People who do not possess profound tech skills (you hated high school math, took Environmental Awareness 101 to complete your science distributive requirement in college, your younger sister set up your new iPhone for you...), programming is probably not the obvious career move. That is a tech job.
The tech industry, however, needs lots of people who do not possess electrical engineering degrees. Enterprises require people who can organize, communicate, train and manage. They need legal, public relations, marketing, accounting, human resources and organizational design specialists. Those are jobs in tech.
Tech companies need smart people (all of the time) who work well with others (most of the time) and are at least conversant with the technology being flogged and the strategic imperative that has gotten the institution to the point where they are actually hiring people who do not have those magical skills that appear to make them machine whisperers. In the same way that athletic teams sometimes hire the 'best available athlete' rather than someone who can play one position really well, tech companies need a variety of experiential and personality types.
In short, they may be looking for someone very much like you or your boyfriend who's been rethinking his career choices for over a year now or your ex-roommate for whom that Dancing With the Stars thing didnt pan out. They may also be looking for seriously intelligent people with degrees and work experience in disparate challenging fields who want to apply their perspective, curiosity and ambition to something pretty cool. Which could work out pretty well for everyone involved. JL
Michal Tsur comments in Mashable:
If you own a smartphone, tablet or even if you’re just glued to your laptop, you're aware of the tech revolution.
"So what?" you may ask. "I'm not a tech person."
That's where you're wrong, job seeker. Even non-tech people can successfully apply for tech jobs and quickly develop tech skills. Positions in the technology industry are booming in major metro areas around the country – San Francisco had a massive 51.8% increase in tech jobs between 2007 to 2012 alone. New York City, on the other hand, saw an 11% increase in that time, and the tech industry as a whole amounts to $30 billion in annual wages for the NYC economy.
Tech is huge, and it isn't going anywhere. Even if you don't have a tech-related degree or any direct experience, if you are smart and a fast learner, you can learn technology skills and gain experience on the job. Here's why you should seriously consider tech jobs, even if you have no current skills in the field.
Tech isn’t a mystery. Like any other skill, tech skills can be learned on the job. These days, a lot of job training is done informally, through observation, interactions with co-workers and hands-on projects.
In tech, you’ll get all three. Smart people with good learning skills can apply for any job, especially entry-level jobs. Most tech companies are always seeking candidates for positions in business intelligence. Think project managers, product developers or business analysts. These positions are great ways to leverage your current skills and learn more tech specific ones on the job.
You won’t be another cog in the machine. The number one benefit of working in technology is the ability to create products and solutions that impact many people's lives – all in a short period of time.
Generally, tech is a younger industry, which impacts its culture. If you snag employment in one of the major tech hubs – San Francisco, New York, Boston, London, Tel Aviv – there is a powerful networking community and a breadth of social activity in which to be involved. You’ll truly be part of a community.
No one has experience in their first job. At Kaltura, I particularly enjoy hiring smart folks with great execution skills. You are either smart and execution-oriented or you aren't. Experience, however, can be easily gained.
For many companies, it makes sense to make an investment in developing an employee’s experience in exchange for raw talent. For example, I hired a great worker who came to my company without any tech experience at all. She then, in turn, has become one of our leading project managers. All we needed to see in the hiring process was that candidates were extremely smart, had fast learning skills and strong execution abilities.
If you’re smart, extremely curious, interested to learn and have been a hard worker in your non-tech background, you’ll be well on your way to a job in tech.
Get Your Foot in the Door
Convinced you’d like to land your next job at a tech company? Here are three quick tips:
- Do some self-learning. There are plenty of resources out there to help you learn basic tech skills on your own. MOOCs and other online courses can help you to build a repository of basic information you can showcase on your resume. But remember, there are many non-tech jobs at tech startups that may be a better fit for you. Consider marketing, social media, finance, accounting or human resources.
- Be aggressive. You need to showcase your desire to hop into tech. That may mean going above and beyond in the hiring process by turning in a video or infographic resume, attending networking events or setting up informational interviews with executives you admire. Be loud about your desire to join the industry and people will notice.
- Agree to lower wages – at first. Building tech skills takes time. The industry is worth billions, sure, but you can’t expect a high starting salary out of the gate. While you should always be paid fair wages, expect them to be lower until you learn and master the skills you need.
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