And I hope you can see my screen as well. Give a thumbs up if you can see it. Yes. Great. I'll pause for a minute.Let other people can join. Okay. I can start with the session. So good morning, good afternoon, good evening from wherever, whichever location you are joining my session, and thanks for joining my session. Let me introduce myself. I'm Preeti Gupta, test automation lead at Barclays. And today, I'll be talking about how setbacks made me a stronger technologist. Feel forward. It's a story about a woman woman setback whose impact was had in a missed deadline or a failed project. I had, like, around a stronger QA background. And when I started my journey in this tech industry, I was feeling like only coding coding in the right way, just have it having it in the right direction, learning new things and technology.

That's all happened in the tech industry, and I can learn those things and move ahead in the tech industry. That's how the growth is meant in tech until I lost my job. Yes. I had fifteen plus years of experience when I lost my job. I thought that why what happened? Though I had, like, done so many things in my past, I thought that being strong in coding was enough to be in the tech industry. But though I lost my job. But still, at that time, I had a thought that I am strong in test automation. I have a clear background from QA perspective. I understand the quality of the software and everything.

It's like others said that having strong in automation is more than 80% of the things we do in QA, but still, I lost the job. And when I say strong in test automation, in my past, I have done, like, so many things, like worked on Selenium, APM, Playwright, Java, JavaScript, framework frameworks like the Bloomberg, BDD, TestNG, JRED, and many more along with Cypress and Protector who stayed for in the market for few time.

I thought I have done so many things. I can look for another job. I can find a job in the industry, job market, but still, what happened next? Rejected. Having that strong CV, I will still reject it in the market. Why? It was, like, first or second rejection is okay. But after having, like, fifteen, twenty attempts, still, if I reject it in the market, something is going wrong. My CV is strong, but it was not enough to gain or secure a job. So that was really a setback for me, and I couldn't understand what's going on. Then I gave a thought that whatever I got till date, what got me here that was a strong CV, but that was not enough now to move forward from at this point of view where I have, like, 15 plus of experience. That was good. Till date, I was I had switched job a lot many times in my past, but now this is not working. Something new need to be done.

But what was that? I don't know what to do next because the market was moved so fast. Maybe that I'm missing something in the market. It was like cloud, DevOps, automation, or is it like I have to go towards the AI and ML integration to learn those things? It was like bothering too much at that time that every night around 2AM, the midnight, more than midnight, my eyes were open. I was not able to sleep properly because what's going on? Quotienting myself, self doubting myself whether or not fifteen plus years of experience was the right direction, or is it like today everything has been changed I didn't realize while working in the tech industry? Something was missing, and this this is something bothering me a lot and started self doubting me.

Usually, I used to be a strong woman, strong in the tech tech industry, had done lot many things there, but still, I was like I started questioning myself, self doubt, and that that happened. It's a human behavior to happen that way. Because is it something what new what new should I adopt so that I can move forward from here? I was like, several question coming to me. Was my experience no longer enough? Should I go and learn new tools? Would that help me? Or what should be the new approach I should take? All those things coming to my mind, I was, like, just lost in this world. And then I had two choice, stay comfortable or start again. Stay comfortable is coming from, again, from the different things because when I went for a health checkup, regular health checkup, doctors checked my BP thrice, and then they said it has suited from past past records.

Why? Are you taking some kind of stress? I was like, yeah. There are some stress, but I didn't realize that it is impacting somewhere on my health. They said that any kind of stress you should not take any kind of stress. This is not the end of the world. Whatever may be the reason, you should stay calm and happy and engage yourself in some somewhere where it happiness comes for you. That was something I realized that it is some of the other way impacting my health. So I I thought, should I stay comfortable? Should I leave thinking all those things, what's happening in the market? Should I be getting a new job? Should I change my job? Few of the people suggested me, if you're not getting a job in the QA world, try something different. It is not necessary to work in the QA.

