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Hi, my name is Michael Gibbs. I'm the founder and CEO of Go Cloud Architects, an organization
dedicated towards providing high quality training to pass AWS Certified Solution architect exams.
One of the things that we deal with constantly is, people are asking, "How can I get a job
without experience?" Because the reality is all jobs, one experience. And if you don't
have experience, how are you going to get the job that wants experience?
But we can help you with that, because the point is, nobody really has no experience.
And we'll talk to you all the reasons why that's true, and what you can do to play to
your strengths. And we're going to give you five steps.
The first step's going to be related to certification. The second step's going to be related to being
an authority in your field. The third step is going to be, how to use social media to
help your career, but not crush your career, because it can do both. We'll talk about internships
and volunteering, and we're going to talk about playing to your strengths.
When you have no experience, you're going to be competing with people that have a lot
of experience. So here's the place where your certifications can help you. Certifications
do not mean everything, but certifications can very frequently help you get the job interview.
Now what you do on that job interview will determine whether you get hired. Please see
my video on how to get hired, and how to interview for a position. That'll give you much more
information on how to answer questions that you know, as well as questions that you don't
know, to put you in the best position, to be able to get a Cloud computing career.
But the first thing is, if I've got someone with 10 years of experience and no certifications,
and I've got someone that's got multiple professional certifications, but no experience, but they're
young, and they've just got done school that makes me think, "Wow, maybe they can learn
and they can learn fast. Maybe they're that smart person."
When you're new, try to get high level certifications, but you must know what they mean. It's not
going to do you any good to basically take some practice tests, pass a bunch of exams,
and know nothing. Because, while that may get you the interview, they're still going
to question you.
What I want you to do is I want you to study, study and study somewhere. So become an AWS
Certified Solution Architect professional, maybe become a Google Cloud architect professional
at the same time, and maybe study a networking course, maybe a CCNA, for example, or figure
out what part of the world you want to be in.
If you want something on the development side, make sure you get some type of development
certification along the way, but get yourself at least one professional certification, ideally
two. From there, specialize in study projects that are going to make you happy.
For me, I focus on the networks on the security side, as well as the infrastructure side,
but other people like the DevOps side. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, find something
you're passionate about. Learn, learn, learn, and learn some more.
In the process, I want you to get lots of experience, and I want you to get things that
are related to this. So in Cloud computing, we're dealing with virtualization. Take a
computer, set up a VMware ESXi server. Now set up a Linux system, and on the Linux system,
install a KVM.
Now practice building some. For example, set up an Apache server on a Linux machine. Set
up a Maya SQL database on a Linux machine. Set up a firewall on a Linux machine. Set
up a Squid proxy server.
Test as many things as you can, and learn how to do things, because when you get that
interview, and you're going to get one, and we'll give you some steps to help increase
your chances, you want to be able to dazzle them with your knowledge. And let them know
what you know, and let them know what you don't know, because the expectation is, if
you're new, you're not going to know everything, but dazzle them with depth of knowledge about
something.
That brings us to our next phase, which is to become an authority. Now, how do you become
an authority? I mean, it takes 10,000 hours of something minimum to become an expert.
And that's a really short amount of time, 10,000 hours. It may take a lot more than
that. And that's five years working, 40 hours a week full-time, so how do you become an
authority?
Well, focus on something you love. And learn it, learn it, and learn it some more. But
it's not just enough to know it. You're going to have to show the world that you know it.
I'll give you an example from my career, two examples, actually, and how that affected
my career. And then these are going to be lessons that you can learn to improve your
career.
In 2001, I wrote a paper called Introduction to IP Multicast, and it's a technology to
send data once, and have multiple people receive it. It's how you use a video that you're getting
from your cable company, for the most part, or if you have fiber to the home, they're
often, video delivered via multicast.
Very few people understood it, and that made it, "Wow, this is a great place where I can
become a subject matter expert, plus, I love the tech, so I learned it."
But I wrote this paper, and I put my heart into this paper. I wrote it, I rewrote it,
I rewrote it, I rewrote it. I sent it to my mentor. My mentor helped me rewrite it, I
published it. In 2020, multiple companies are still using that document. And I get called
from recruiters constantly, "I need an IP multicast engineer," right? It's just from
one paper that I published 20 years ago.
