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SheCanCode's Spilling The T
SheCanCode's Spilling The T
How to navigate the changing job market
Join us as we explore the evolving tech job market with Heather Black, CEO and Founder of Supermums. In this inspiring episode, Heather shares her expert insights on how the industry is shifting — and what that means for professionals at every stage, especially mums looking to (re)enter or progress in tech.
From flexible career pathways to upskilling strategies, we dive into how women and parents can confidently navigate change and build rewarding tech careers that align with family life.
SheCanCode is a collaborative community of women in tech working together to tackle the tech gender gap.
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Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in Again. I am Kayleigh Batesman, the Managing Director, Community and Partnerships at she Can Code, and today we are discussing navigating the changing tech job market. I've got the incredible Heather Black, ceo and founder of Supermums, with me today and she's here to share her insights on how the industry is shifting and what it means for professionals at every stage, especially mums looking to enter, re-enter or progress in the tech industry. Welcome, heather. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, it's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure to have you on. I know you're a really, really busy lady and we absolutely love the work that you do at Supermums, so thank you so much for sharing some time with us and coming on to have a chat. We'd love to get started with a bit of background about you, if that's okay, to set the scene for our listeners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. So. My background where do we start with that? But I spent the first part of my career just to summarize it running non-profit organizations and I fell across. I was using Salesforce CRM for the non-profit I was running and the non-profit helped young people start their own businesses and launch their careers and fell in love with Salesforce as a product and what it, what, how it helped as an organization to manage everything. We can see that visibility data, see the outcomes we're having, coordinate communications as a team and, you know, found my love for tech. I suppose I hadn't really had, uh, an appetite for tech in any way before. I had never worked in a business that used a CRM, um, and so it was all completely new to me. But I think, seeing the power of a client relationship management system and how it can support a business, manage all their customer data, their intel, their analytics, um, and customer information, and I was like, okay, this is really powerful.
Speaker 2:And so, after running that nonprofit, I was having a family. I was just, you know, planning, had a wedding, you know, thinking about the baby. We moved out of the city. You know all of those things that you think about when you start in a family and I thought I would pivot into a Salesforce career. Now, you know, obviously I didn in a family and I thought I would pivot into a Salesforce career. Now, you know, obviously I didn't just make that jump. I was kind of like, well, you know what will it involve, what will it do? So you know, we'll talk about this as part of the podcast today. But you know, how did I get the confidence to do? It is one of the things that we had to think about.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, I got the confidence through various things that I did and upskilled myself and launched myself as a Salesforce freelance consultant. So that's been where I started my journey in tech, then grew a Salesforce consultancy because I was getting more work than I could manage myself, so grew to a team of 20. We worked with 350 non-profits and helping them implement Salesforce during the time of running the consultancy and as part of that that, you know, got this complete sort of mission to go. Well, if I can have a flexible, well-paid career doing this, other mums can do as well, which is why I launched Supermums eight years ago.
Speaker 2:So I kind of wanted to beat the drum and kind of make everybody aware of these great, flexible, well-paid career opportunities in the tech sector to go out and educate women. Hence why, you know it's lovely to do this podcast with you today, because I think we need more inspirational role models. We need to tell people what the opportunities are and sort of attract more people into the tech sector. So this is what I do every day now is raising awareness, banging the drum and, you know, seeing the amazing career change journeys of our supermums that go through the programme.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love it when I talk to people that didn't know that they could have a career in tech and, like you said, it was thinking about where do I find the confidence and where do I go and that's something that we hear a lot in our community finding other people that have done it as well to share that story and say you know what, I've done it and you can do it too. And inspiring other people to do that, because not a lot of people wake up one morning and go, yeah, I'm going to have a career in tech, I know what I want to do, I'm going to go to university when I'm, you know, of university age, I'm going to get a computer science degree and I'm going to go into technology. There are so many people that transition later in their career and then, like you, worry about that when do in their career?
