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Waiter to Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at Nordstrom
33 Plays6 months ago
In April 2021, Ken graduated from the Springboard program with a Data Analytics certificate.
Before starting a career in the Retail Sector, he worked as a waiter.
Now, he works for Nordstrom as a Senior Business Intelligence Analyst, where he builds, maintains, and updates operational tools.
If you have any questions for Ken or myself that could be answered on a future episode, please email me at [email protected].
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Transcript
Ken's Career Transition
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello, everyone. It's Wednesday, and we have another awesome episode of Life After Tech Bootcamp with another great alum that I cannot wait to introduce you to. In April of 2021, Ken graduated from the Springboard program with a data analytics certificate. Before starting a career in the retail sector, he worked as a waiter. He now works for Nordstrom as a senior business intelligence analyst, where he builds, maintains, and updates operational tools. Hi, Ken. Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:43
Speaker
Thanks. It's nice to be here. Yes. Likewise. And I'm so excited to talk to you. You have such an interesting story.
Hybrid Work Preferences
00:00:51
Speaker
And before we started recording, you were talking about why you like hybrid work the most. So in office some days, at home some days, I think that's been a bit more on people's minds. Obviously with the pandemic, we got that remote life, but I've just been hearing rumblings of how those remote jobs are becoming less
00:01:13
Speaker
available, but I'd love to hear kind of why you like hybrid. Yeah, well, I got after graduate for springboard in 2021, I got hired as a fully remote worker, because that's what everybody was doing at the time. And since I was new to the industry after, you know, two decades in the restaurant industry, I found it hard to pick things up, just normal things that people who've worked in an office before knew, trying to learn that stuff on my own remote.
00:01:42
Speaker
And when we finally went to hybrid, initially I kind of resisted it, but I have found that being able to connect with my boss, my fellow team members, just across, across the aisle way or across the desk has led to a lot faster growth for me in my career. And I like being able to go into the office, but I also like to be at home where I can make, when I want a cup of coffee, I can make good coffee because I'm a coffee snob. Um, instead of getting the crap we serve in the office, but
00:02:11
Speaker
I've just found the combination works really well for me, especially in the beginning when I was adding in the extra hours to get to and from the office.
Balancing Career and Family
00:02:20
Speaker
After three days being in the office, I really appreciated not having to do the commute and getting the extra rest and then the extra little bit of time with my kids. So for me, the combination of getting the growth, but yet getting a break to be home was really nice. Yeah, that definitely sounds great. And I can certainly relate
00:02:38
Speaker
living in New York city where I don't drive. I just take the train. It's crazy how in two miles, that's how far I'll go, but it takes an hour on the train. Just, I get two hours back every day. Yeah, that's definitely an interesting insight. And it kind of sounds like you were for fully remote in the beginning. And then with experiences that changed. Yeah, I was definitely fully remote in the beginning. And it was when I was learning.
00:03:07
Speaker
It was just hard to get help or to be able to connect with somebody who could show me how to do something. I find it much, I'm an older school kind of guy. I like doing hands-on in front of me, talking to the person right next to me, not having to share a screen. Since I worked as a waiter, I picked up so much more in body language and how people communicate that way as well. And when you see people from the shoulders up on a screen, it's hard to get all that communication.
00:03:35
Speaker
And it really, I feel like it hampered my ability to learn quickly and
Learning Styles and Mentorship
00:03:40
Speaker
advance in my career early, early on. So certainly. Yeah. That's definitely a really interesting connection you've made. I think people skills, I would imagine nobody thinks they're not important, but some people don't think of them as an asset or a value in some ways, um, in a way of.
00:04:03
Speaker
how you learn and part of your learning style. So I can definitely see how you could correlate the two. And perhaps that's something now that you're pointing that out, it's a really interesting way to evaluate what kind of work set up is right for you. Obviously that hands on versus staying at home in your pajamas comfort, but how you interact with people and what works for you and your learning style. That's a really interesting connection.
