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Yeah. So the high level overview of what make work suck less is the acknowledgement and understanding that work sucks, but it doesn't have to suck so much. And there are things that we can do to improve our experience at work, where we are now, and also where we end up next. Wherever we're going, we can make work suck less. Hello and welcome to the Pibytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Baldebos. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Piwers podcast. This is Julian. I'm here by myself today to do an introduction for our special guest today, Cassandra Babilia. She's been on our podcast before, in episode 104, talking about finding value and purpose in your work. And today, Cassandra, who is the creator of make work suckless, she's a career and burnout coach and a culture leader in the industry. She's a wonderful speaker when it comes to everything about finding purpose in your work, identifying burnout in your current job and workplace, and also what you can do about it. That's the most important piece. And Cassandra is here today to talk through a career checklist that she's put together. And this, I had a look over this doc, and it's absolutely wonderful to go through as an exercise for anyone. So, of course, you all, as developers of some sort or in the tech industry, this is going to be highly valuable to you, especially in the current climate. We talk through what job changes are about, what kind of categories. We really want to help you identify what this means to you first, and then we talk through some of the steps that you need to go through and that you should be going through every day to help prepare you for impending job changes, whether it be potential layoffs, which is a huge topic at the moment, or just getting you prepared for the next career change for you, whether it be a promotion, moving into an adjacent role, moving into, pivoting into a completely different job style altogether. So without further ado, please make sure you listen. If you are listening to this, I strongly recommend you watch it on YouTube as well because we are on camera for this one and it is a wonderful interview. We have a lot of fun and it is very, very tactical. So please have a listen and enjoy. Welcome back, everyone. This is Julian again. Thank you, Julian, for that wonderful intro you just gave us. Oh, you're welcome, Julian. I am here with a special guest today, Cassandra Babilia. Cassandra, welcome back to the podcast. It's been a few months since you were here. Just before we dive into the conversation, do you want to give a quick introduction to everyone who doesn't know who you are? Hi, everybody. I'm Cassandra Babilia. I'm the creator of make work suck class. I'm located here in Washington, DC, so nowhere near where Julian is currently sitting, making dad jokes. Perfect. Perfect. It's a great introduction, great practice. Appreciate it. So, Cassandra was on the podcast with me a few months back. I actually did some prep before this episode. It was episode 104, finding value and purpose in your work. So if you have not listened to that yet, please go back and listen to it because it was actually a really fantastic listen and the feedback we had was fantastic on that. I think I already told you that though, Cassandra. Yeah. Excellent. So we're going to have a very deep conversation today about career changes. But before we do that, Cassandra, with the what you do every day with make work suck less, do you want to give everyone a bit of an overview of what that's about? Yeah. So the high level overview of what make work suck less is the acknowledgement and understanding that work sucks, but it doesn't have to suck so much. And there are things that we can do to improve our experience at work, where we are now and also where we end up next. Wherever we're going, we can make work suck less. There's things that we could do for ourselves. Also, if you're a manager or a leader, there are things that you can do for your team. And so I kind of talk to both audiences. Nice. Yeah. Because everyone has an element of control in where they are and where they're going, which is a great segue into what we're talking about today. But I do want to say that now you have to correct me, because you know these stats better than me, but I remember reading somewhere, and maybe it was when we were working together, that there was a statistic somewhere that said, you just have to be engaged for 25%. You just have to love 25% of your work. It might have been a Harvard business review article from last year, but if you can love 25% of the work that you're doing, then you can survive the other 75% of hell. So, um, you know, whoever said if you find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life? Just utter and complete bullshit. It's still work. It's just. Do you love 25% of it or do you love 75% of it? There's still going to be a measure of administrative ennui that just drives you bonkers and is not what gets you energized about your day. And even if you love 95% of it, there's still that 5% where you're just like, at the end of day, I'm really just here for a paycheck. And like, this is not what matters in life. This is not who's going to be on my deathbed when I'm saying goodbye. It's going to be, you know, friends and family, not my company. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And you know, I even say I love working on pie bites to death. It's just the best thing in the world. And it is. Except for tax time. Except for finance night, balancing the books and doing the budget and all those things. That stuff's not fun. I hate it. So I completely, completely agree. So it might be time for a career change. Oh, did you get that segue? How was I? This is related to episode 104 about finding value and purpose. This is just a little deeper. Look into the specific career change aspect of it. So I'm excited to chat about it. Yeah, yeah. This is a perfect follow on for that and perfect timing. So I. We actually have a nice podcast schedule of where we're going to put episodes in. And I'm actually going to just shunt everything down a week to insert this one in because we're so, we're recording this just before Christmas, a year, a year, a week or so before Christmas. And I think everyone needs to hear this