[MUSIC] My name is Gilbert, and I'm a talent
outreach specialist here at Google. Talent can mean many things; it can mean folks that have never
envisioned themselves at Google. And so part of our team's remit is
to identify talent that Google or other companies may not necessarily
reach out to, or consider for roles in the past and helping them
navigate the interview process. That could also mean candidates
that are already interested or have expressed interest in opportunities
at Google in the past, and engaging them to support them
through the interview process today. At Google you have to wear the program and project management hat,
regardless of what role you're in. And that's definitely been the case for
me. So in my role I've had to practice skills
such as: communicating to stakeholders, managing a budget, managing a project timeline in many
different projects within my role. An example of this could
be organizing events for university students that
come to Google's campus. And hear from guest speakers about
the projects we work on, the roles and their career journeys. And so as you can imagine this
can be a complex project. My first job out of college was completely
unrelated to what I'm doing now. I was an assistant manager
at a big box retailer. And so a lot of the skills that I
actually learned in that role have translated to support me in my
role and allowed me to have success. So some of these skills are being able to
talk to and have difficult conversations, being able to manage a budget, managing
resources, and managing your time. These are especially important
in the retail setting. I started applying a lot of these project
management frameworks or practices, even into the smallest projects. Maybe it's related to my goals for
the next three months, setting up project plan based around that,
right? I was the only stakeholder, I was the only
one reviewing this documentation. But the practice of being able
to do this really helped me so that when I had to do it for a project
at Google with multiple stakeholders, with multiple timelines,
competing priorities. It was already second nature to me, because I even applied it
just in my day to day. So I think one of the biggest support
that I had as far as working through imposter syndrome, or lack of confidence as I stepped into a lot
of these skills is really just practice. And you can practice it in many
different ways, in your personal life, in your professional life,
and anything in between. So that was really important for
me as I've gone through this journey of up-skilling as a program and
project manager. I'd say that by joining this course and
stepping into this, you're already taking the first step. And I think that's just as important,
right? Not letting fear, or fear of failure get
in the way of new opportunities for you. And the second piece is don't
be afraid to ask for help. I think that folks are generally
willing to help and support you. So the biggest thing that
you can do is reach out, and not be afraid to ask questions. Not be afraid to do an informational
interview, to ask for resume tips, to ask for advice from people that
are maybe already in the role that you're hoping to step into, or in the field
that you're looking to work in. Just reach out to them,
ask them questions. I think people like to connect with folks
that are intuitive, that are curious and are just eager to learn. And so if you can leverage those two pieces, I think that you're going to
have success in whatever you do.