00:04:32
Speaker
Yeah. Like I said, after three days being in the office, I get tired. I'm an introverted heart and being, I like being in front of people, but man, it wears on me a little bit. So by the time I'm in the office Monday through Wednesday and at home Thursday and Friday. So by the time Thursday gets here, it's just, okay, I'm ready to be home. And the most fun part of my work week, honestly, is taking my alarm and setting it back an hour for Thursday and Friday on Wednesday night. I'm like, Oh yeah, I get to sleep in an extra hour. And it's just the best feeling in the world.
00:05:00
Speaker
And that does sound really, really satisfying. Well, with that, you were a waiter before you got into this profession at Nordstrom, which very jealous. I love Nordstrom. And as an ex-fashion person, well, we're not going to talk about shoes all day, but what was happening, you were
00:05:22
Speaker
waiting tables. I know you said you worked in some of the really big restaurants in Seattle, correct me if I'm wrong, but what was life like? Life was good in some ways and bad in other ways. I worked at high end steakhouses in three or four different cities. So I got to meet a lot of rich and elite people and do that. So
00:05:46
Speaker
The money I made was OK, but I was getting older. My body was getting tired. My kids were getting older. They were having nighttime activities with school and that kind of stuff. And if you want to make any money at all working in a restaurant, you have to work at night and you have to work one of the weekend nights, either Friday, you know, Friday or Saturday. And I was just tired of that. And even beyond that, when I would have time off, I never felt like I had time off because anytime you took time off or even on your weekends, everybody's asking you to work for them.
Reasons for Career Change
00:06:14
Speaker
And so it was never I was never really
00:06:16
Speaker
detached. I was just and I was tired of being on the opposite schedule. And just having a physical job was getting tiring as well. So I wanted to make a change. And my education actually isn't as an aeronautical engineer. So I waited tables for 20 years because you know, that's what everybody does with that degree. But that's what I did. And I'd always been into numbers as a kid. And that's what led me to springboard in data analytics. Interesting. Wait, hold on. I didn't realize
00:06:45
Speaker
Your degree was, maybe I didn't catch your sarcasm. Is that like not a very useful degree, you think? No, it's a useful degree. However, I'm going to give away my age here. I graduated from college with an aeronautical, astronautical engineering degree. When peace broke out in the world in 1991 and the Berlin wall fell and defense spending went way down.
00:07:11
Speaker
which is with that kind of degree, it kind of depends on what the government's spending with defense and defense contracts. And so the opportunities were a little bit less and my grades weren't the best at the time either. So yeah, I had the degree but ended up somehow somebody ended up waiting tables and enjoying it for a good amount of time until, like I said, family life and getting older and more tired got to be too much. Sure. That's really interesting how
00:07:40
Speaker
I never knew that. That's obviously not a profession I ever looked into. But that is fascinating how world politics and policy just play into that. But moving forward, so you needed to make a change. What did you do to start discovering other career paths outside of the service industry? Yeah.
00:08:07
Speaker
I had been looking to make a change and, you know, like data science being the sexiest thing for the next century or whatever. I remember reading some article years ago. I always was kind of in the back of my head and I started trying to do some coding online with like Khan Academy because it was free. So that was easy to try and get a start to see if I could write any kind of code because it had been years. And I actually did an online self-driven like data science bootcamp that I graduated from, but I wasn't really
00:08:37
Speaker
all that excited about the data science stuff. Nobody would even entertain my resume or anything as a job. So that's why I ended up going with Springboard because it had the mentorship and it also had the career help along with it. So that's why I kind of chose Springboard and I went more with the data analytics because that was, to me, that was more numbers and finding little insights and stuff more than modeling like data science. At least that's how it felt for me. Sure. Oh, interesting. So you,
00:09:04
Speaker
were doing some self teaching and tried to get a job that way before you signed up for springboard. Yep. And I just, I, I didn't like where I was at. Cause I knew even if I got the interview, I didn't have the background confidence of what they might want to hear. And I knew first time building my resume in my life, I didn't know how to build it. I didn't know how to make it look good or anything like that. So I knew I needed help on some level.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I actually didn't realize that when we first met, I didn't realize you had tried already to look for a job and then found springboard too. That's very interesting. I'm going to get I'm going to dive into that in a bit. But so you got into springboard because of that career mentorship.
