and see how best we can do it ourselves. I hope you enjoy it. Discussion Notes available here.

The feedback process in most companies isn't always the best but at least you get it eventually to some extent, you know what your boss and your team members think of you. And maybe you also get feedback from some of your peers from time to time, but do you know where you stand in the bigger picture? Have you ever really wondered what your super boss or maybe leadership thinks of you? How do they evaluate when the time comes for performance reviews and what could you do to get noticed in the right way? Today we are really privileged to have with us, Troy Stevenson, who's the VP and global head of community operations at Uber. And he's gonna share with us some of his career hacks while also giving us some really good insight into how growth company leaders evaluate talent and potential. Show Notes available here. ------------------------------------ If you like this episode, please rate five stars and please follow the show. So you don't miss out on any of the great guests that we have coming up.

For those of us hunting for a job it’s usually a puzzle as to how we should go about negotiating the offer. Should we play hardball and risk losing the opportunity? Or do we just go with what’s been offered and maybe leave money on the table? Well, today we are talking with Aki Taha, who was till recently leading recruiting for Netflix in Asia Pacific. He’s kindly offered to help us understand what goes on behind the scenes during the recruiting process and how to go about negotiating a job offer. We hope you could take a few things away and level up your negotiation. Show Notes available here.