Whereas I had a strong feeling, I have come along to this journey. So far, I want to continue from here, but I don't know what what exactly I need to do, what exactly would be the right direction, where should I move on. So that's where I had a true choice. Either stay comfortable, look whatever I get, go for it, or start again thinking and step back and then move forward in the right direction. And what I did? I had other challenges with those things. Unpredictable job market. If I learn new tools and technologies, not sure I'll get a job for those tools and technologies. Again, I had household responsibilities. So many things. I have to work work out in a balanced way. Family, children, society, everybody had expectation from me.

I cannot leave behind those people as well. I want everything. And past, I was balancing my personal and professional journey. But this time, it was, like, impacting a huge because this time, additional health issues came into picture now. So what what I decided then? I assume being woman is tough. Working woman is tougher. And if you are a working mom, then it is the most tough job in the world, I believe. Yes. I'm a working woman. I'm a working mom. A very beautiful line from Maria Kaleesi, we have the greatest weapon in our hand by being just woman. Just being woman. Yes. We are woman, and we understand each and everything about the life, about the woman's journey at every stage of the life. It's not that easy. And that's why I feel proud to be women, working women, and working mom as well at the same time.

And with this statement, when we say that we are we have the greatest weapon in our hands, what I decided, I decided to choose to learn again. New beginning in a new direction, in a new way. What would help for me? So what I decided to do is now building portfolio with resume. Yes. Till date, I was working on my CV, my resume only, but never thought about portfolio. I often used to see other people working on their website, working something extra apart from the job, whereas I was only focusing on learning new tools, technologies, and be in sync with the market, what's all going on in the job market, what's new tools in the market. I was just leaving behind and going behind those things. But now I thought, let me change this strategy because not every time same strategy do not work. We need to change this strategy, need to move ahead in the different direction. What portfolio? For portfolio, what approach I I took.

I became part of few communities like Women in Tech, Ministry of Testing, Testers Connect, Epic Test Quest. These were the top most communities where I joined as a member, as a participant, and slowly started contributing there. One, what was different between the people in the community versus the friends friend circle in my personal life? Friends may have different opinion, but when we are a part of a community, we see that like minded people are there. They are talking about the tech thing. They are talking about the market, and they have their own strategies to deal with. But sharing with the experiences, my experiences, and other experiences helps a lot to understand how to move ahead from there.

On top of this, sometimes you can do alone with the tools and technologies. But if you're good in that one, all you need sometimes is the encouragement, the motivation to move ahead if you have enough knowledge. So that's where I I decided that to to be part of the community as a participant and sometimes to contribute based on my knowledge. I may get job today, tomorrow, or few months later, but the point is that I should not have that feeling of guilty. Am I doing in the the right thing? Am I in the right direction? Or every day, I'm just clicking clicking on the job portals to see if new job came up.

At least I will be free from those kind of things, and that's the re that's the way to reduce my stress. Anybody who is in the job market, reducing the stress, ultimately helping helping others also to feel happy. And there it comes, like, we are talking about or we are concerned about taking the measurable steps in the right direction. And, of course, next time when I visit to doctor, I have a I need to make sure that my my blood pressure, my BP is normal. So that that's where it helped a lot when I decided to be to join in the community and become a active member there. It was really helpful in other some of the other ways. After having these things, what I decided what I came to the conclusion that just technical steps won't help.

Apart from technical steps, we need resilience to keep on going, patience to keep learning, courage to grow through challenges, and confidence to stand ahead of others. There are several people in market with the same profile, same CV, but you need to be ahead of those people. You need confidence for that one. And, of course, resilience is required if you see that if this strategy is not working, go for the other strategy. And fun may be possible. Whatever strategy is working for me may not work for you. Whatever works for you may not work for me. It it depends upon how how the situation is, how individual person is coming out of those. But, definitely, continuity is required. By this time, I was, like, good enough with the with building the CV, technical steps plus the portfolio, and I had, like, enough confidence.