00:09:50
Speaker
Um, and it probably taught you a couple of extra things too, that you just didn't think to discover on your own. I'd imagine that's just what education does. By, was there anything kind of outside the course that you looked into to kind of help prepare you to get to where you are now? Outside the course. I looked into, um, a few things, even when I was on my own, I had applied to have a mentor.
00:10:15
Speaker
who would help me get hired and they would earn a commission off what I made in my first two years, I believe, like a percentage of my salary for the first two years. And I did a trial thing with that and it just didn't feel right. And I dropped out of it like the day before I had to commit to you get X percent of my salary for two years. It just didn't feel right in doing that. So like I said, I kind of tried to do things on my own, but I needed more help. And I like the springboard. I like the accountability.
00:10:43
Speaker
with meeting with the mentor every week, and I liked their career help. Even though I myself, I did not have the job guarantee because I did not have any professional work experience. Ah, so they didn't give you that option for the job guarantee. Wow. Correct. OK. So that's an extra scary thing in a way. But no, I admire that. But from everything you're telling me, it sounds like you're
00:11:13
Speaker
you really would have been on the right path. And so with that, you still got the career coaching and things, right? Yeah, I got the career coaching. It was invaluable, that career coaching stuff. And with your mentor and the career coaching, in my opinion, you get out of it, however much you put into it. I mean, like for me, I had no job guarantee. So there was, you know, I was accountable to myself for making sure I got through all the career stuff and used
00:11:40
Speaker
And when you're doing the career stuff, make sure you find someone that you jive with. I think I, on my third person was the person I ended up working with. Like the first two, there was just a little bit of personality stuff that just didn't feel right or didn't hit right. I think on both of our ends, honestly. But just make sure that the person you're working with is compatible with what you're trying to accomplish and how you think and use them. They're an invaluable resource. They know a lot of things.
Job Acquisition Strategies
00:12:08
Speaker
Touching back on what you asked, stuff outside the program, the job I got now, I actually got hired because they asked me a question that I didn't know what it was and I didn't know any knowledge about it. But I did on LinkedIn Learning. I went and I did a few units or whatever, and then posted on my LinkedIn page that, hey, I completed this. And the manager that hired me, she said that was one of the things that I really
00:12:35
Speaker
led me to hire you is because you realized you had a gap and you went and immediately investigated it and then worked on filling it.
00:12:43
Speaker
I love that. Yeah, everything about that story is fantastic. And it's funny you bring that up now. I was having this conversation with another woman who's trying to get into UX design. And she had an interview where she's not doing UX design purely right now, but she has so much overlap. And so she was trying to explain an initiative she took to do some user testing, even though they didn't have those resources at her company. And the interviewer
00:13:14
Speaker
just flat out said, that's not how you do user testing. You do it in XYZ way. But what killed me was that this person who I was talking to didn't have those resources, but she still tried anyway. And yeah, I think that's a good sign of a good manager too, when they recognize that effort. So I love that story for everybody involved.
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, it was nice. I'm still amazed I got hired because one of the questions they asked me, I'm like, you're asking me, what do I know about it? How about what is it? They were asking me about an extract, transform, and load process, SSIS. I'm like, what do I know about it? How about what is it? That's how much I know. But I was honest with them. Then, like I said, I went on LinkedIn Learning and they saw that.
00:14:06
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Okay. So I know I'm jumping ahead, but I'm just so fascinated right now. So I'm guessing this is Nordstrom. Yes. Yeah, this is Nordstrom. Okay. And then, so you have this interview. You're like, what is this? I have never done it. Um, and I'm guessing you said that in the interview you went in, taught yourself this
00:14:28
Speaker
part of the job. And then how did that hiring manager make that connection of, Oh, can you learn this? Like he's still in the running. Like I'm just curious about this timeline. So I had the interview and I'm like, okay, that's something I don't know what it is. Let me look it up. Oh, Hey, there's something on LinkedIn learning. Um, I can do, and I can learn on it. And so I did, and I finished the unit or whatever it is on LinkedIn learning. I don't remember.
00:14:53
Speaker
But I finished it and then I posted like, you know, you finished, you completed. Do you want to post this on your timeline or whatever it is? And so I did. And the hiring manager happened to see that when they went to go review my LinkedIn profile or my, like after the interview. Oh, interesting. Okay. So it was really just fate in some ways.
