Shifiting Career Paths

Show Notes

Shifting your career path to get into the IT world can be intimidating but it is certainly not impossible. In fact, you may probably have most of the required skills but may not know that yet.  
 
In this episode, we are hosting Boaz Barzel, Cato Networks’ sales enablement lead. We’ll talk about the moves you need to make to acquire the experience needed, how to market yourself, and most importantly, we’ll define what are the key factors you should consider when shifting careers paths into IT 
 
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What is Convergence?

Convergence by Cato Networks is a show for IT professionals made by IT professionals. We'll talk about the most burning questions, hear bolder opinions and mostly learn about what is happening in the IT world today

We are here to uncover the good, the

bad and the ugly of the It industry.

My name is Robin Johns, and

this is convergence by Cato Networks.

Shifting your career path to get into the IT world

can be intimidating, but it is certainly not impossible.

In fact, you might probably have most of the

required skills, but may not even know that yet.

In this episode, we are hosting

Boaz Barzel, Cato network sales enablement lead.

We'll talk about the moves you need to make to

acquire the experience needed, how to market yourself, and most

importantly, we'll define what are the key factors you should

consider when shifting career paths into It.

Stay tuned, this will be a good one.

Hi Boaz, thank you for joining me today.

How are you doing?

I'm doing well, thank you very much, Robin.

I'm happy to be here. Fantastic.

Well, it's a pleasure to have you

to talk about all things sales enablement

and generally how to shift career paths.

So let's start with your personal journey because nobody

starts in the place they want to be.

What was your planned career path, looking way

back when to a young 15-year-old?

Boaz or bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?

Where did you want to be?

When I was 15, I had a

long hair and black boots, black coats.

So it's different from where I am today.

But my career actually started from

the military, the Israeli military.

I was five years in the Israel military, and when I

left the military, I really didn't know what to do.

So I didn't have a plan.

The only plan that I had

was getting breakfast that day.

But then I got a call to participate in

a bartending course and I can use the military

funds that I received for that course.

So I said and then I started learning

how to be a bartender and a barista.

And that really kickstarted my

first, I would say, career path.

From there I was working as a bartender and a barista.

And then I started instructing other

people in a bartending school.

I participated in the Israeli Barista Championship.

In 2008, I won second place.

Very proud of it.

And kind of the same time I

was thinking, okay, what's the next step?

What should I do?

So I opened a business of my own

about training, instructing, and helping other coffee places to

succeed, and the service also industry.

And then I took an

entrepreneurship course with a friend.

We had big plans.

We wanted to open a coffee shop in Israel.

During that course we

discovered the different elements.

And one of the most shocking, I would say

data, is that 90% of the business closed in

the first year, and second year, the same kind of percentage.

And it's a real profession, not like with high-tech,

it's twenty-four-seven, but you get to sleep there,

you don't really get a lot of sleep.

And then what happens?

Then I decided that I want to shift my career.

I want to change what I'm doing because I

wasn't seeing any kind of success in the future.

I got married, I finished my university degree,

and then I decided to change career.

So effectively you were seeing the world of

beans and Java and you thought that's not

the type of Java I actually want.

You want to start doing more tech because

as we all know, Israel is a very

hot spot for startup innovation and technical success.

So if you have people running around turning caffeine

into code, I guess it's only natural that you

start to meet the people you're serving, understand

more about their careers and move forward.

So as you didn't start your career in a tech

space, as you started your role in a militaristic and

then a retail environment or a service industry, what sort

of transferable skills have you learnt from then, which you

have brought into the world of tech?

That's a great question, Robin, because one of the things

that I've learned is, first of all, to be honest, and

be open, accept change and listen to everyone around you.

And these is kind of the things that you

learn when starting from really the ground up.

When I started the work in

Checkpoint, I didn't know anything.

I was not even aware of how to configure

IP on a Windows machine at that level.

But they still have me, they still accepted me for an

entry-level program and I would say it was an easy start.

And the reason is that I knew I didn't

know anything, that I had to learn anything.

And they also knew that.

So we're practically saying, okay, you don't

know anything, here's a lot of stuff,

go and learn that and start practicing.

And because of that, I think that it's relatively easy.

I know that most people will not agree

with me around that, but it's relatively easy

to start from kind of the entry level

where everybody acknowledge that you're an entry level.

And technically all you need to do

is work, learn, practice and repeat.

And eventually, if you're a team player, and this

is something that I learned in the military, no

one can be successful on their own.

You have to work as a team.

There is also hierarchy and political

approaches that you need to learn.