coming into the new year so that over the holiday period, people can start thinking about it, fill out the actual sheet and everything like that. All right, so the career change checklist, everyone. That's what we're talking about today. This is a checklist that cassandra has lovingly put together to help you really take stock of where you are in your career and make some adjustments and observations and put down some goals as well. But Cassandra, to start with, we're going to talk about the job cycle here. This is something everyone should know about. So do you want to run through that forever? Yeah. So the job cycle is something that I translated this really traditional hr thought process around the employee lifecycle. So we look at it from the company's perspective. We're trying to attract, recruit, onboard, grow and then off board employees. But when we flip the script and we look at it from the employees perspective, we have as job seekers, as employees ourselves, we have slightly different perspectives, slightly different goals at each stage. And so I have translated the stages themselves to job search interviews. Your 1st 90 days, the time when you engage in your role, the time when you grow in your role and your transition, whether that is a temporary leave of absence or it's a permanent transition into a new career. Yeah. And this is a great way to break down your current workplace. So if this is for everyone listening, of course, if you've just started a new job, where do you fit in on this list? If you're in between jobs at the moment, if you're seeking a job, you know you'll be at the top of the list. But you might be someone who's currently in step five, which is growing. You've hit your stride, you're excelling personally and professionally. I'm reading off the dock here, everyone. I'm not that articulate, but you might be going, I didn't even consider step six, which is the transition. Maybe it is time for a transition. Maybe it's time for new responsibility. Maybe it's time for a pivot. I read this doc earlier, and we'll get to that in a minute, but it's actually really cool. So as you go through this doc, everyone, and there's a link in the description, um, and we'll talk about that at the end. Again, put yourself on this. This job cycle where you are at the moment. It might help you make sense of your experience at the present time. And, yeah, think of it as like a map and you're drawing an x where you currently. Where you currently are on the map. But also it's important to note, Julian, that you can be in more than one stage at a time. I think it's important to understand that you can be searching for a job so you can be in step one and you can also be growing in your career. You can be doing two things at once. And that's totally, totally cool. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. Just because you're in one doesn't mean you can't grow into another. So that's a good point. So, on that note, you're talking about, as we talk about the actual job change, we know that changing roles is one of the most stressful things we'll do. It's up there with having kids and moving houses, you know, the super stressful things in life. So, you know, you have three. Three steps here or three points here for that. Three factors. Can you talk about that when it comes to the job change? Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this lately. People come to me when they're experiencing a job change or they think they might be experiencing a job change in the next six to twelve months, and it causes a lot of anxiety. Change, just in general, is stressful and a career change. A job change is particularly stressful because it impacts three things about our lives on a very personal scale. So it impacts when we leave, when we make a change, whether we're choosing to make that change, or whether it's a change that is enforced upon us by, you know, being laid off or exited from a role. And the when is so important because there are real life implications about when you leave a job, when you no longer have a paycheck. In 2023, according to the US statistics, it took on average of five months to find a new role, and 20% of people took seven months to find a new role. So considering, like, do I have the savings, do I have the. The budgeting power to withstand a five to seven month gap in employment, or am I going to have to really cut back? Am I going to have to fall back on family members to support me? Am I going to have to take a side gig to keep us afloat? The second thing that impacts us, that causes the stress is knowing where we go, whether we have control over where we go, whether we know where we're going to go. Knowing where you're going to go next is particularly anxiety ridden when you're making a career pivot, when you're going to completely change everything. We'll talk more about this later, but when you're changing everything and you're like, I have no idea what I'm doing next. I have no idea where I'm going. I'm just going to go somewhere. The third thing that is stressful about job changes is there is some uncertainty about what we're going to be doing when we make that job change. Are we going to be forced to take a job doing something that we don't necessarily love because we need the financial security, I'm in America and we need the health insurance, we need to keep the roof over ahead, or are we going to be able to control what we do, where you are able to take the time and you have the skills already to say, I'm going to take that job, doing the thing that I love, that I'm really great at, and that I can excel at. Yep, there's that power in having the choice versus kind of having that power taken away by not having the choice and you're right. It's the stress that even people we talk with every day are going through with that. Even the people who, and hopefully, I think a lot of this resonates with everyone listening is when you fear that it's about to happen to you. And this is the purpose of the doc, is that it kind of gets you thinking about this stuff before you get to any of those stages. Because one of the most stressful things we've seen with people is that they suddenly go, oh, crap. There have been layoffs in the or, the company's not doing too well. We're not too sure what's going to happen. And then at that moment of, we might have two