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit. That's fantastic. Well, before you had that interview, I know you were saying that you putting together a resume for the first time actually interviewing that's quite different than getting into the service industry. So what was that process like for you? Was there anything that really caught you off guard that when you learned it or, um, what was, yeah, what was it like learning that for the first time? Going through the interview process and that kind of stuff.
00:15:44
Speaker
To me, the thing that hit me the most is I sound a lot different than I think I have, than I sound in my head. I just got my like OneDrive memories. Three years ago, I was recording myself practicing interviewing questions. And I would encourage anybody out there who's looking for a job change or a new career, practice, practice, practice and record yourself. Because you'll be able to, I talked about body language before I saw my body language. I could hear my voice inflection and go,
00:16:12
Speaker
Oh God, I sound really nervous and not confident. I need to work on that and I need to practice so that when they ask this question, I sound like I know what I'm talking about. And I will mention we haven't talked about it yet, but Nordstrom is my second job post springboard. I also got hired at a place called Limeade before that. So I've gone through the interview process twice now. So getting back to just interviewing, what were some of the things other than recording yourself,
00:16:39
Speaker
Um, practicing answering questions, working on your
Communication Skills in Tech
00:16:43
Speaker
body language. What were some of the other things that you adopted to help make yourself successful twice? Uh, I adopted YouTube interview practice questions on YouTube specific like data analyst questions, SQL interview questions, and that elevator pitch, you know, that, you know, tell me about yourself, getting that down and having it addressed in the proper language to your, to the proper audience that you're going to be addressing.
00:17:09
Speaker
Um, like the line made interview process, I talked to a hiring manager. I talked to a vice president. I talked to people that were going to be my teammates. I talked to a data science manager and my language between all of those changed a little bit, depending on what they were asking, like the data science manager asked a lot of technical questions. So I had to go to my technical lexicon, my teammates, we could be a little bit more friendly. And you know, they asked me, how would I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? And so it was kind of on that level, the vice president.
00:17:37
Speaker
different than different levels in the hiring manager. So you make whatever you're doing in your interview process, or even once you get into job, make sure you're addressing your audience properly. Certainly, that makes a lot of sense. And one thing that I think
00:17:53
Speaker
stuck out to me in our pre-interview that I'd love to have shared now is I always like to ask people, if I'm hiring you with your background, which is being a waiter in restaurants, what kind of skills are you actually bringing to the table? What are your transferable skills? And I loved your answer, and I really want you to talk about it now. Well, I hope that I get close to the answer I said before. I think that hasn't changed much.
00:18:21
Speaker
But honestly, a lot of the stuff I just talked about that I've already kind of touched on is it's the people skills. You could be the best data scientist, data analyst or whatever kind of person there is in the world. But if you cannot communicate that to your stakeholders or your fellow employees or your boss or whoever, you're not going to be any good. You're not going to do anybody any good out in the world, out in your career.
00:18:44
Speaker
So that those communication skills are totally invaluable. And I definitely got that in the restaurant business. I mean, one of the stories I always shared in my interviews was I had to figure out how to communicate to a tech billionaire at the table. And he had special requests and then go back to the kitchen where the person I'm speaking to English is not even her first language there and combine and make it so that they go through me and communicate properly to both of them. Definitely different styles of speaking, depending on your audience.
00:19:15
Speaker
And I talked about being in person and the body language stuff. It's totally invaluable in your career. I see my team lead even, he sometimes doesn't appropriate his communication for his audience very well. A lot of times he gets into the nitty gritty of the code and that kind of stuff. When we're talking to a business stakeholder and a user, they don't need to know that. They just want to know how the tools that we're making for them works.
