Great Eggspectations: Breakfast with a Side of Career Advice at ChannelCon 2017

On August 2 at ChannelCon in Austin, Texas, attendees enjoyed a serving of career advice with their breakfast in the session, Great Eggspectations 3.0 – The Best Career Advice Ever. T.C. Doyle, senior content director, channel, of Penton Technologies facilitated a discussion about the best career advice five panelists have received…and the advice that didn’t quite hit the mark.

The diverse panel of successful technology professionals included:

• Jill Chapman, senior performance consultant, Insperity (JC)
• Greg Dixon, chief technology officer, ScanSource (GD)
• Elizabeth Hyman, executive vice president, public advocacy, CompTIA (EH)
• Dawn Lindsey, head of partner marketing and programs, BigCommerce (DL)
• Ryan Walsh, executive vice president, partner solutions, pax8, Inc. (RW)

What career advice have you received that missed the mark?

EH: You have to get out there and network, network, network. You could spend all of your time and money attending events, but at the end of the day, it’s not about quantity. It’s about quality. Figure out where your time is best spent, and focus your networking on what’s most important.

DL: Early in my career, I was told you had to develop a professional persona. I spent all this time being different people at home and in the office. People I work with would see me outside the office and see me more relaxed. It took the better part of a decade for me to relax into my work style. Bring who you are to work every day, and let people see you be you.

JC: I’ve been told that if I follow my dreams, I’ll never work a day in my life. But it’s not about following your dreams. It’s more about finding your passion. If you look at my job description, it’s not something you could get super excited about. But when I think about what my job is, I’m changing lives every day. Drill down to what it is that you really want, and find that in the moment.

RW: Because you’re good at math and science, you should be a doctor. I was on this path, and it goes to the advice to not just find your passion, but tap into your secret sauce, your interests. I shadowed a doctor for a year and found it was not for me.

GD: The worst advice is don’t go home before your boss does. There’s some understanding that you want to come in and establish yourself and burn the candle at both ends. But when I see people working long hours, I tell them to go home to their families. Because I believe that if you’re struggling at home, you’re struggling at work. The best way to be a great employee is to be a great father, great mother, great sister or brother. Burning that midnight oil is sometimes a short-sighted bridge.

What has been the best career advice you've received?

RW: First is the advice I answered for myself early in my career, and it came from John Wooden: “Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.”

My second piece of advice would be for young people coming into the workforce: Understand first before being understood. You need to listen and understand what someone’s saying before being understood.

JC: Help other people, whether you see an immediate reward or not. Even if you don’t see an immediate payback, trust that your dots will connect moving forward. It doesn’t take a lot to make an introduction or do something for someone else, but it will pay off in dividends in your career. Take the time to help somebody else because you never know how it’s going to help you in the future.

EH: Put yourself in a position to be lucky. Take the risk. There are always opportunities when you ask yourself, “Do I jump off the cliff here?” And a lot of times it pays off.

GD: I tend to be prepared, and preparation will overcome a world of sins and difficulties and stupidity. Just be prepared. When you go into a meeting, don’t walk in there with an empty mind saying you’ll wing it. That’s dumb. Prepare. Especially if you will be with people who are senior to yourself.

DL: If you have a vision for yourself, if you have a clear path of what is next for you, and you enroll others in that success, it’s infinitely helpful. I got really clear on the job that I wanted, and I put out to the universe, “I need a job, and it needs to look like this. I don’t have the energy to find it right now, it needs to find me.” The next day a recruiter called me. Be clear about what you want, put it out there and let it find you. 

Looking for more ChannelCon? Check out these blog posts on CompTIA.org, and stay tuned for information about the ChannelCon re-broadcast and on-demand sessions, coming soon.