The Power of the Snowball
How to unlock amazing career opportunities regardless of your background and experiences
The 2 Paths of Power
If you scroll on LinkedIn, you might notice the plethora of “I’m excited to announce…” posts. When applying to jobs, you may notice your competition includes those who go to top schools, high GPA’s, prev at FAANG, lots of followers, etc. and you may feel like you’re not enough. And that you fall short.
This was me.
But, instead of letting badges of prestige define my worth, I created my own path.
As so many know, I went to a local state school, graduated without a perfect GPA, and never worked at FAANG, or even adjacent! Yet simultaneously, I was able to land an amazing new-grad role as their youngest and first Product Manager I, graduate debt free, build an online community of 13k+, land multiple internships in college, and invest 5+ figures into retirement accounts.
You see, there are two paths to the career success you desire. The paths are not disjoint, and one can have both.
Path #1: Brand name background
Path #2: Embrace
Path #1: This gives you a great cushion to leverage. If that’s you, then tapping into the talent pools at school, magnifying on social media into a social media series, etc. will get you far. Also, I know that many recruiters source candidates from top schools, so try to attend as many career fairs as possible.
If that’s not you, no worries. It’s not over! There is another way to create the career you want. I couldn’t think of a better name, so let’s call it “Embrace”. Basically, I learned first-hand how one Google search can lead to incredible opportunities. By tapping into the many online Discord servers, nonprofit events, and even finding an outlet to share your learnings, you ultimately WILL SUCCEED.
To summarize, you must make yourself as visible as possible to the right people and surround yourself with others who inspire you. This might sound trivial, but throughout my journey of mentoring others, many don’t know how to start their walk towards Path #2. And some might procrastinate or be scared that their lack of Path #1 qualities automatically disqualifies any chance of a successful future.
To help you overcome artificial limitations, I will show you how I ran, not walked on Path #2 . Perhaps you might come to a newfound understand of its significance to your future.
My Application of Path #2
During my high school experience living in Hawai’i, I was astounded to learn they did not have a Computer Science class nor any coding-related clubs. Naturally, I felt sad because I thought this fact could hinder my progress towards a Computer Science degree. So instead, I joined the next best thing and became the only female programmed for the robotics team. We ended up winning a regional competition later! There, I learned the vital nature of bringing passionate people together towards a common goal. This led me to think: “Woah, wait...I could start my own coding club!”
With a little bit of Googling and the help of Mother’s Facebook group connections, I started a chapter of Girls Who Code advised by a professor in the IT department at the local university. Together, we received sign ups from 15~ girls to join the club. Every Tuesday night, I taught the girls a new coding lesson and our end of the year projects. On the last day of school, we presented our projects to faculty at the university. With a standing ovation, a path illuminated for these girls to finally have the confidence to pursue STEM.
Founding the Girls Who Code chapter in Hawai’i snowballed into getting an ad from my club advisor to join Hawai’i top fellowship program for aspiring startup founders called Nalukai Startup Academy. I applied and became one of 20 high schools to join the third cohort. There, we learned about how to create an MVP (minimum viable product) with mentors from world-class tech companies and received feedback from venture capitalists on our startup ideas (I can create a WHOLE two part series on my takeaways from Nalukai because this experience literally changed my life). Because of Nalukai, I learned of my potential as a leader in technology. This led me to building the Magnify Wellness app and impacting 100k+ youth in finding mental health support. This experience granted me the skillset to join startup called Curious Cardinals as one of their Computer Scence mentors. I feel so blessed to have supported many students, sharing my knowledge with programming and entrepreneurship. In particular, I mentored a young girl in middle school whom I saw a lot of past self reflected back at me: very shy, but a natural coder. I taught her how to build self-confidence and we coded a data science project together. A year~ later, her parents invited me to apply for a summer internship at their startup. After going through the interview loop, I received an internship as their first Product Manager intern hire.
So can you see the snowball effect once you take one step towards Path #2? :-)
Actionable Next Steps
My high tolerance of risk and initiative compounded into the person I am today. I’m grateful I leaned into my proactiveness despite external limitations.
If you feel stuck and discouraged by the lack of support around you, I understand how you feel.
But it’s not over.
Here are some hacks to traverse Path #2 with confidence that you are never alone:
Direct message one cool new person a day via LinkedIn, link to cold messaging templates. Make them talk about their career journey and what excites them.
Run not walk towards finding a career mentor on ADPList, Boba Talks, Rewriting the Code, NCWIT (free)
Create a passion project (website, volunteering nonprofit, school club, research project etc.) and make conscious effort to create impact. Publish it online and put it on your resume. Call yourself a builder / founder to be treated with respect and honor.
Take one of these first steps, and I promise your future self will thank you (I know mine is).
Thanks for reading!
If you felt like you learned something new, thank me by giving me coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/abigaylep