00:19:42
Speaker
and why it doesn't work or how we, or when can we fix it? Yes. Yes. I completely relate on that. When someone uses such so many intense technical terms, I just think I don't know what you're saying. Like I don't, where are we trying to go here? So yeah, I, I completely agree. Social skills, people skills, I think will become even more important as AI kind of
00:20:09
Speaker
makes our lives more efficient. We're going to need people to manage it. We're going to need more people management, which good managers need to have people skills. Granted, there's lots of bad managers out there somehow functioning. But I feel like with how work is getting a bit more revolutionized, those bad managers aren't going to be doing quite as well in our future. What do you think about that? I agree with that 100%. I mean,
00:20:39
Speaker
Um, the people skill stuff, it's just, I mean, we live, what we're doing is all technical and you have to have those skills, but being able to communicate it and, and explain it in like 16 different ways to different people is just, and you have to be able to do that. I don't know. It's just, it's a totally invaluable skill. And yeah, as people, as AI makes the road tasks or the repetitive tasks so much easier.
00:21:09
Speaker
you're going to be dealing more face to face because you don't have to have your brain space or your time filled up with, you know, writing an email that is very similar to the one you wrote two weeks ago, that you can use AI to help you figure that out. Certainly. And what would you suggest for people that might need to work on their people skills and communication skills? I know you were kind of put on the battleground in restaurants and probably just
00:21:37
Speaker
eventually came to you. But right now, if someone were going to the interview process, and maybe they were using crazy technical terms with the hiring manager that didn't quite get that, what would you say people could do to take steps to improve that? Um, I'm not sure this is for everyone. But when I was at springboard, I forgot, one of the things I did was I think it was called lunch club, where I would have like a half hour hour meeting, I can't remember just meeting
00:22:04
Speaker
random people that work had kind of a similar interest in being able to talk to them. I was so introverted and had it, this imposter syndrome just built up so much in my head. But doing that lunch club thing and communicating with people and working on people skills and talking to people in a new language, in a new way, for me was invaluable. It helped with my confidence. It helped me realize that, okay, yeah, I've got some stuff to offer. I mean, people I was talking to are like, well, what do you want to do? What do you think we should do with this?
00:22:34
Speaker
It just, it, I think doing something like that would really help somebody. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. I had another idea, but I think I'll leave it alone. I learned some great suggestion. I also use lunch club and I definitely learned a lot from people. And I think being able to share a bit about my background, intrigued some people, some people
00:23:00
Speaker
didn't really care because they had projects to work on. I wasn't going to help them, but it at least helped me learn to talk to many different people in a way that you're going to be put in meetings with people. You're going to be put in scenarios with people where you have to make an impact. So at least you can show up being your best self and try. At the end of the day, that's all you can really do.
00:23:25
Speaker
So yeah, thank you for reminding me of how great lunch club was. I also got like a couple interviews from meeting people there. So definitely I recommend everybody get on that platform, just start talking to people who you could meet. Yeah. And one more thing I'll say about lunch club is it, it helps in the people skills because you're going to meet a bunch of different people and you're going to be in conversations where sometimes you have to carry the conversation or sometimes you're going to be in conversations where you're lucky to get two words in.
00:23:53
Speaker
So it helps you learn how to read people and how to have a good conversation that is smooth no matter if you're leading or you're not leading. So I think it helps with the people skills more than I was kind of thinking initially.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah. If anything, you'll practice your elevator pitch as to why you're on Lunch Club. That was my biggest question on that platform is what brings you to the platform? And that kind of helped me understand where they were going as a UX designer. You're always kind of looking for problems and figuring out how to solve them. And there were a couple of people that were looking for connections and I connected them with people in my network. So it's always good to just meet people where they're at too, I think.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yes. So with that, you were in, you've done two rounds of interviews because you did two jobs, but overall, what was the interview process like? Let's focus on getting you that first job. So I know you had a couple of different rounds, but what was just the job application process like? Were you applying to tons of jobs? How did that go for you initially? Yeah. When the first job, I made sure I had a goal in mind of, um,
00:25:08
Speaker
applying to so many jobs per week and sticking to that. So I had, even though I had some dream companies and everything, I did try to make sure that I was getting my numbers, getting my resume out there enough, eventually somebody's going to find you. And specifically with Springboard, I know there were around 700 applicants for the job that I got hired for. And they told me, just I'll say, one of the things they said is the customer service skills was the main reason that they were interested in me in the beginning. And then the interview kind of took me
00:25:38
Speaker
from there. But interview process for Limeade, the two interview processes were completely different. For Limeade, it was a half hour call with the hiring manager. Then it was a half hour interview with them. Then there was a two hour interview where I did the data science manager, the vice president and the future teammates. And that was kind of how the interview process. Oh, and at the end of that two hours, then my hiring manager did a technical interview with me.
