The business of finding a better job, with Career Karma CEO Ruben Harris
It’s an interesting time to talk to someone in the business of helping people get new jobs — we’re still fully in the middle of the pandemic-driven Great Resignation, and a record 4.5 million people quit their jobs in November 2021, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. But that’s exactly what Career Karma and CEO Ruben Harris are doing.
Links:
Career Karma
A record 4.5 million workers quit their jobs in November
Breaking Into Startups
AT&T’s $1 billion gambit: Retraining nearly half its workforce for jobs of the future
Making uncommon knowledge common
The Great Resignation is accelerating
How an Excel TickToker manifested her way to making six figures a day
Launch House
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/22674665
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone, Jackie McDermott, and Liam James. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
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How to futureproof your tech career with Ruben Harris
On this episode Abadesi talks to Ruben Harris, founder and CEO of Career Karma. They help match you to the best coding bootcamp for you and publish a directory of over 450 bootcamps.
In this episode they talk about...
How he broke into tech and how Career Karma is helping people get into the industry
“There are currently about 50,000 people graduating from four year universities every year [in software engineering] and about 40,000 people graduating from bootcamps. There are about half a million open jobs for software engineers. In the next five years there will be about 400,000 people graduating from four year universities and 1.4 million open jobs — so about a million people have to get jobs outside of college.”
Ruben talked about his hustler’s approach to getting into investment banking after having graduated from a small school. He applied the same approach to getting into tech and talks about what he wishes others knew about the industry knowing what he knows now. He explains what Career Karma is doing to help more people get into the industry and talks about the transparency they are providing in the bootcamp landscape. He also talks about some of the benefits of downloading their app, like coaching, mentorship, and motivation.
How to level up your career
“As a software engineer and really anybody in general, you really want to think of time as your most precious commodity. Whether you’re exploring college or online courses or bootcamps, you want to factor in the time that it takes you to complete the program, so that whatever time you’re investing now creates more time for you in the future.”
Ruben says that most people who are in software engineering now are actually self-taught. He talks about how software engineering is analogous to the music industry in that most musicians are not classically trained either, yet the music industry is accepting of most people, regardless of what their background is like, if they can do the work. He explains how people who are already working can increase their earning power by enrolling in a program that provides them with a credential, without having to go back to school.
What makes a good software engineer
“The ability to communicate is underrated — being able to communicate what you want, what you need help with, what your value is, the way that you talk to yourself, the way that you talk in a corporate environment, the way that you communicate with others, the way that you express your emotions, the way that you express how you feel.
He breaks down what makes people in the Career Karma community successful, talks about the importance of passion, and why it’s important to treat your work like play. He also talks about the perception of hiring managers and why presenting yourself in the best possible light is an important piece of the puzzle.
The importance of humility
“Humility matters. There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance and I think confidence is extremely important, but you can be humble and confident at the same time.”
Ruben talks about confidence and humility, and why it’s important to get the balance between them right. He says that it’s like playing the cello, where a good musician can move a room to applause even while playing very quietly, while beginner musicians want to play as loud as they can all the time. He also talks about authenticity and one of his favorite books of all time: The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance.
“If you think about most people who go to work, they have masks on. If they go home and are a different person, they were pretending to be a different person to get the job. What would the workplace feel like if everybody came to work with their mask off?”
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸
S10:E3 - How do you prepare for bootcamp and break into tech? (Ruben Harris)
We chat with Ruben Harris, CEO of Career Karma, and a man with bit of an unconventional background. He’s worked as an event organizer for athletes and celebrities, an investment banker, and professional cellist. We chat with him about how he broke into the startup world, his advice for people trying to do the same, and his app, Career Karma, a resource for people trying to find a coding community and preparing themselves for bootcamps.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Mary Meeker's Internet Trends
Benedict Evans Newsletter
Powderkeg Podcast
The Learn to Code With Me Podcast
Naval Podcast
Breaking Into Startups
Breaking Into Startups
Y Combinator
Career Karma
StrictlyVC
Social Capital Snippets
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
Software Engineering Daily
Jocko Podcast
#21DayCkChallenge
App Academy
Ruben Harris
Ruben is the CEO of Career Karma and Co-Host of the Breaking Into Startups Podcast. His mission is to help blue collar workers get white collar jobs in less than 12 months, starting with people that want to become software engineers through coding bootcamps. He shares the stories on the Breaking Into Startups Podcast and before this he worked in Admissions at AltSchool, building out two-sided marketplaces for vocational training (nurses) at Honor, and workforce development with government during his time at Hustle. Prior to his work in tech, he was an investment banker for 3 years and he has been playing the cello for more than 25 years.
Episode 77: Ruben Harris
Ruben Harris runs partnerships at Honor and is on the front lines of the diversity in tech movement. in this episode we talk about how he broke into tech, how he moved from Atlanta to SF and built a network from scratch, how before that he taught himself to be an investment banker, how he built a personal board of advisors, and more. Edited by @alexkontis Lavish Praise to @RubenHarris Constructive Criticism to @eriktorenberg