And this time, I was in the market with more confidence as as I was earlier. Guess what? Next slide may be surprising to you after having these kind of thing, what I got. Rejection again. But this time, this rejection was something filled with joy, a confidence confidence that, yes, not today, but tomorrow I'll get the correct job. Every setback is part of path to growth resilience and eventual success. Yes. So it is like a part rejections are part of success. Maybe that we are failing today, but tomorrow we will be succeeding. So that that's where I feel like we should not lose hope. We should keep learning. Continuity is important. And after this, these rejections, I felt, is a step towards success. And guess what?

Not only one, I got two offers at that time, and those two offers were good enough, matching my profile, what I wanted to move with, what I wanted in my career. That's where those two offers were. Now I was a choice to decide between the two offers, which one to go and which one to reject at that time. So after the rejections, everything changed fast. Two offers arrived, bringing momentum, variation, and a new sense of possibilities. So changing a strategy, be continuous continuously doing in the right direction, that's all is required sometimes along with the CV maintaining with the latest update in the market. So what I learned? I learned that our skills are our strength until they become our limit. So it's very important to understand what skill set I'm having, what is the demand in the market we want to get something some new job or anything.

And understanding that based on that, what are the gaps? We need to fill those things, but losing hope is not the correct risk. Yes. Sometimes it happens. It's a human behavior, but, ultimately, we need to get out of those things, talk to friends, move ahead, and do do much more where we are standing right now. So whenever we are in a situation where we feel failure, we we are stuck with those things, I would say don't step back. Instead, feel forward. Understand that failure is not the opposite of success. It's a part of the journey is the step ahead towards the success. So I'm sure that while I was telling my story about few years back when I had this thing, I would have I I had, like, 15 plus years experience at that time. Now, so I'm eighteen years of experience. And eighteen years were full of challenges, full of different kind of issues, be it inside a project, field pipeline, I was caught.

Field bug, missed bugs, I was caught. Those were also stories, challenges, how to deal with that one. And, definitely, every time I came out of those thing handling it very nicely, I would have I would have that choice to share those stories here, but I choose to share this story because while I was telling my story, I'm sure many women must be thinking this is something familiar or resembling to their life as well.

And that's the reason I don't want any woman intake to step back when they are failed at any point of time. Yes. We have, like, family responsibilities. Yes. We have a small child to take care, but still things may slow down. But I would say, let it be slow down for a moment, but continuity should not break. Patience should be there, and resilience is the much more important thing I believe in life. So I feel like every woman in tech have similar kind of stories, and sometimes it is seen, sometimes it is not seen. So for the women who are doing lot of sex sacrifices in day to day life, they are learning. They are trying to lead. They are trying to build.

But at at last, if they are failing, don't stop. Don't step back. Continue from there. It may take one month, two month, or a whole year, but at least if you are continuing in a slow pace, one day you will win the race. With this, I'll close my story here. After getting by the way, after getting the two offers, I joined one of the organization, and that's not the end of my journey. It's like it's about k taking care, taking a wise decision that how to move forward and, again, new challenges, fresh challenges I'm having in my life, in my professional journey, which if given a chance, I can share you again anytime. So thank you for attending my session, and this is my LinkedIn QR code or link. If you wish to join me, feel free to feel connect over LinkedIn.

And if you have any questions, drop in the comment box or offline also. You can ask me and connect whenever you wish to, and we can have a conversation to understand what is the problem, what what strategy should be followed to to continue continue our journey? Women in tech. So thank you. Thanks for joining my session. Any questions, I'm happy to help you out with. I'm reading in the chat. I feel like many of you had similar kind of stories. And, yes, that's true. And that's that's the voice of a woman, woman in tech, actually. The special thanks I would like to express to women in tech community for giving me chance to share my story via this board. And this is, like, helpful and, I would say, like, reminding reminder for every woman that you're not alone in this journey.

Every other woman has one or the other problems, challenges, obstacle in their life. So do deal with that and be happy. Do not let let it know.