00:26:07
Speaker
It was not a hard technical interview at all. It was like five SQL questions and one, look at this graph. What's wrong with it? What would you change? And then Nordstrom, I actually got hired on Nordstrom as a contractor. I actually ended up, a recruiter reached out to me and I got on a call for Nordstrom to work as a contractor. It was a half hour interview with the hiring manager, the team lead, excuse me, and another manager.
00:26:37
Speaker
And that was it for that one, because there was low risk to them. I'm a contractor. They could hire me. They don't have to pay me benefits. If they don't like me, I'm gone. So then I worked as a contractor for them for six months. They liked me. They decided that they were going to open a full-time position. And I didn't even have to interview for the full-time position. I actually got hired without a second interview. So a half-hour interview. And here I am two plus years later at Nordstrom.
00:27:07
Speaker
And I do have some fun news as of yesterday, I was approved for promotion. So. Oh my gosh, congratulations. I wish I had like a sound bite that like cheered right now. That's so incredible. I, okay. How did, I know when we talked earlier, this was potentially going to happen, but now that you're finally on the other side, what does that feel like? It feels good. It'll probably feel a lot better once I get the first paycheck.
00:27:36
Speaker
I'm just being honest with you. Honestly, it feels amazing. It's been a long journey and there have been a lot of steps along the way. You have to take the small steps. You can get rid of a mountain by taking it a spoonful at a time. You got to take the small steps along the way. The fact that it's happened less than two years after I was hired as a full-time employee feels incredible.
00:28:05
Speaker
I was celebrating with my kids last night. I'm like, yeah, this is actually technically, this is the first promotion I've ever had in my life at my age. That's incredible. I will continue to celebrate through this episode, but starting as a contractor, I know that some people shy away from that. They only want full-time jobs. I remember I was talking to my mentor when
00:28:31
Speaker
some companies with bigger names are reaching out to me for contracting. And I really discovered a lot of those big companies start with contractors and there's a varying amount of companies that do convert to full time. So what's kind of your take on just taking on contract work and hoping for the best or, you know, worked out in your scenario very well, but I know some people are quite hesitant with it. Um, for me.
00:29:01
Speaker
I was like, I, especially since I don't have, I didn't have much professional experience that, you know, I had like three months at Limeade, by the way, before I got a contract position. So I really didn't have any professional experience for me. It was, I need to get my foot in the door in any way that I can. Yes. I don't have the benefits when I'm a contractor for six months. Yes. It hurts in that way. Um, and it's scary, but for me, it was more important to get my foot in the door and
00:29:31
Speaker
to go for it and see, you know, because after the three months, I was still doubting myself of can I actually do this career? Can I not? So I needed to get my foot in the door. Can I do it this time?
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
00:29:43
Speaker
And that's that's why I went with the contractor because I wasn't getting many responses from my resumes and stuff at that time. You know, because you finish, you finish a boot camp, then you work for three months, and then you're not working suddenly what's going on. It kind of
00:29:59
Speaker
didn't smell really right. I bet to a lot of recruiters. So perhaps, perhaps. And yes, I remember you said limeade didn't quite work out, but you were able to pull yourself out. So what do you think? And perhaps you had a little bit of imposter syndrome after that experience. I couldn't have felt good. So what did you think pulled you out of that to bounce back and be where you are now?
00:30:24
Speaker
Well, I will say there wasn't a little bit of imposter syndrome. There is a ton and a half of imposter syndrome. That's actually why I ended up working myself out of Limeade because I had bad imposter syndrome. I did not have good habits for myself or for work. So going forward, what I did is I started marking the little things, the little accomplishments. And in the beginning, I had, when I first started Nordstrom,
00:30:52
Speaker
Like every week I had to write down something that I accomplished because I kind of felt like I don't know what I'm doing. My teammates are like running circles around me. They can do like a hundred things and I can do maybe one. So every week I would actually write down things that I did. And if I participated or spoke up in a meeting, I wrote it down as an accomplishment and did the small celebrations and just had that growth mindset to build a little bit at a time. And over time I got to do more and more and more.