weeks till things fall apart, they're thinking about, do I have enough, um, as you said, rightfully said, do I have enough money to fall back on a five month job hunt? You know, do I have a choice now in where I go, or am I just going to have to take the next big thing that pops up and anything, whatever it is, and sometimes it's a little too late. So I really love that this is getting people thinking down that path, because it's not just about, um, what I. As I read through this, it's not just about damage control and using a fire extinguisher. It's also about preparing you and giving you that sort of strength and confidence in where you are in your career and what comes next and all of that. So this is really knowledge in and of itself, is a really great panacea. So you could do the math, and you could realize that we really only have two months of a comfortable buffer between roles, and that will guide your decision making process going forward. Or you may do the math and you have a cushy full year that you could take to really take the time, reflect on what you want, and find the right role. But knowing whether you have two months or a full year, that's something that you want to know, and it's better to not be surprised. It's also better to not take something because you have this anxiety that I must have something immediately, even when you really don't. You have the space if you have the space. Yeah, totally agree. So, based on that, you said that there are three types of changes that people go through with their job hunt or job changes, I should say. So what are those three changes? Yeah. So there are three types of job changes, at least, that I've bucketed. Two of them are voluntary. The third is not. So the first one is a lateral change. So this is where you are. Normal career progression in your chosen field, in your chosen industry. You may be taking, let's say you're a program manager. You take another program management role on another team in your company, perhaps you advance to people leadership in your company or in someone else's company in a similar industry. Perhaps you, I don't know, take on a, take on a role doing something slightly, slightly different, but it's something that you want to be doing and it's just a different, a different skill set you already have that you want to flex more of. But you really control the where, where you go when you leave and what you do. This is like the best case scenario as far as job changes go. From a stress and anxiety perspective, that one's probably, yeah, as you said, best case. That's where you know, actually, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop you. You keep going through the other two. I'll make the comment at the end. Okay. So the second career change, and I have done this before, is called the pivot. So when you make a career pivot is you are either taking a stand and you're saying anywhere but here, or you are intentionally going to change your change, either your field, your industry, what you've been doing, because you want to take on a different challenge. So it's either career pivots are either usually born out of like immense stress and burnout or curiosity and the pursuit of growth and expanding skill sets. Nice. Im going to ask you about that in a sec. And whats the third one? So the third one is the oh, shit bucket. So this is when things are not going well. Its when your spidey sense is tingling and telling you that there is uncertainty happening in your industry, that you see layoffs are happening. Perhaps youve been put on a performance improvement pan and youre in jeopardy of being managed out of your role just in 2023 alone in the tech sector globally and 40,000 people have been laid off. That's a 50% increase over 2022. And I don't see that trend. I don't see that trend writing itself so far in 2024, we'll have to see. But this one is the most anxiety inducing because you have no control over when you leave, where you go or what you do, or at least it very much feels like you don't have control over those things. Yeah, yeah, that one's. And that's, and unfortunately, that's why a document like this is so necessary. Because if that something hits you, you wake up Monday morning to an impersonal email saying you've been laid off, then you, if you haven't prepared or you haven't given any of this any thought, it's all going to come crashing down on you. Right. And it's going to feel terrible. So, yeah, hopefully we don't have too many people that we know in that bucket, but we do. We have plenty. Plenty. And kind of like the job cycle. Julian, you can have in mind that, you know, for example, I want to make a career pivot. I want to start my own business in the next year. And while you are mentally preparing for a career pivot, you get laid off. Yep. So you can be having the prep work done. And just the understanding of what the different scenarios look like is great, because again, you don't want to be caught off guard. And it's not. What is it? Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. Is that the same? Yeah, yeah, Bob loves to say that one. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing with all of this, is you can actually hearing these, these three changes, lateral change pivot and the. Oh, shit bucket. We can all kind of think of where we've been in those situations. Not everyone would have been a number three, because not everyone's gone through that before. But before I reflected on any of this, I want to ask you, you said you've been through the pivot before. What was that for you? If you don't mind sharing, because I think our audience, a lot of the people that listens to this podcast, a lot of our listeners, not all of them are in python developer roles. There are a lot of people in adjacent roles that would love to pivot into a developer role. And what did they look like for you? Yeah. So just to preface for Julian's very technical audience, I am not a technical person, unless you count basic HTML to make wikis. My career pivot was from the intelligence community. I spent eight years at the CIA before deciding I could not take it a moment longer. And I put in my notice. My notice period took eight months. Unfortunately, because career pivots do take, tend to take longer. You're convincing a whole new industry, a whole new company, a whole new team, that