Speaker 1:Um, and then, like you, worry about that, where do I find the confidence? How do I almost catch up on where I am now? Um, and actually those technical skills, for instance, are not always needed in tech as well, and that is that kind of misconception about going into tech. I have to have certain coding skills, really it's a thing. But you didn't you, just you. You obviously honed in in the things that you needed at the time, and they weren't things like coding no, we don't do any coding in in some of the salesforce roles.
Speaker 2:I mean, I talk about six different roles in salesforce um, and only one of them involves coding. All the others, um, and we do a quiz to help mums understand, you know, what might suit them. So shall I dive into those different sort of roles now? Okay, yes, so I created this quiz, um, which asks women about their superpowers at home, because I think they, you know, in order to have that confidence, you want to find your superpowers. And so the quiz takes you through a set of questions about who are you in your home and your life, and how you operate with your kids, with your family, with your friends, and it asks, if I sort of just summarise, I suppose, the key attributes it's, these are your attributes, right, and each of them leads to a different kind of job role in the tech industry. So if you are the mum at home, that is the one that is the empathetic listener, you know, always solving problems for people, always a listening ear, quite often the facilitator of people. You'd make a great business analyst, because as a business analyst, you are sitting down with a team, like a sales team, asking them what they do in their job day to day, being a counsellor in some ways, because there'll be things that might frustrate them, but also you're introducing technology solutions that are going to solve all their problems and make their lives easier and better. So as a BA, you have to be a great listener, you have to facilitate conversations, you have to solve problems for people. You know so if that is your superpowers, that's where you want to be.
Speaker 2:As a business analyst, if you are the mum at home, that is, the delegator, the organiser. You love budget, you love making sure that everybody knows what they're doing. You know you're the military mum that gets the kids out. You know they've got perfect routine. I mean, I really admire this. This is not me. You have a routine, everybody knows what they're doing, and maybe you do this in volunteer events. You know your volunteer, volunteer activities.
Speaker 2:If you've got those project management skills, um, you'd make a great project manager right, and that's maybe where you should position yourself in the tech sector, because you're just so organized and on things and you love delegating. Most importantly, that's a skill that anybody needs. I think, um, if you are the mum, that is very much, um, the first adopter. Like you love diy. You'll look things up on youtube. You like fixing things, you like teaching people things, so you're quite keen to learn new stuff. So maybe you know the new gadgets we get. Some of us take, you know, months or years to kind of get ahead around. Oh my god. There's another new thing I need to learn. But if you're the one that loves doing that, so the diy you love tidying things and making things organized. Actually that's where you could do some tech skills.
Speaker 2:Um. Now, obviously tech is broad um, but within the salesforce sector we talk about clicks and code. So actually you can be very technical and you know, be clicking things here and there to move things around and do things. You don't need any coding skills in quite a lot of technical roles in salesforce um, but obviously you can advance to a developer, which is there where you're learning code and then you're building things more productively. So if those attributes you know, if they're your sort of superpowers, then definitely you might really love actually getting into the tech.
Speaker 2:And I think it really suits people that you know like to get their head down and they're not necessarily talking to people all the time. So if you've got some introvert qualities, you know and you don't want to talk to people all the time. So if you've got some introvert qualities, you know, and you don't want to talk to people all the time, you know a technical role might really suit you and then the final attribute set is the mum, that is, the positive influencer, negotiator. You know if you've got a favourite thing that you buy, you're suddenly telling all your friends about it. You know if your kids are arguing and you've got to. You know if your kids are arguing and you've got to. You know you're great at negotiating with your kids or your partner about what you get.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, if that's the sort of person that you are, then you probably make a great account manager, ie where you're selling the technology to people, so you get that. You listen to their problems, you're solving their problems with the solution very authentic selling at the end of the day, but you don't have to do any of the delivery. You know you might be a great account manager on an equal to that. You can also have what we call customer success managers, who look after clients and will probably upsell products to them. So as a customer success manager, you're making sure they're making the most of the product and having those nice conversations. You're not doing anything technical but you'll be upselling products to them because you want them to get the most of it and you're listening and hearing for opportunities.
