My life has taken a lot of twists and turns. I never sought a specific trajectory in my career. Experiences, relationships, and knowledge always carried more importance for me. Unfortunately, employers tend toward tunnel vision when it comes to experience, which caused issues in my job search now. They do not consider anything outside of a specific job role relevant to the position posted. To illustrate my point, I want to take you on my own personal journey.
I figured out early that I was good at conflict resolution, effective communication, empathizing with others, and adapting to my environment, so I naturally gravitated toward customer service roles. My ability to inspire others led me into management roles, but issues arose with where I was working. Papa John’s Pizza has been notorious for its gender discrimination, and I didn’t like having the stress and responsibilities of a manager and trainer without the paycheck to go with it. Not to mention the open distaste shown for having a woman in a management role.
When several of my friends started working for a third party company troubleshooting Gateway computers, I decided to put in an application. To my surprise, I was hired. The company trained me as a troubleshooter and I spent the three years until the company closed, truly enjoying my job. In the time I worked there, I never left a call unresolved. That is something that I am very proud of.
After the company closed, I went back to college, and my life took a couple of twists. While in college, I took jobs as a tutor and an unlicensed teacher. Originally, the intended degree was a masters in secondary education. During my junior year I met my husband, and let him convince me to move to California with him. I found out the hard way that the higher education system in California not only sucks, it’s very different from everywhere else in the country. Long story short, my masters in secondary education became a bachelors in US History. Yes, I know, probably the most worthless degree to have in today’s job market. Thanks California, I’ll never forget you…
Moving on. According to my husband, my degree doesn’t matter because he is a software engineer who can provide for both of us. That’s well and good for him, but working isn’t always about money. Sometimes it’s about using the skills you have to benefit others. Sometimes it’s about being part of a team. Sometimes it’s just about doing something for yourself.
The fact that he has a lucrative position did free me up to do some things that I always wanted to do. I took a part-time position at Starbucks for a year to learn the proper way to make a latte. I was slightly disappointed that all of their espresso machines are automated now, but with how popular they’ve become, that was inevitable. I also started volunteering with Dallas Pets Alive! I was a bit disappointed with this, as well. The position I volunteered for wasn’t what they advertised it to be. Of course, I should have expected that, too. Nothing is ever as good as it’s portrayed to be.
My most recent paid position was working for an online comic book company. The company was small, and owned by an older couple. The man had gotten it into his head that old paperback books were going to be the next “collectible”. I tried to tell him that there are certain authors and certain subjects that are prone to possibly raise in value, but he didn’t want to listen. I was given the title of product manager, but since he didn’t really let me manage anything, after a year and a half the department closed and I went merrily on my way.
My real ah ha moment came when I was invited to a happy hour with my husband and some friends from his work about two years ago. I had been speaking with one of the managers my husband worked with who asked me if I had ever consider being a product owner. I had never really thought about it. He said that I had the right mind for it, and that I would do well.
I spent a lot of time researching the product owner role. Since a product owner is often vaguely defined, I learned all the possible roles it could encompass. I learned about user stories: proper form for writing and mapping them, how to break down epics properly, and how to properly refine them. I then went on to to get my CSPO through Scrum Alliance. My husband saw how much work I was putting into this, so he got a Jira subscription here at home. Now we use Jira to complete personal projects. I write stories for him, he also gives me tasks to teach me coding. Right now I’m learning java.
I have put a lot of time, effort, and money into understanding product ownership in ways that go beyond what others learn on the job. In fact, I was floored when the instructor for my CSPO training told the class that DevOps was another word for tech debt. That is not true. DevOps is exactly what the word implies: a combination of development and operations.
So, what’s the point of this enormous wall of text? I want to know why all of the work I put into understanding product ownership is meaningless to employers. Beyond that, why is experience only relevant when it is performed within that specific role?
A few months ago I had the CPO of a company tell me that he questioned my presentation abilities because I’d never held the specific title “product owner” before. I gave presentations as a product manager. Being a teacher and a trainer requires refined presentation abilities. In my opinion, an understanding of user stories and Agile is far more important than presentation skills, especially if the stories are being delivered electronically. If he was so concerned about my ability to present, why not ask me to present something?
In this life there are some people who know exactly what they want to do with their lives right from the start. Others may not know right away, but figure it out pretty early. Some of us wander through our lives, soaking up every experience we can, until that moment arrives to show us where to go and what to do. How are we supposed to convince potential employers that we’re just as worthy of employment as someone who figured it out right away?
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