And once you get it right, you are able

to, I would say, be more accomplished in what

you do and understand what needs to be done

for you to be successful, for the organizations or

the teams that you work with to be successful.

And if you can find a way to make it happen

so the team is successful and by that, you are also

successful, then that's kind of the way to integrate yourself into

being part of a successful organization and an integral part that

people look at you and say, we want him to work

with us, that's a big challenge.

Like the classical term alone, you can go faster,

but together as a team you can go further.

And some people often struggle to move into tech where

they're used to doing things at their own pace, they're

used to driving forward and doing the tasks in front

of them and not having that limitation.

But the world of tech is much more converged.

You have more dependencies.

And as you mentioned, we can't ignore the internal

politics of any single company, whether it be a vendor

to a customer, vendor to vendor, or even just talking

with your peers and learning that political shifts and

how to deal with your other teams, that's often

seen as key to success.

So when it comes to shifting into the world

of It or into the world of tech, there's

so many different areas of tech out there.

And if you don't already have your own

career path established, things can be very confusing.

So how did you decide to go down these tech paths?

You were why not development, why

not engineering, why not QA?

Why did you end up in sales enablement?

That's interesting because I did

start as a QA engineer.

I didn't know what it means.

All I knew that I'm very good with technology.

Technology loves me.

When people had their problems with their computers, they

would call me because apparently I knew something.

And the moment I sit down in

front of the computer, everything worked.

So it's like, you know, when you go to a

doctor, when you feel sick, you sit down, you're waiting

for the doctor and immediately you start feeling better.

Nothing was treated, but you're in that kind of

path for getting a cure or getting cured actually.

So for me, technology was always an

easy element and fortunately I had a

cousin that was working in Checkpoint.

So I spoke with him and then we sat down and

talked about what can I do, and what my interests are.

And he said, Why won't you start in Checkpoint

as a cue engineer, really from the entry-level?

And that's basically what I did.

So we worked on my CV,

which was completely not related.

And one thing I've learned is

that you have to be interesting.

And that means that if you're creating

your CV and everything, there is kind

of very professional and very accurate.

It's important, that's true, but you have to be

interesting because I would say a good interviewer would

first, ask you about yourself and what they mean

is that why you but the second thing to

really create that openness and feel that kind of

trust so the interview will go well is asking

about your hobbies or things even accomplished.

That is not really something that relating to the job.

And I think that today in our world,

people are looking for someone interesting, someone that

can bring more than just the professional experience.

So that's kind of where I started I was

talking about my world and my experience in the

coffee industry, and we talked about coffee.

Everybody loves coffee.

That's my wife, which is funny because she hates

coffee and she hates the smell of coffee, and

everybody's laughing because I make apparently great coffee.

I won the Barista Championship against second place.

So every time someone comes to my home, they

have a World Trade cup of coffee, and my

wife doesn't drink any kind of coffee.

So it really is funny.

But this is a good talking point, and this is

something that I would recommend everybody to have volunteering or

having a really successful or being somewhat successful in some

sort of a hobby, that is an interesting topic to

speak about and then add to your resume, even if

your resume is not relevant to that profession.

And finally, I would say that if you can write

down the skills I would say that you've shown or

that you have experience in that are relevant to that

position, there's something that will also help you and kind

of get you to rethink about the job or the

position, what needs to be done, and eventually understand, okay,

am I skillful for that?

Can I learn that?

Do I want to learn that?

Is that something I want to do?

And that's really something that when I started as

a QA, because I'm a very kind of structured

and planned kind of guy, it was really easy

because you have a test plan, you go 1234.

If it works, fantastic.

If not, you open a dick.

That's basically it.

And from that point, it really is gotten me into the

world that we know today as kind of the sac world

and security and networking and everything that we do.

That's some very good advice, especially looking for

transferable skills from one role into another.

Now, I remember when I did my first application

for a management position way back in my career,

I got asked, do you have any management experience?

Have you ever led a team and

at that point in time, professionally, no.

But realistically, World of Warcraft Guild leader for ten years

and trying to arrange 40 people to run several tactics

and get them to stand in the fire or dispel

curses at the same time, that's a transferable skill.

Same as if you don't have any experience

problemsolving and maybe you like Dungeons and Dragons.

Well, that's just utilizing a group of people to

come up with creative solutions to difficult problems, and

you can kind of move as you go forward.

So what would you advise that people

do not put on this CV?

What should they leave out if they're trying to

step into the world of tech from another area,

such as retail, accounting, finance, or others?

