The company I work for is massive, we have over 200,000 employees. We are also notorious for hiring people into roles and work groups that they have no interest in. This is because the company needs do not always match with the interests people have. We tend to hire the best and brightest people available and put them where the need is the greatest. With this trend people are constantly asking how they can switch groups or find roles in an area they are interested in.
There are a lot of things you can do to achieve this goal, but be well aware that you will have projects, you will have roles, and you will have jobs that fill the time between the work you really want to do. Try to minimize these times as much as you can while building on the skills that will help you land the role you really want.
To build the skills and gain experience, you first need to learn what skills are required to do the job. Sounds simple, but most people have no idea what the day to day activities are for a job they are interested in. Spend some time researching the tools and methodologies used in your targeted work. Read trade manuals, talk to people already in the industry, Google it. Understanding what you are expected to know is extremely helpful in determining what you need to do.
Once you know what you should learn, come up with a project where you can begin learning the tools and methodologies. If you are interested in mobile app development, try making a Pacman game using the Agile development methodology with all the associated milestones and documentation required along the way. Do the development using the most common development tools, use svn to manage the code, leverage a bug tracking software like bugzilla. This is of course a software development example, but you get the picture. It doesn’t matter what industry you are interested in, begin using the tools and methods that are used in the industry. It will give you a huge head start when trying to land the work you want.
Create something tangible you can show people. Last week I was talking to a new hire at our company who is interested in doing video based training and learning projects. I’ve been putting some thought into it and I am going to recommend she pick a topic, create a training video for it, and place the video on Youtube. On her resume she should be pointing people to the video immediately. A resume is nice, but it seldom tells me anything about a person. Often times I use resume’s to filter out who I don’t want to talk to and use the interview to get a better understanding of who someone is. If I can go to youtube and watch what someone created or download an app they wrote, I will be extremely impressed and get a better feel for what they are capable of. This also shows a persons initiative and believe me, I want people with initiative.
Once you have something implemented, solicit feedback on it, learn how to make it better. By all means, show it off. Let the people who do the work you want to do know about what you’ve created. Tell them you are looking for a role and that you love to do this type of work. Believe me, you will be tops on their list the next time they have a spot to fill.