00:31:23
Speaker
I don't celebrate those little accomplishments as much anymore, but it led to a bingo accomplishment with the promotion. There's something to be said about that in a deeply psychological way. That is a way to retrain your brain cognitively. I love reading about psychology and all of that, and that's a consistent thing to do, to dig yourself out of.
00:31:43
Speaker
just any type of negative mentality. The last book I read is a little more on the spiritual end, but it was called The Secret. And it was really about just how people succeed at things. And there's this one example of a guy who, when he wakes up, he thinks of something immediately to stay thankful for. And it'll be like, I can put two feet on the ground. Or I woke up to a child's laughter
00:32:10
Speaker
outsize anything and it's way better than thinking of the negative. So with that, what's been your experience like at Nordstrom now that you're there? We know you're celebrating the little accomplishments, you had a bit of a setback, but what else has it been like? Well, I kind of go from the beginning. Nordstrom was, in my mind, to their credit, they were very patient with me because my role currently, I'm a little bit more of an development role.
00:32:38
Speaker
Right. Gone to springboard for data analysts. How does that work? But they were patient with me. And that's something I'll say is data skills are data skills, whether you're an analyst, a data scientist, whether you're a data engineer, whatever kind of role you're doing, those skills can apply across different roles. It just, what suits you and what you like to do. So don't think just because you did data analyst, you have to get a data analyst job. Cause that's not what I do on a daily basis. Yes. There are some things that I do weekly that I learned at springboard.
00:33:08
Speaker
A lot of what I do, I did not learn at Springboard. But they were very patient with me, able to bring me along slowly so that I could learn into their, learn their lexicon. And I think any place you get hired, be kind to yourself. That's another thing about imposter syndrome. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself a break. Every company has different languages, different ways they do things, different ways they speak about things. And I've read multiple articles that say it takes about six months to feel comfortable.
00:33:36
Speaker
perfectly like speaking the language of the company and everything that you're in. So be kind to yourself in that way.
Career Challenges and Growth Mindset
00:33:42
Speaker
But they were patient. They let me learn. My manager, my hiring manager, who was my manager for a little while actually was the one who came up with, you know, write some stuff down that you've accomplished. So I got that from her. So speaking of good managers. But but other than that, in my study growth, we no longer have a direct manager.
00:34:05
Speaker
So that was the first thing that happened. Then we were a team of four. Now we're a team of two. So I've lost a lot of support around me after learning. And one of the biggest things that happened to me that was critical to my growth was a mistake I made. I crashed our production database with a just forgetting to put a where clause. People that know SQL will kind of understand that.
00:34:35
Speaker
But I crashed our production database, and we were off for three days. Oh my goodness. And we couldn't, partially because we needed to do a bigger data load than we normally do. And you have to try to do that during off hours and during business day, everybody, even though we told them not to use the database, they still did. But I was able to work over that weekend and get us back online for Monday. And I'm getting emotional now. I did so much for my confidence.
00:35:06
Speaker
that, Hey, I can do this. My team lead had kind of given up and wondering, what are we going to do? But I got us back online and ready to go for business on Monday. And that looking back on it, it was a critical turning point for me in my career. Yeah. Making mistakes are brutal. We've all done them. I, Oh man. So I'm just out of curiosity, like from the consumer, was this the website that I wouldn't have been able to access?
00:35:33
Speaker
No, we have our own database where our business users do operational tools. So different types of product item data, order data, that kind of stuff that they would be making business decisions on. They weren't able to use our operational tools for that we have basically, we don't deal with outside customers, we're pretty much all internal customers. Yeah, I would imagine that would be quite a stressful moment. So with that, what would you tell someone in your shoes now that you've
00:36:03
Speaker
now that you've gotten past all of that. Well, would I tell someone in my shoes as like trying to fight, trying to change careers or somebody like where I'm at now? Oh, that's actually a great question. I was thinking more so like in that moment of making that mistake, like talking to the Ken then versus the Ken, like what would the Ken now say to the Ken in the past? The Ken now would say, you got it. You made a mistake. Work on it. Make progress.