That's funny that you say.

I want to address the World of Warcraft because I was

actually a game master when I was young, free, military.

I started Dungeons and Dragons when I was twelve years

old, and then LARPing and other areas of role playing.

So I was also a game master.

I had a community service before the military, so

I owned the military and had a community service.

And the whole year I had a team that I was also

the instructor and then I was also the GM in the game.

So it was really kind of a fun experience.

Going back to your question, sometimes people write their

TV or resume in a very generic way.

They're not investing time to think about what is really needed

for this job or for the field that you need.

And then what happens is that someone that reads

their TV or resume, even if it's professionally done,

it seems generic and they don't find anything interesting.

And that's what you need to think about.

So if your CV is generic or is not

interesting, there's nothing that will say, okay, this guy

might be a good choice for us.

Not because he has experience, but because they can

bring something in addition to what we already have,

especially with teams that are already established.

And you're looking for another member,

like I'm doing today, for example.

I was looking for experience and skill, but

I was also looking for something that I

am missing, that my team is missing.

Not necessarily in the experience, but maybe

in creativity or in interpersonal skills.

And that's kind of one of the important elements.

If you have good interpersonal skills, get

examples and add those to the TV.

Don't leave them out because this will literally

change minds of especially HR, because they will

see, okay, why didn't mention that?

That seems interesting.

Maybe it's worthwhile speaking with him.

And that's what we want to do.

The entire purpose of that TV is

to get someone to speak with you. That's it.

From that point on, it's the ability to interview and how

to tell your story in such a way that they will

think, okay, that's the person that I want for that job.

So that's kind of the area when I'm interviewing.

Taking to the next step, I'm moving ahead.

Okay, taking to the next step, you're interviewing.

I spoke with one of my friends that she's

actually looking for a new job in product management.

She doesn't have any security background, so not right for

Cato, but we talked about that kind of TV and

we talked about interviewing and we talked about how to

be able to present yourself, what to say and what

to talk about and the different skills that you have.

And in an interview, it's important to understand that

what the other side is thinking is, why should

I choose you from all the other candidates?

And this is what you start with.

And then you talk about other areas where you

volunteer, what kind of hobbies that you have, why

did you choose that corporation or that startup or

any kind of job, what's the reason?

And show that you've taken interest,

that you've learned about them.

Read some stories, blogs about

their website, read about us.

Why do we do what we do and talk about it?

Because any interviewer would like for the person

that they're interviewing to be interested in what

they do and the company they work with.

And also personally, if you find a

common hobby, you can raise it.

So I do recommend be very specific in your

CV, live out the generic stuff, just write down

why you for this job, what skills, according to

what they wrote, and if you are missing experience,

if they requested ten years in product management and

you only have two, that's not a problem.

But address that, talk about why those two were

as meaningful as ten, if not more years, and

look and ask them what do they think?

Or what do you expect from those ten years?

And talk about it.

I think a lot of this comes down to the

worst four letter F word in the English language.

And that's fear.

No dirty minds, just fear.

People are scared about taking the

leap and taking the jump.

And if you were to start looking at a job

description, you might say, yes, you need ten years of

experience in this or ten years and that.

I saw a developer job recently and it

was asking for 15 years of Swift experience.

Now, I don't believe Swift has been out

for 15 years, but hey, that's what the

hiring manager decided to put down.

Sometimes the hiring managers don't really

know what they're looking for.

Instead it's more of a box checking exercise.

So presume you saw a fantastic role that you wanted

to jump into and you thought, yes, this company is

great, maybe it's Cattle Networks, we have lots of jobs

on our careers page, come and listen.

Or maybe another company, but really come to Cato.

But you see this job spec and you know

you do not have the technical skills required for

this job, but you believe you could learn it.

How do you personally acquire new tech skills?

How do you keep your tech skills relevant?

And how do you breach into the wild unknown?

Because, well, with tech, the more you know, the more

you realize you have no idea what's going on whatsoever.

So what's your approach? That's great.

That's really a great question because I was in

the same place, I would say twelve years ago,

and for me, I was always interested in technology.

So before I do start talking about technology, Cato

is an amazing company, it's such a great company.

And I would say that my only

regret is not joining Cato sooner.

So if I knew that, I would probably join sooner.

And that's really something that if people

listen to that and they think about,

OK, should I move somewhere else?

Definitely go and move into Kato.

You'll have a chance to work with us.

That's kind of a great thing.

But nonetheless, reading about technology,

I would say it's good.

It's not enough, because technology

really changed our lives completely.