Speaker 2:So if you're, you know there's those different roles that you can go into. But it's all going back to your superpowers. So you don't need to have been a BA previously, you don't need to be a project manager previously. But if you've got these skills you can upskill. You know you can learn those things at supermums. We teach you to be a business analyst. We teach you to be a project manager. We teach you to be a sales force admin. You know all of those things. You can learn and add, but they can build on what you're naturally good at and my background was business coaching.
Speaker 2:So you know I hadn't, I didn't even know analyst was, you know. But actually as a business coach, I'm asking entrepreneurs about their business performance, their business process, their business strategy, and I was like that is exactly the same as what a business analyst does. So you've changed the terminology on your CV. You know you might not have had the job title business analyst but I can say actually I've done a lot of business analysis with entrepreneurs around their business. Or you know, I've done a lot of project management. You might not have a job title as project manager, but you'd use. I've done a lot of project management, doing X, y and Z. So it's about repurposing what you've done in the past and thinking about your superpowers.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love everything you just said, because there are so many members in our community they don't know how to transfer their skills, sometimes from either previous careers. Or I have had ladies who say when I became a parent, I came back into the workforce a different person because I had all these new skills that I didn't have before I was a parent. And I did have one lady say to me it was about negotiation and she said you know what? I didn't realize what was up for negotiation until I had a toddler. And she's like there are so many new things that you have to negotiate on and I didn't even know you'd have to. She said well, the time I came back into the workforce I was like chief negotiator because I had a toddler example.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then she and another lady said to me about time management and children and try and get out the door. Um, so all of those things I don't think sometimes people realize, um, the things that they learn as a parent and how to come back into the workforce and actually use them to to your advantage and to find, like, your quiz is absolutely perfect to find out where you fit in and all the new skills that you've learned, and I love that. We must share that quiz with our community, absolutely Definitely. I wanted to ask a little bit about the tech job market, because that has changed massively, it has evolved over the past few years. What major trends are shaping it right now, do you think?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean AI. Everybody's talking about AI, right, so we'll look big and then I'll go a little bit more into my industry or product sector. I think AI is, you know, the talk of the town. You know that's where you're seeing the biggest shift for businesses. You know they're all kind of sitting on the fence and then panicking and moving forward because their competitors are doing it. If they don't do it, they'll miss out.
Speaker 2:So there is a lot of investment being put into ai. There's a lot of work needed to get that right in so many different ways, from making sure the guardrails are up to making sure that the data is right, to even get the AI working properly and everything else. So you know we saw a shift during COVID to the digital HQ. We're now seeing this big shift where AI is the buzzword and there's so many different AI products out there. It's kind of, I think, particularly for women, it can be like rabbit in headlights of where do I start and stop right? There's so many different types of AI products and ironically, I signed up for this. You know, course, where I learn all these different AI products and because it's on demand, I never blimmin' watch it. I pay this money and don't do it. And it's interesting with our courses at Supermothers we make you know it's a live training course and so I think it's important that if we're going to lean into this, we need to go make sure we're on training courses that suit our learning style. So we find that people do our courses. Um, and I you know, lens with my personal preferences. I like to show up for a classroom you know, virtual classroom with an instructor, learn it there and then it creates that accountability in that structure. So I think everybody needs to learn and sort of get involved in technology and AI. It's where the job market's going. These younger kids coming through in 20s are going to get the jobs over us if we do not keep up to date. That is absolutely the reality right now.
Speaker 2:If we don't keep up to date with the knowledge and niche on certain areas. You've got to have a product niche. It's a bit like marketing. There's so many different products in marketing tech products. It's the same with broader operational tech products. You have to find your niche and you have to lean in hard on that niche and and be a specialist. That's where you're going to make the money, so you don't get distracted by buying courses, like I did about all these different products. I mean, yes, we need to know about different things because things products will integrate right with each other. Um, but, you know, find your product and your niche now zoning on my product market.