you're a human being whose skills you definitely have the skills, you just don't know how to reflect them on your resume. So I pivoted from a generalist in intelligence to program management, and that I pivoted to communication and employee experience. And I'd say, so the job hunt itself took eight months. The pivot from intelligence to communication, employee experience. I'd say that took another six months before I solidified my new career trajectory in a very different direction. Although when I looked back at it, there is a thread that runs through the responsibilities and the focus that I had, even as an intelligence officer, in communication and employee experience, it was always there. It was just very hard for me to see when I was in the thick of it, trying to just escape. Yeah, no, I feel you on that. Drawing some comparisons here, and I can see where I relate, but just quickly, to go back to the other point you made is that sometimes the pivot's driven by two things, right? Stress or curiosity. I really like that. So for you, it was stress. It was absolutely stress. Yeah, like 100% it was stress. I was so burnt out that I had lost all sense of self, and I was so lacking in confidence in what I could be doing next. So my curiosity was not dialed in. It was just, I will do anything. I will take any job, I will do anything. Anyone that will hire me, I'm in. It just happened that I had a network connection that got me the role that I wound up taking. Gotcha. Okay. I think a lot of, a lot of people relate with that. There's a lot of people I know listening who are in toxic, stressful, frustrating roles, and they might be developer roles, they might not be right, but they, they're in these situations. And I know it can feel impossible to get out. Like, you don't have a choice or that, well, what else am I going to do, right? And that's where the pivot is, is important. But also, I appreciate you sharing the timeline there, because the pivot isn't like an overnight thing. You got to keep pushing through the fire to get to there eventually. So all up, it would have taken you a year or so for you to make that full flip to the other role. And, yeah, so just, just relative to that, you were actually monumental in my career pivot. So I think a lot of listeners, I don't know if you remember, I used to be incredibly technical, building data centers and doing all that sort of stuff with our service, maintenance and developing and all that thing. And then I moved into the employee experience. You know, I moved into employee engagement and everything. And it was actually through working with Cassandra years and years ago when I was still working in the data centers where I got exposed to this. So for me, it wasn't stress. It was more curiosity and passion for that side of the fence and being able to help people that made me go, I get to do tech stuff with PI bytes, so I'm going to do this stuff at work and see how I go. So. But yeah, to the, to your point with the timeline, it took, it took at least a year, I reckon, for me to get from the tech role into this. So, yeah, I'd say with the career pivot, the most important type of preparation is investment. It's investing in yourself, it's investing in new skills and new certification and an expanded network. It's taking on additional work, you know, they say off the side of your desk. So it's, you took on an additional role leading like a volunteer employee champion group. And the first time I met you, I was like, holy cow, this dude is a people person and I'm gonna lean on him to help lead in that region, in that space because he's really well suited for it, regardless of what he does during the day. Yeah, yeah, and that's, and this is something we, we always mention on the podcast and talk with our clients about, is that, um, you don't know where the next change is going to come from. It's just going to hit you one day, it's going to fall into your lap, it's going to be a conversation you have that triggers it all. And the only way to increase the odds of those things happening is to get out there is to follow those passion points, to get involved, to network and communicate. And these are some of the tips you have in the checklist here as well. So I don't want to steal all of that thunder. Stop, Julian, stop talking. Ever bought a course and saw zero results? I've definitely been there. There are very great courses and materials out there, but if you don't implement, nothing will change. But with Pyrite's developer mindset, coaching, it's a whole new game. In just twelve weeks, you transform from a Python intermediate to a pro. How? Through one on one coaching, building real applications and mastering advanced python techniques. Our hands on approach isn't just about learning, it's about doing and achieving. Get certified, push your career and join an empowering community. Apply for the Pibytes PDM program now check out the link in the description below. All right, so we've identified now that people need to change, that people should be thinking about the change, where they are in that process, whether it's something they're going to chase, are they prepared for it? So now what, what's next? Yeah, I think the next part is reflection, and we actually talked about this on the last podcast the first part is identifying where your values, skills, passions and purpose lie. And I believe we went through those four questions. So these are the same four questions from that podcast. Yeah. But the second part of the reflection that you really should be doing is thinking about what you want, thinking about what you want and think about what you don't want. It's two sides of the same coin. So I recommend considering, like, okay, I'm facing a career change in the next twelve months. Let's say it's twelve months from now. What does my career look like ideally? What has changed? What have I carried through? What do I love about my job now that I'd love to see more of? And what do I hate about my job that I never want to touch ever again? So I recommend identifying at least three non negotiables, three must haves or must not haves, and three nice to haves. So, things that you're willing to, things you're willing to compromise on. If you really want a title that is vp of something, and you want a remote only role, and you want a culture that focuses on