When I was at Cisco systems, I'd been on their healthcare team, and I had consulted with
numerous organizations on how to build a highly available network, that could meet all the
applications required. These meetings were going so well that I said to myself, "Oh my
God, I've been in three countries this week, and I'll be in four countries next week. How
am I going to survive?"
So I wrote a document, and I wrote three versions. I wrote this 200-page architecture document,
for the engineers and architects. I wrote a 10-page thing for management, and I wrote
a three-page thing for the chief CXO level executives.
You know what? That document went so well, it did not solve my challenge of not traveling.
It increased my travel beyond anything I can describe, because I was so in demand from
this paper, I was all over the world, just talking about my paper.
So I want you to become an authority. Find something you are passionate about. Learn
a lot about it. Post it on social media, write a blog. Or better yet, publish a white paper,
and do something called authority hacking.
So write a paper, and write it ... Let's say, it could be on CloudWatch, for example, or
it could be on CloudTrail. It could be on anything you find very interesting. Make it
complete.
I don't just mean, a little complete. I mean, write this document is if you wanted to show
it to the manager, because your life depended upon it. And you know what? Your career might,
because that one document, if it's in the hands of the right person, that I could say,
"I need this person, I need them on my team. This person knows. They can write, they can
speak."
When it comes to architecture, 50% of your job is going to be writing and speaking, if
not more. You're really looking for someone that has those skills, so write a white paper.
And if you can do something called authority hacking, it's going to help you a lot more.
What authority hacking is, when you write a white paper, along with someone that's known
to be an authority in their field, it raises your value. You're effectively riding their
coattails. So if you've got someone that's known to be really smart, and capable and
knowledgeable, and your name is next to theirs, you're instantly associated with being knowledgeable.
I do this for my interns all the time. I coauthor papers with them. And you know what, if any
of you are interested in, and you're really so passionate about a topic, and you really
want some experience? Write a white paper. Write something really, really, really good,
and reach out to me and ask me if I'd be willing to coauthor it with you.
Now, I will tell you one thing. I coauthor papers with people constantly. It helps me,
because I love to generate content, and I will do it, but I will push you harder than
you've ever imagined. I will send it back to you with comments. I will send it back
to you with suggestions. I'll make more suggestions. I'll make sure that you know that material
better than anyone could possibly, because if you're going to write about it, you must
know it.
This is not a concept where you talk about a master class, and it's basically introduction
to junior level something. Coauthor something, make it good and feel free to reach out to
me. Or find some other authority, it really doesn't matter. Find somebody that you resonate
with, that's passionate about, that's known to be an expert in their field, reach out
to them.
See if they're willing to do something with you, maybe a YouTube video, maybe a blog,
maybe a white paper, something, but do it. And coauthor with someone that's got a big
name. Then you're going to share that everything with them, because you want as many people
to see it as possible.
As we talk about sharing, now, we're going to get into the social media world. Social
media can be the best thing for your career, or the absolute worst thing.
If you get on social media, and while you're on social media, someone has a question about
a topic. Ideally, it's in a group of some kind. If they have the question, if you know
it, write a detailed, strong answer, and document it with the sources of your information.
Don't just write an answer, write it, and then point them to the AWS documentation,
for example, that supports your answer, so they know they're getting something good.
Just like when you write a paper, you have your sources, write a response, answer it
better than anyone else, and then set your sources.
And you know what, if you don't know? This might be an opportunity to go do some research,
and write a one page document, explain it, make it correct, and make it good, and then
post that as a response. All of a sudden people are going to say, "Wow, look at you. This
person not only knows what they're doing, they're helping others."
When it comes to hiring people for your team, you want someone that's going to bring out
the best in others. And if you're there helping people, people will notice.
Now, what will kill your career? Never, never, never discuss money, politics or religion
on social media.
Unless you're a financial advisor, then it's then talking about money is good. If you're
a religious figure, talking about religion is good. And if you're a political awkward,
and your job is to help a political party, then talk about politics, but never, never,
if you're not part of those categories do that. And here's the reason.
Roughly 50% of the population will completely disagree with you, even if you don't know.
By posting things that basically are your philosophical philosophies of what's politically
correct, which may be different than somebody else's, you're really losing 50% of the entire
population.
That's just with politics. Now if you discuss politics, religion, and money, and people
see this on the internet, they could basically write you off completely, because you can
offend much of the world.