00:36:33
Speaker
Figure out one thing about it, like write down what you know. And if there's one thing you know that you can fix, fix the small thing. Do what you know you can do and you might learn something in that that helps solve the bigger picture. Just get that focus into the what you know you can handle and build your confidence up from there. And that kind of applies even to when you're trying to change careers and stuff. When I was interviewing a stuff, my confidence would get low. So to help that, I would go and do either something on LinkedIn Learning,
00:37:03
Speaker
or redo a unit like on data camp or something like that to like build my confidence and say, Oh yeah, I have skills. I know what I'm doing. I can do this. Yeah, that's a great, what a wonderful suggestion. Not only are you like relearning something or refreshing your memory, but you're also building up that internal esteem. I love that advice. I'm going to use that for myself whenever I'm feeling whatever, like go try to learn something.
00:37:30
Speaker
So that being said, yeah, I'd love to dive into that question more of what would you tell past Ken when he was just starting with data analytics, just getting into everything versus the Ken now. Like what would, what would the Ken now say to pass Ken? The Ken now would say to Ken starting out, you can do it. Don't worry. Don't worry about it. You've got value to add.
00:38:00
Speaker
And by the way, past Ken, you'll never know everything. And if you ever get to a point where you think you know everything or maybe you even actually do, it's going to change tomorrow. So you're going to have to have a growth mindset and you're going to have to learn on the fly throughout your entire career. And that's kind of what I would say. I would just say you, you can do it. Don't worry about knowing everything, getting into it. You're going to have to learn stuff specifically for your job or specifically for your company. And you'll figure, you'll figure that out.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's great advice really for anyone in any part of their lives. And I think another thing that you touched upon was just admitting that you didn't know something. Like that is, I don't think a lot of people are able to do that for many reasons. Like they might not be in a position where they're comfortable admitting that or, you know, they have pride and they think they should know everything.
00:38:55
Speaker
even though that's not possible for any human. So yeah, I think with all of those things, like there's only so far, like there's only, the sky's the limit. And we've talked about past camp, but what about future camp? Like, where do you see yourself going next? I know you just got promoted, so you're probably going to settle into that. But clearly with your growth mindset, you're, you're going places. Um, at this point, I'm kind of happy where I'm at. And, um,
00:39:24
Speaker
You know, I'm thinking about, I only have so many years left in my career. Are there things I want to accomplish? Are there not things I want to accomplish? And I'm, I'm honestly going to take about six months in the new role and then kind of think about it and evaluate where I want to go and what I want to do. Cause I'm not sure if I want to try and be like a team lead or anything like that. That's a lot of extra stuff that gets added in there. So the answer is I'm not sure I'm going to evaluate it in six months.
00:39:53
Speaker
I think that's totally fair. There's something to be said for just letting things come to you. I think I know I did not do that and put a lot of pressure on myself to have a timeline of I need to decide everything at this point in my career.
Advice for Career Advancement
00:40:06
Speaker
And then when I took away that deadline, things got a lot easier. So that's fantastic. Well, with everything said, is there something we didn't talk about that you would like to share now? Just don't be scared. Just dip your foot in the water and get out there and do it.
00:40:22
Speaker
Do it a little bit of a time if you need to, and celebrate, celebrate, celebrate every little thing you do. Wise words. So with that being said, are you open to listeners connecting with you on social media? Absolutely. And I'm assuming that would be LinkedIn. So with LinkedIn, would you be able to spell your name so that people can find you? Sure. It's Ken, K-E-N, Patterson, P-A-T-E-R, S-O-N.
00:40:53
Speaker
No, it's only one T. That's important to know. And perhaps there are many Ken Patterson's with different amounts of T's in their name working at Nordstrom. So it would be a little awkward if they added the wrong Patterson or funny, depending on how you look at it. But yeah, I have to say the community we've been building through this platform has been amazing. And the people that have reached out, I have loved all the side conversations that have come about it.
00:41:23
Speaker
But with that, thank you so much for your time and sharing your story. And for everyone listening, if you have any questions for Ken or myself that I can answer on a future episode, please email me at alumnipodcastatspringboard.com.