environmental sustainability, don't take a role that is killing the environment as a director and you have to go into the office three days a week because you have identified, these are the things that are really important to me and these are the things I'm not going to negotiate on. If you are in a space where you can say, these are the things that I'm not going to accept anything less than, then don't accept anything less than that. Yeah. Now to add to that, you may not have a choice. Sometimes if you're in a situation where you were in that third category where you've been laid off or whatever, you might have to take the destroy environment role. You might have to take the role that doesn't quite meet your expectations or your desires because you, your priority in life, you know, you need to put food on the table, that sort of thing. But that's not to say you have to stay there. So as you were saying, Cassandra, back to that start in the job cycle, you might be in the first 90 days of that role. That doesn't mean that you can't go back to step one and start the job search again while you've kicked off that new role, just to now. So you've solved the problem of needing a roof over your head, needing a job to bring in some funds. Now you can while you're there and you're still going through your onboarding, you're still at your 1st 90 days of figuring out what it is you do in this new role. If it doesn't tick those must haves, then keep looking. Right? Yeah. You have to solve those immediate problems first. But if you are in that state of going, yeah, I'm happy where I am now, maybe I could grow. Then you have that choice of, what are these must haves? Yeah, I'm going to flick that one. I don't need that one because it's not environmentally friendly or from a coding perspective. Right. You might only want roles now that, say you might be sick of sustaining, you might be sick of solving bugs and issues like that, and you might want to be in a developer role where you're actually building features. So that might be a must have, or it might be something like, I need 20% of my day to be learning. I want to be in a role where I'm going to be growing and learning and not stagnating. So then you think to yourself, well, what am I going to ask in the interview to figure that out? That's a different conversation. But yeah, this is a really important exercise, but it's going to help you filter out the jobs that end up wasting your time later down the track and you end up being even more miserable. And I think we all know people that have changed jobs and go, oh, God, what did I leave? Why did I leave? I miss the oldest greener. Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of that's because of these. Yeah. There's an important mindset shift that needs to happen when you are feeling like you're stuck, when you're feeling trapped. So particularly if you are interested in a linear change or a career pivot, or even if you're in the oh, shit bucket and you're somewhere where you don't want to be, you're not stuck. Reframe it to. I am prioritizing a different part of my life and time. Box the suck. So I am prioritizing having a roof over my family's head until macroeconomic conditions improve or until I get that certification in the next XYz time. It's not permanent. So understanding. It's not permanent and you are not stuck. You are just prioritizing a different part of your life for the time being. Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. There's the mindset. There's. And you need to build a whole bunch of habits around it, because if you're taking on a role that isn't up your alley or you're stuck in a role that's, that's frustrating to you and you want to get out. You're not going to have, by default, a lot of time to focus on that growth, on, uh, learning the new skill in the field you want to get into or upgrading your certifications and your qualifications for the industry if you've been lagging behind or something. Right. So you're going to have to build new habits to get that in. And that may be difficult, that may require an hour or two every night, and maybe that's not sustainable for the long term, but if you set those deadlines, like six months, that's it. That's what I need to get there, then you'll be able to push through it. So I do like that side of it. Um, okay, so the next part. And I promise everyone this isn't going to go too much longer. My coffee is getting cold now because, uh, the battery on my mug died. So that, that's how I know I've been talking for too long. Um, the battery, your, your mug, your coffee mug has batteries? Yeah, it's a. Well, I'm not going to do product placement until this is a pie bite. Smoke one day, but, yeah, it keeps it warm because, you know, actually, no, we haven't worked in the same office before, but I take forever to drink a coffee. This is like 2 hours old, this coffee. So people are probably going, oh, how can we trust the guy who drinks a coffee so slowly? Just sounds like normal parent stuff. When was the last time I drunk a hot cup of coffee? That's a good point. Without having to microwave it three times. Yes. To get to the end. That's a goal. So speaking of goals and everyone, we've talked about this many times on the podcast, that is very, very important to document your goals, put them somewhere visible, that sort of thing. But from this perspective of a job change, what do you suggest, Cassandra, for goals? I mean, just have them. You should be. You should have them, you should consider them. I recommend thinking two to five years out. I do not recommend a five to ten year plan. Like again, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. So try to think nearer long term rather than long term and have a few goals in mind. So, for example, I want to be, if I want to move into people leadership in the next two years. Cool. That's my goal. Become a people manager in two years, then do the next step thinking, what are my strategies to get there? Who do I need to surround myself with in order to make that happen? What training or upskilling do I need to do in order to be considered a viable candidate for that? Where do I need to spend my time in my current role? How can I get the practice in people leadership? Should I take on a mentee? Should I get a sponsor? Should I volunteer in the community where I am leading? I