No one needs to know about your personal perspectives. They need to know, can you bring out the best
in others? Can you do a good job? Are you going to make others feel good in your presence?
If you can do all that, you're always going to get hired.
Now the next phase is, I call it internships or volunteering. You can always get experience.
There's always something going on. If you need a Cloud computing, and you're interested
in video, and right now there's COVID, go find 10 personal training studios, yoga studios,
Pilate studios, go set up the network for them, do it for free.
Set up their network, set up their videos, build some servers for them. Make it good,
but get some experience. If you know someone that has a business and they need help, ask
for an internship. Find an internship through your university, or honestly, find people
that are self-employed, or on the Internet, or other small businesses, and send them a
request.
Let them know that you're a student, or you've just graduated, you're looking to get experience,
and you would happily be a volunteer or intern for them, in exchange for them teaching you,
you be surprised how many people are really happy to help a motivated person that's looking
for a career change.
I know I have lots of interns. I typically take them every few months. They typically
find jobs, and then I find new ones, but I love teaching people. So just understand,
an internship or volunteering is a great way.
Lastly, play to your strengths. I do not believe under any circumstances that someone has zero
experience. Never, never, never. And here's why.
Every experience we have in life will shape you, and make you who you are. So for example,
let's say you've spent five years while you're in school, working as a host or a hostess
at a restaurant, the person that comes in and greets people, and then takes the time,
and then finds tables for them.
In that job, here's what happens. You're going to deal with people that don't want to wait.
You're going to deal with angry customers that came in angry. You're going to deal with
being too busy, and not having places to put them.
Wow. Oh my God, you just have customer service experience. You've learned how to communicate,
you've learned how to keep people happy. That is real life experience that is transferable
to another job.
Figure out what experience you actually have. I mean, really, write it down, and think about
it. Then think about the career that you're looking to get involved in.
How does this help? I can tell you, I was a nurse practitioner, practicing internal
medicine, before I went into networking. When I went on my first networking interview, which
I started a couple of days later, and I was hired on the first time. They said, "Well,
you don't have a lot of tech interview, but you've got experience, but you've got a lot
of other experience. How can that work?"
I said, "Well, in dealing with sick people, I get to do a lot, learn a lot of things.
I learned how to deal with people that are not at their best. By being able to communicate
with people that are not feeling well, I'm trying to bring them up, and get them to follow
a recommended plan to get better. It's no different than if I was designing a network
and making recommendations and saying, 'If you implement these recommendations, you're
going to be better.'"
I said, "In medicine, one system affects the other system." I said, "The musculoskeletal
system is related to the neurological system, which is related to the circulatory system,
which is related to the lymphatic system."
I started saying how, when you affect one system, it affects all parts of the body.
That's very similar to networking, where, if you've got a router that's doing something
funny, or a switch that's doing funny, or a cable cut, it's going to cause havoc. So
systems always respond to other systems.
It really doesn't matter. What I'm just trying to tell you is that in life, you've had lots
of experiences. And these experiences can help you in your new job. So figure out what
your experiences are, figure out the company that you want to join, and show them how your
experiences can help them do their job better.
If you do all these things, you're never going to have a hard time finding a job, when you
have no experience. Because you do have experience.
Thank you so much for watching this video. We hope you've enjoyed this video, and we
look forward to seeing you next week.
Please remember, we have a free AWS Certified Solution Architect Associate ebook. It's free.
We make it public for free consistently.
We have free AWS mentoring every Monday. We do this, because we understand, when you're
taking our training, whether you're reading our books, or whether you're taking somebody
else's training, questions will pop up. We want to give you an answer, where you can
get expert answers.
While we love, and we're recommending you go to LinkedIn and Facebook, and answer people's
questions, that's great, what we hate is, when we find somebody asks a question, and
they get 40 different answers, and they don't know which answer is correct.
Which is the same reason I told you, make sure you look it up, research it you're correct.
Then cite the source, so you can prove that you're correct, when you're answering something,
because you want people to know it's real.
In our particular case, I just like to offer a free environment where everybody can come
once a week, build a community, exchange ideas with each other, and learn. So that's why
I do it.
We look forward to seeing you on one of our free weekly AWS Certified Solution Architect
mentoring sessions. And we can't wait to see you at our next video. Take care, and thank
you again.