Everything that we do today revolves around

technology, and we can't really imagine how

our lives will be without it.

That means there are different areas of technology

that you'll have to decide what is your

interest, what do you like to do?

And from that point, I would say if you

find a position or a role that has different

skills or knowledge or experience that you believe is

missing, the first thing is to research about it.

What does it mean?

How does it look like?

If you can use a free trial of some software

and start working on that and kind of gaining the

experience or investing in a proper lesson or an elearning

that can help you with that, that's fantastic.

I have a rule.

It's a rule for me and my team.

The rule is that you need to spend at

least 20% of your time learning something new.

That means that part of your

work involves learning something new.

Every week I make sure to listen

to at least one or two podcasts.

LinkedIn Learning, for example, it's a great asset, and we

have it in cato, so we have access to everyone,

anyone that just wants to learn from LinkedIn Learning.

There are some great courses, and the beauty of it,

it only takes 20 to 30 minutes, that's all.

So you eat lunch, you finished lunch, you

feeling kind of grossly, and you say, okay,

let me learn something that I'm interested in.

So I'm opening a podcast.

I watch a Ted Talk newspapers or a LinkedIn

Learning course or any one of those areas.

And the important thing is that I'm trying to write down one

topic or one idea that got my attention and trying to develop

it and see how can I get better with that.

Maybe they talked about in the podcast or in

the talk or maybe something I need to research.

And now I'm using something

that's called famine technique.

Famine was a great professor and his,

I would say most valued accomplishment.

He was able to explain complex topics in simple ways,

and his technique is great for everyone to practice, especially

if you want to learn a new skill.

And the first thing is to learn and to research.

And we talked about it, but what most

people are not doing, and that's the really

great aspect, is to practice it.

So you need to explain it and

to present it to someone else.

At first it's better, someone from the

industry that can bring your feedback.

But if not, you will learn very quickly

what are the gaps and the challenges in

the knowledge and expertise that you have.

And it will allow you to go back and learn and

focus on those and be more aware of your own kind

of skills and capabilities and then you go practice again.

So after you learn, you practice again until you're

at a level that you can explain that topic

to a six years old or your grandmother.

And once you're able to do

that, you have master that topic.

And most people, especially in organization and that's kind

of one of the areas that got me into

Sales Enablement is that I can get people to

practice to be better at what they do and

to influence that and create that level of success.

And what I do is just give them

the stage or provide them with the stage

and the content and the topics to practice.

And then they practice with me.

Even if I won't say anything, they will immediately learn

the areas that they need to get better at.

And this is what we do in Cato by the way we practice.

And the first question I asked

them, what did you learn?

What did you think about?

And this is a customer simulation, about

the customer, was the customer interested?

And so on and so forth.

And in 99% of the time they are extremely accurate

with what went sideways, what needs to be improved.

And the topic that I also cover is their strength.

What were you good at?

You need to lean on that and also work on that.

So going back to your question, you have

strong elements or strong skills and knowledge areas.

Lean on those more, make sure you're

learning and improving those as well.

Because these are the areas that will

help you when you are challenged.

When you have gaps of knowledge, you can

go back and lean to those strengths.

And some people don't know their own strengths

and this is something that we are able

to do so eventually kind of summarizing everything.

I do what I do because I can influence people in

becoming better at what they do and to help them, even

if I'm not the expert, which usually I am.

But even if I'm not the expert, I

can get them to be the expert.

I can get them to be so good

at what they do that they are successful.

And if they are successful, I am successful.

And being part of that and working with as many

people as possible is the reason why I'm in Enablement,

sales Enablement, because I like the technology, I like sales,

I like to speak, and I get to do it

a lot because I'm doing what I'm doing.

And I'm constantly thinking about how can

I take it a step further?

What can I do to be better at what I

do so others will be better at what they do?

Knowing strength is important.

It's only through knowing strengths

you can identify your weaknesses.

So if you were to just say three generic bullet

points, just three, what are the three most important strengths

to have to work in the world of tech.

It might sound counterintuitive, but it's

not relating to tech skills.

The first thing is being honest and open.

That's the first thing.

The second one is being a team player and

motivated to work with others and help them succeed.

By doing that, by the way, you will learn

a lot of what you need to do.

And the third thing is intelligence.

And that means that you're not stupid.

I'm not calling people stupid, but you're intelligent.

And intelligent people have good learning skills.

If they don't, they learn how

to learn, which is important.

But the second thing is that they're

self motivated and they are curious.

So constantly curious.

