Your Skills Are More Transferable Thank You Think (with Taylor Curran)

March 9, 2023·23 min·2 clips

Taylor Curran explains why feeling confused while learning tech is actually your job security.

Taylor Curran, a sales engineer at Prefect and Bloom Tech alum, joins host Joel to discuss her unconventional career path into tech. This episode explores how transferable skills and a growth mindset can break into fields like data science and sales engineering. Curran shares her journey from a recent college graduate with uncertain prospects to a professional in a technical role. She finished a degree in industrial distribution but realized she didn't want a career in that industry. A friend suggested she look into Bloom Tech, a coding bootcamp offering a risk-free trial and a tuition-back job guarantee. Curran attended tech conferences to ask professionals if they would hire someone from such a program before deciding to enroll. She began Bloom Tech's data science courses while finishing her university finals, then dedicated herself to the program full-time. Curran describes data science as the broad challenge of building systems to extract value from data for organizations. Her first tech role was as a Python developer, though she admits she never reached an expert level in concepts like data orchestration. A key insight was that her initial technical interviews focused more on her comfort with pair programming than her hard skills. Bloom Tech instructors framed the constant feeling of confusion as "job security," since tolerating that state is a valuable soft skill. Curran emphasizes that 92% of hiring managers say soft skills are as important or more important than technical abilities for entry-level roles. She argues that building a community and working on projects are the "macronutrients" for learning, while online courses are merely supplemental. The career support phase at Bloom Tech intensified, with alumni networks directly helping her land her current job at Prefect. The episode has a conversational and encouraging tone, blending personal narrative with practical career advice. It is styled as an inspirational discussion aimed at demystifying tech career transitions. This episode is ideal for career-changers feeling intimidated by tech or those underestimating their existing soft skills. Listeners solely seeking deep technical tutorials or skeptical of alternative education models might find less value here.

As heard by us

A steady case for treating a nontraditional background as transferable evidence, not a liability.

Taylor Curran, a sales engineer at Prefect and a Bloom Tech alumna, presents the role with clarity and keeps the focus on why the path into it can feel wider than the title implies.

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Need a steadier way to explain a career pivot?

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