Many people are interested in a career in tech but are not sure how to get started. Years ago everyone wanted to be a medical doctor, lawyer or engineer. Parents would push their children to those courses because of how lucrative these professions were and the respect that follows. Now things have taken a turn! Tech is the new oil and everyone is trying to get into this space. Tech Blogger and Founder of Benjamin Dada Media, Benjamin Dada had a conversation with our community about getting into the African tech ecosystem successfully.
In this article, we’re sharing the 5 steps he shared with us.
1. Follow the Tech Space
You have to follow the tech space to know the important industry trends and opportunities that are available. A good way to do this is to read blogs and follow tech enthusiasts on social media or accounts that share useful insights about the tech space. You have to identify blogs that share valuable information about the technology space regularly. The more you read these blogs, you’ll become more familiar with the trends. Some people and organizations have newsletters you can subscribe to to get useful resources and news about available opportunities. You should also follow the social media pages of active participants or contributors to the tech space. Look out for people like founders, CEOs, investors, tech enthusiasts. With your social media platforms you should network sideways with your peers, downwards with people that are coming up and upwards with mentors, prospective employers and those who are ahead of you.
2. Choose a niche and learn the skills
After following the space for a while, you’ll discover tech careers you’re interested in, you might even have a company in mind. Research to find out what skills are required for you to build the tech career you want and the requirements in the company you’d like to work in. When you do this, start working on those skills. Take courses and practice what you have learned to keep improving yourself and increase your chances of getting a job. Some tech career paths are product management, data, software development, product design, tech marketing and so many more. For information on tech careers, read our blog post on 20 non-coding tech skills here
3. Join a Tech Community
There are some really good tech communities you can join to help you learn more and network easily. Joining a community gives you access to other people with similar interests. You’d get to collaborate and work on projects together, learn from each other’s growth and share opportunities. Ingressive for Good also has a great community for techies, you can join the exclusive I4G community here and subscribe to weekly newsletters to get useful resources here You can rely on the job postings that community leads might publish and take note of the salary range. Many employers would use communities as a way to get access to the talent within that community. You don’t have to talk about everything mentioned in the group, you can just leverage on the most important information that you need. Volunteering is one way to leverage community. Volunteering is making yourself visible and a value adding personality. When there’s a room for you to get paid, the people you have volunteered with will be your biggest referral.
4. Build Social Capital
When people hire, they do that for three reasons; human capital, social capital and financial capital. If you want to get a job that will pay you not just for your skills but the kind of impact you have, you have to build social capital. Social capital has to do with the level of influence you have amongst people in your industry and how you leverage that as you build your career.
5. Apply for Jobs
You can’t get a job opportunity to practice what you’ve learned if you don’t apply for jobs.So put yourself out there. Make sure you learn about the requirements of the job you want to apply for. For example if you’re looking for software engineering roles, learn data structures and algorithms. You need to learn how to ace an interview and how to succeed with real work experience in a job. If you’re just starting your career, look out for internship roles. You can start applying for an internship once you have a decent grasp of the fundamentals.
Don’t be discouraged by rejection. Benjamin Dada shared that he was rejected 2 or 3 times by Google before he eventually became a beneficiary of their scholarship program in 2017. Each time he got rejected he always tried to get feedback on what he could have done to make his application better.
Get back up and try again until you get what you want.
Do you find this post useful? Which of these steps are you currently at? What challenges are you facing?
12 Comments
So interesting, gives clue/light for a beginner like mee
Yaaay! We’re glad you find it helpful
This is really helpful and an eye-opening for a newbie like me.
Glad to hear it!
I am enthused.
Glad to hear it.
I found this helpful
Glad to hear it
This pretty expository!
Brimful of insights for wannabe like myself.
I just joined the Ingressive For Good community, that implies I’m on my to the fourth step..
Bounty of thanks!
We’re happy to hear this! Glad to have you join our community.
Insightful. I’m mid way to where I want to be and this is assurance that I’m on the right track.
Sending you hugs! We’re rooting for you!