don't know, a kids soccer group? Football for your audience. How dare. How can I get the exposure to the similar thing I want to be doing long term? Similar to what Julian did as a tech person, taking on a voluntary role, doing employee engagement, which eventually turned into an employee engagement career pivot. Yep. Yeah, I totally agree. This fundamental skill of being able to put down your goals and then break them down into those chunks, this is something we do with all of our clients when they join the program and they inevitably go, wow, I didn't realize the steps I need to get, they're actually attainable. So as you break them down as well, the other thing I'd say is put some timelines on them of like, okay, the next six months I can start contributing to open source. Or maybe that's a twelve month goal. And the current six months time period you might be saying, okay, I need to practice, I need to actually code, I need to build something, I need to get those skills up, get that confidence, get that experience up. That way the next goal, contribute to open source. Looks fantastic on my resume, my cv. That way, in two years, I've done enough of this work, this portfolio building that I can then change jobs. You know, obviously you can bring that, condense that down a bit, depends on it. And you can put in some piebites coaching into that plan that would work as well to make it short. I understood that part. The rest of it was just gobbledygook to me. I had to make it relatable. We have to talk coding on here sometimes. And everyone's like, Julian talking coding. He knows how to code. What is this? Because I'm normally, I'm talking all the mindset stuff, right? So anyway, so these are really important and I think this is a huge thing a lot of people don't actually do. You know, I think if you were to ask someone, walk down the street, meet someone at a drinks at work and be like, so what's your two to five year plan? What's the goal for you? Just to drum up conversation. People like, oh crap, I don't know, just trying to make it to Friday. Yeah, like my, my, my number one goal at the moment. If I'm to be open and raw with everyone is to survive until Grand Theft Auto six comes out in 2025. I was about to say, that's a long time coming, buddy. The. The trailer just launched. If everyone's listening and hasn't seen it yet, go watch that trailer. Trailer just launched last week and it. I was so excited and then it ended with coming 2025 and I'm like, it's already been ten years. Anyway, all right, so now we're into the, the final piece here, the checklist there. So as everyone, as you know, we're all about action, taking action. Here are things you can do. Cassandra, would it be giving away too much if you just ran through this quickly or do you want to skip a few? How do you want to do that? We can. I'm going to touch on a couple of the big ones. So, student, the number one thing is make sure your resume is up to date, at least every year. Review it. Does it have your most recent experience? Does it capture the impact you've had in your role? Does it have your current email address on there? Is it formatted correctly? Which, by the way, I baked in here a link to steal my resume template. That's got words you should use, words you shouldn't use. It's all formatted nice and friendly for the ATs and for hiring managers. But just make sure that that stays up to date because again, you don't want to get caught in the oh, shit bucket and not have an up to date resume that you can start farming out immediately. Yep. I'm going to talk also about making sure you update your LinkedIn profile. And what do I mean by update? I mean are you visible? Do you have a recent high quality photograph? It does not need to be a professionally done photograph. You can do a lot with an iPhone these days, but something have your photo visible, have your work experience on there. But don't just copy and paste everything that's on your resume into LinkedIn because that just gets too long. That's not what the format is for. What people want to see is are you engaging, have you built a network or do you have 25 connections? Spend some time there in intentionally building your network and engaging with people on the platform. If you don't also want to create content, which you totally allowed to do, but building a brand, having a personal brand makes you so much more visible and viable as a hiring candidate. Yeah. On that note, I'm just going to yeah, you off very rudely. No, I'm kidding. Do I have permission to cut you off? Please. Do you already did. We're already there. The two things, the resume. One, thank you so much for providing a resource on building your resume and the style and format, because that is one of the biggest forms of procrastination that people we come across have or do because they oh, what template should I use? What's it going to look like? How should I format it? If you can take away that excuse from people by just say, here's a template that is good and that's going to pass this and has recommendations so on, that's going to be super powerful. So download that everyone listening. And two, the LinkedIn profile, super important. So a question for you, and this is something I've had debates on with people before. Building out your network, youre not always going to know the people that you connect with personally. And thats what I think is very different between something like Facebook and LinkedIn, even Instagram to some extent, is that because I know some people who say I dont connect with anyone unless ive met them or communicated with them. Whats your take on that? Do you have suggest people try and connect with people before they talk with them or what? And that's a choice, I guess my role is I look for do we have mutual connections and who are they? Are we in a similar industry? Cool. And are we. I'm a content creator, so are we creating similar or complementary content? If I answer any of those three things in the affirmative, I'm most likely going to accept a connection. I'm not going to accept a connection from someone I have zero mutual connections with who's in a completely different industry or who looks like they're obviously trying to sell me something. I think if you are much more established in your career and you get way too many connection requests, you can be more