Utilizing Informal Networking Platforms

Informal networking platforms like Slack channels, Discord communities, or even Twitter can be surprisingly effective for job seekers. Joining tech-focused groups or channels that are supportive of women in tech can offer insider knowledge on job openings, referrals, and invaluable advice from peers and mentors already in the industry.

Informal networking platforms like Slack channels, Discord communities, or even Twitter can be surprisingly effective for job seekers. Joining tech-focused groups or channels that are supportive of women in tech can offer insider knowledge on job openings, referrals, and invaluable advice from peers and mentors already in the industry.

Empowered by Artificial Intelligence and the women in tech community.
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Lesya Zolotoverkh
IT Consultant in Software Testing, IT Career Coach

Hello, I won my first hackathon 2014 and keep winning them till nowadays. How do I do that? Business or IT hackathon First of all, you need to understand, what is more valuable in the hackathon you participate in: business value or deep programming skills. Out of around 20 hackathons, I took part in, very few focused on deep programming skills because you can’t learn a lot of programming in 2-5 days. You can further develop your given programming skills but if hackathon itself is more concentrated on business value, good mockup will be enough for presentation. Team constellation It’s crucial for success that your team members combine different skills i.e. skills of different team members complete each other. But most important is team work: how team meber work together on solving a problem? If you as a hackathon participant do not know how to contribute, use what you specialize in. If you were chosen as participant, i.e. you have your expertise you need to believe in and show to other team members. Be clear about what you can offer and just do something you think is relatable to the topic in alignment and discussion with other members’ ideas. Best option is to come to the hackathon with a friend or person you know your workstyle match but it’s possible to win a hackathon even when organizers compose the team if you do first step in alignment with each other. Pre-step: be clear and always clarify as early as possible the rules of your hackathon: how long should be presentation, how long should be demo, how many people are allowed to present etc. First step …is not to code or compose a team. First step, on which your success depends, is shared understanding of the idea you want to develop during the hackathon. It means, all the members should understand the idea in the same way and describe it so that jury or any other hackathon participant can follow this description which may be comparison or clear statement of what your idea is. It’s secondary, how innovative your idea is. If you as a team have mutual understanding of the idea, know which steps to follow after the hackathon to develop a prototype and then a ready solution, you are not obligated to do it already during the few days! You just need to share responsibilities in a team, understand the idea and present it. More is usually not expected during a short-time hackathon. Keys to success 4.1 Team members with respect to each other, matching workstyles and completing knowledge Team constellation is often seen as at least one criterion for judgement but in reality team’s workstyle and completing knowledge are all you need to win 4.2 Mutual understand of the idea 4.3 Clear explanation of the idea to jury in the presentation 4.4 Mockup For mockups, you usually don’t need deep technical knowledge. Nowadays it’s a few-minutes-job with help of AI 4.5 Clear mutual understanding and explanation in the presentation of who are our customers/ target group 4.6 Clear mutual understanding and explanation in the presentation of next steps Next steps should involve business model, maybe possibilities to expand to different markets but most important is that you are acknowledged that your idea is not ready and which steps are necessary to achieve success with your product. So business background is crucial here, which nowadays can be substituted for the time of the hackathon with AI After the hackathon Winning is not all - it’s belief in you and your team that you are able to bring your idea to life. Here you will need both technical and business skills. Let’s not forget about the most important piece- the presentation It’s always helpful, if one team member is really good at presenting, which means not only confident but also clear with his words. If mutual understanding of all the team members is there, the leader who loves to present should do that. Of course, you can also give a chance to a shy person but it unfortunately lowers your chances to win. Trick is - if organization of the hackathon allows it - if 2-3 team members present. It shows team work, mutual support and lowers stress and responsibility overload of a single presenter. But of course, it is more than possible to win, if only one presenter per team is allowed. Girly fears … If you think, you can’t do anything for winning the competition, you can always to at least 3 things: commit to mutual understanding even if it means ask a lot of questions; use AI to make a (part of) presentation; support other team members with your point of view. Maybe through your different background you can bring out-of-the-box-thinking which will help other team members include this position too and convince jury members who come from different perspective. Last thing is- never give up. And my personal advice: never go to the hackathon with belief of clear winning. Think of the product, do everything you need, think from different sides…and be surprised if you win. If you concentrate only on winning without taking active action or without taking your active part in mutual understanding, it will be difficult for your team to win. Every team member should be involved, based on what (s)he can do. Everybody who gets admitted can. Do not underestimate yourself.

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