Listen to other people even if you know what they're

talking about, if you think you know what they are

talking about, even if you are already the kind of

master at that topic, listen to what they say.

Try to think about okay, maybe they have something

that I don't know or I haven't researched enough.

And if you'd asked me, I like to work with people

and I would look for people that hate to fail more

than I would look for people that like to succeed because

they will have that constant drive to be better.

If you like to succeed and you succeeded, that's fine.

But there usually nothing to take you to the next step.

If you're constantly looking at what am I doing?

What do I need to do?

And planning for not failing, then success will come.

And it's more about the way that it's

about the goal that you're trying to achieve.

So I would say be honest, be open, be curious,

be intelligent, self motivated and learn how to learn.

Listen to other people and work with them. Great advice.

Great advice.

Now if you were to go back in time once

again to our long haired, slightly gothic boaz of you

and you were to give some advice to that young

weapon Snapper today, what piece of information would you like

to give yourself as a youngster?

What do you know now you wish

you knew earlier in your career?

That's a good question and I'm going to answer it

in a way that you're probably not expecting me.

First of all, do sports.

More martial arts for example or it

can be swimming or anything like that.

So really invest in that and make it part of your

life alongside of I would say not health but eat well.

And that's kind of the most important thing because

everything else comes from a good and balanced life.

And if you want to be openminded or have the right

mental skills to invest in what you do in your work

and of course you need to love what you do.

And this is something that really helps me because

I really love what I do, is that when

your life is balanced, you're doing sports or any

kind of physical activity, you're training your brain as

well mentally that is the most important thing.

And for me, I was not doing sport as much

as I wanted, as much as I am doing today.

And I'm really happy about it because it

also clears your mind and it gives you

some time to reflect upon what you're doing.

And you're not capable of taking long thoughts

or reflecting on really deep things because you're

constantly breathing and you're constantly trying to catch

up to what you're doing.

So it's similar to meditation for me at least,

where brain is kind of the semi shut off

and you're into the workout, you're into the training.

I have a personal trainer because then I don't have

to also think about what I need to do.

Again, something that I learned from the military.

This is the exercise that you need to do. Go and do it.

Twelve repetition, this amount of weight.

Go and do it.

You're not thinking, you're really into

it and it clears your mind.

And it's really something, it's really something that I recommend

and something that I would tell the 16 me.

I would also tell him to learn more languages.

I love languages.

I think that everyone today has to know

at least two spoken languages and another coding

language, computer language if you want.

That's kind of the bare minimum.

That's what I require for my kids.

So they learn Hebrew, they learn

English very early in the process.

And my daughter already started coding.

We started from scratch and now she's moving to Python

HTML and she's in a kind of a girls course.

My son is the same thing.

Once he learned English a little more,

I would say next year, maybe thereafter,

you will start with coding as well.

From that point, they are free

to do whatever they want.

They're free to choose whatever they want as long as they

can say with full heart that this is what they want

to do, this is what they love to do.

The minute that it's changed, they are free

to change their mind, be dynamic, be open.

Because life is constantly changing.

And I think that this is kind

of where I find myself changing constantly.

I'm pretty sure in a few years I'll be changing

what I'm doing and kind of be more accurate or

focused in the areas that I'm doing and being able

to develop and trying to do more.

I would say front seat kind

of driving, if that makes sense.

Teaching children how to code is very dangerous,

especially if they're young children because young children

ask why questions all the time.

You teach them to code, then they're giving you

if loops, they're giving you the why statements and

you're just expanding the vocabulary to make it more

difficult for you to parent and live with.

But you are setting them up for success in the future.

So regardless of the path they want to

take, there's opportunities available and that's I.

Think what the essence of your entire podcast has been.

Everything you do.

Look at transferable skills, look how you can improve

yourself as a person, look how you can grow,

look how you can develop, be receptive to others.

And overall, just focus on what you

can do instead of what you can't.

So thank you very much for your time, boss.

It's been very insightful and it's been a

pleasure to have you as a guest.

Thank you very much, Roman.

It was an amazing experience.

It was, as always, excellent to speak

with you and talk with you.

And I would say encourage your children to ask Why?

And also ask why yourself?

Because I love when people present

objections to me, ask me why.

And now I have to handle that because it makes me

better and I think that it will make everyone better.

So thank you very much for that fantastic experience.

That was all for our episode today.

I hope you've come away feeling

a little more educated and empowered.

In case you've forgotten, I'm Robin Jones and

you've been listening to Conversion by Cato Networks.

Don't forget to hit subscribe and

I'll see you next time.