choosy. And you could say, I'm only connecting with people. You can actually hit the setting so that people can't request a connection with you unless they have your, your email address. Like that's something that you can do. But if you are trying to grow your network, I would say be less choosy. Yeah, yeah, be less choosy. But I also think, you know, have the confidence, right, to reach out to people that inspire you as well. Because sometimes people on LinkedIn want you to connect with them. And if you have that sort of, I'm not going to talk to you. I mean, imagine if this is LinkedIn, it's all virtual, but imagine this was a conference, right? You're going to, if you just wait for people to come to you. No one's going to come to you. You know, you have to get out there and join in the conversations and tap people on the shoulder and say, hey, I see you're at this booth, or you do this. And I find that inspiring. I've loved that company. I'd love to see what you do, you know? So on that note, I'm going to have our LinkedIn profiles linked in the whatever notes are below this. Yeah, sure. And so please connect with myself, Cassandra, and Bob. I'll put his in there as well, because you can then see who we're connected with and grow your network that way. And because this is the technical audience, join our community. You know, the Pibytes community. A lot of people in there end up networking. Jobs have come from that, all sorts of inspiration. So then you can grow your network. And that's especially important for those of you who are in situations where you're the only technical person that you know. None of my friends care about programming. None of my mates in real life, they couldn't care less. I tried to talk about pie bytes. So at the end of the day, it's a great way to get out there without feeling like you're just going into the void. So thanks for that. I appreciate that feedback. Cassandra? Yeah? You have a community. I think that's important. It doesn't need to just be LinkedIn connections or the people you physically work with. You're able to find a community with people who have similar interests. They exist on LinkedIn, they exist on Facebook. Julian's got one that's probably an awesome community to join, but there's probably also local, like IRL. Wherever you are in the world, there are probably coding meetups of some sort, some local coding community that you could join to. And for those of you who are apprehensive about reaching out and connecting with someone who you don't know yet on LinkedIn, my recommendation is don't just send them a connection request. Interact with their content first, like something that they've written or comment on something that they've written, and start a more authentic connection, a more authentic conversation that will lead to a more productive connection down the line. Yeah, show interest. Right. And if you show interest, people are much more obliged to connect and engage. So there you go. All right. So do you want to go through another one or two? Yeah, I'll do one more. So this one is very much related to all the work that you've just done. If you go through this career change checklist, you've done a lot of reflection on what you want, where you are, what you do. I want you to practice your elevator pitch, your personal elevator pitch. Get really comfortable with saying who you are and what you do. Hi, I'm Cassandra Rebellia and I help people make work suck less. Where they are and where they're going. Make it real clear to people what you're all about. Because when you are able to articulate what your one really good about, what you're really good at, what you're really passionate about, you're more likely to connect with people who are looking for that thing and who are going to want to hire you. Because this is all about making a career change. So find the people who are looking for the thing that you have. Yeah, sorry, I was coughing. Muted my microphone. No, no, I love that. And it also, you know what, when you gave your elevator pitch, um, practicing that and having your own, uh, it actually shows a lot of confidence. Like, I got that from you. Like, oh, wow, that's really cool. So if you can do that, because not many people have that, you know, they might go into a long, rambling spear or just say, I don't know, I just work, you know? So you don't want to be in that bucket. You want to be able to say, here's who I am, here's what my values are, my passion, whatever it happens to be. Um, so I think that's really cool. Definitely get that one done. That's not something I've ever thought about outside of this conversation, so. Awesome. Well, look, I think we've been talking for I don't even know how long, like 30 minutes anyway. Longer than. And your audience has the attention of a goldfish. No, we've been told, hey, we like your short form factor once. Not today, junior. So, Cassandra, thank you so much for that, everyone. This career change checklist is just invaluable. I really think it doesn't matter where you are on your career journey. This is something you should read, go through, fill out, just to give you that little confidence boost. You know, have it in your back pocket. It's something to know you've given it thought. It's almost like kind of morbid, but putting a will together, you know, so that at least you know that if something ever happens, you've given it thought and that some things will be taken care of and that it's not just brand new to you going, oh, crap, you know, so it's a wonderful exercise to go through. I went through it, really enjoyed it, and yeah. Awesome. So, Cassandra, any last comments on this before I move into the next thing? No. I'm glad that you're letting me share this with your, with your people today. I'd love to hear any feedback from folks. Yeah, yeah, definitely. There's a few people I can think of that'll. I'm actually going to send this link to go listen to this Ted podcast and we'll go from there, but I'll let you know for sure. And everyone, Cassandra's contact details are in the things below. Comments below. I've said that a million times today and. Yeah, so, all right, that's done. We're going to stop talking about that doc now. The next thing, as we always wrap up, is books. What book are you reading? You asked me this and I was like, besides my own, so what a flex. This week I published the you got this six month gratitude journal around the world and it is available now for yourself or for gifts for your team. But what it is, is it brings together the work that I do on the the burnout side of the house in setting an annual intention in identifying consistent habits that can get you towards your intention for the year. Weekly reflection prompts and time management and work life balance tips and daily gratitude space. So the journal is something I'm super excited about. This annual intention setting exercise is something that I do every single year and so I'm actually going through it again in this medium right now. Yep. Wow. I love this. So I've got a copy, too. So if you are listening to this, I encourage you to take your hands off the steering wheel and bring up YouTube. No, don't do that. Please don't do that. But stop the car. Whatever it is you're doing, go look this up on YouTube because showing a picture of it right now. But this is a really cool book. It's so. Well, it smells great. Brand new printing. Cassandra thought that was weird that I smelled the book, but yeah, don't worry about it. She's. Don't worry about it, Cassandra. But the best thing about it is it actually encourages you to be intentional. You know, I mean, it even says annual intentions on the front. But having this here, you know, even if it just serves value for like a month to get you back on track, to get you thinking about these things, build that habit. It's going to be awesome. I can't wait to kick it off and have a play with it. So. That's not what I'm reading. Because that's a writing book, Cassandra. It is. Come on. But I did. I'm going to read the first. Gonna read the first page. There's a write up in there from you. I'm actually reading a book on teaching kids how to be mentally fit, raising resilience, resilient children, which has been taught me a lot of stuff. Like, I share a tidbit that we're, as humans, intrinsically just a base instinct is to be pessimists. Never heard it put that way before. We have our fight or flight that's written in this doc somewhere. Fight or flight mentality, right. And so we're in. We. Our core design is to be wary of things that will harm us. And that's not just physical, because these days, it's not so much physical harm. It's a lot of mental pain that we go through in anguish. So how do we protect ourselves from that? And so we are, at a base level, very pessimistic, looking for the things that will harm us. And that's conversationally, that's with relationships, it's everything. Whereas it's proven that people who are more optimistic tend to live healthier lives, tend to live longer lives, and things like that. So a really interesting read. I can't even remember the name of the book, but, um, so I'm totally prepared for this episode, but I'll link that I have a stat to add to your. Your little chat there about pessimism. So apparently humans have something like 70,000 thoughts a day, and 80% of them are either negative or self effacing. That's a great stat. Wow. I mean, that's a sad. It's horrendous. That was a negative thought. Yeah, that's, um. That's amazing. Wow. Never, never knew that. Can try and turn that around. Turn it to, like 75%. There you go. That's progress. Yeah. Small steps. Baby steps. Um, all right, well, look, that was wonderful. I really enjoyed that chat, everyone, I think. I hope you enjoyed it, too, Cassandra. Was it enjoyable? Rated trust pilot. Five stars. It was okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Three out of five stars, actually, you know, because you don't know this. This is like the first podcast episode I've been on in, on my own podcast in about six weeks. Oh, because you've been out having too much fun. Too much fun making everyone else do the work. No, there's just been. We've had guest after guest, and they've been in different time zones.

I'm like, I don't care who you are. I'm not getting up at 02: 53:25

00 a.m. Sorry, you know, so we had like the creator of Flask on, which is a big python technology web framework. And I love the guy, I love what he does. I'm a big flask fan, but I'm like, that's too early in the morning. I'm going back to sleep. So I didn't join. So, I mean, there you go. Anyway, thank you for being here. Cassandra, any parting words for any, anyone? Anything we missed, anything I didn't bring up? If you're facing a career change in the next twelve months, it's going to work out in the end and I just recommend taking a step back and thinking things through, what you want, what you can manage, and kind of quelling that fight or flight response as much as possible with knowledge and preparation. And if that's not your jam and instead you're more on the burnout side thing, check out you got this. Because that's really what's going to help. The gratitude, the small consistent habits, the reflection, time management tips, those are what things that are going to help you if you're experiencing both. Hey, check out both. Yeah, yeah. And if you're still stuck, or even if you just want more conversation, just message Cassandra, message her on LinkedIn, email her, she'll be more than happy to respond and help and support and then curse me for that because you have to actually do something. So. And from a python perspective, you've got some coaches right here. There you go. All right, Cassandra, thank you so much for being here. Really enjoyed it as always. Um, I'm actually also just glad that I did hit the record button because I just had a brief heart attack. Are we recording? Uh, but it's all done, so thank you. I'm sure you'll be on in like another couple of months. We'll have something else to talk about. I'm enjoying having you as a regular guest. These are fun. Yes, regular guest. I like the sound of that. I like it. We're going to have to get you working with piebytes at some point soon anyway. Um, all right, everyone, thank you for listening. Cassandra, thank you so much and, uh, we'll see you on the next episode. Happy New year's, everyone. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pibyte friends, that is pibit es friends and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show. And to join our thriving community of python programmers, go to Pybytes community. That's Pybiton es community. We hope to see you there. And catch you in the next episode.