Speaker 2:So salesforce crm is the largest client relationship management system in the world. It's number one, repeated each year, you know, for the last sort of 12 years, and so that's obviously you know. What I came into the market to do is used by the you know 90 of the footsie 100. It's used by thousands of non-profits, thousands of businesses and it's used all over the world. So you literally, you know, get you train up on a product, you get certifications that you can use all over the world. And Salesforce continues to grow year on year. So again this year it's had a 12% increase.
Speaker 2:I believe in, like all its income and its product portfolio. They're leaning hard on agent force and have introduced new products around agent forces or the AI capability, so they're investing a lot in that. So with Supermummers, we train people up in the product. We're training them up in the new AI capabilities and, you know, if you lean in hard on that and you upskill, you know that's where people can really carve out a career opportunity.
Speaker 2:I think the job market. More people have come into the job market, for sure, and so it is more competitive. I mean we're obviously doing a good job right, because that's why we're here More people to come into tech. We clearly still need more women into tech. So we have a role.
Speaker 2:But you know it's more competitive and that's why we always say to our supermoms you know, have a product niche, even within Salesforce. You have a product niche within Salesforce because there's a whole raft of products and another sort of tip here really is about leaning into your superpowers. So Salesforce, for example, is implemented in lots of different industries and so if you've got a background in finance, you know you can implement Salesforce for financial companies because you understand the processes, the lingo, the KPIs, what's important, you can hit the ground running. People won't necessarily want you to have the tech skills, but they're buying you for the industry knowledge because you've had 12 years in industry knowledge. So some of our mums you know that have gone through our programme, have years in utilities, they have years in non-profit, they have years in finance, they have years in marketing. You know that's why people hire them. Because of all of that industry background They've learnt Salesforce but now they can go and implement Salesforce or work in an end customer where Salesforce is used, in the industry where they worked.
Speaker 1:That's a great. It doesn't mean you have to stay in that industry, but it's a great platform to kind of take a leap into. Yes, definitely, and I love the fact that you touched upon um, the type of training and how, uh how, how you learn and and, um, how to choose how you learn um as well, because it is one thing um find trying to narrow down what you want to do and, like you said, being very niche, and finding your focus, but also how you're going to take in that information to actually learn and to move on and to be able to do that as a job. We in our community we get asked a lot about where do I start and what do I do. The default seems to be very expensive on-site bootcamp and people think that that's where you're going to get started, and we always get asked about which bootcamps, where do I start? And then I think people look into the price of some of those and they think I can't commit to that. And it's not just the price as well, it's the amount of time.
Speaker 1:So if you are a mum or if you've still got another job and you're training on the side, you can't commit to coming off site for several months and travelling into London, for instance, and spending hours upon hours in a classroom, and that doesn't work for everybody. You might take it in, but also you've taken a chance on thousands of pounds that you might not even go on and use in your next role anyway. So, finding what works for you absolutely, and what works for you in that moment in your life as well, and that you know. If you are someone that has perhaps just left university and you think I can go on and do a boot camp at this point, it's absolutely fine, then fair enough. But if you're also somebody that can't commit to that, then yeah, online resources and just finding what works for you and it is different for everybody.
Speaker 1:I think that's what people don't understand. You don't have to be present in the classroom, but you've said you like a live event, at least because you're engaged in that and it's happening live Instead of thinking when it's on demand. You're like I can see it on my desktop. I still haven't clicked on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's it, and then I don't even open the email. So, yeah, so it's a great point and that's why I launched Supermums. So originally, salesforce only offer live. We're an authorized salesforce training provider, so if you want to do their course, um, originally it was five days in stains and so I'd have to pay for a hotel to be up in stains for a week and I'll run one of the courses. I had um morning sickness on my. I was like I made it you know, I've gotten the whole blooming course feeling very off.
Speaker 2:Um, fond memories. But it's like three and a half grand a pop, right. So, with super mums, um, we went to salesforce and said we want to break this course. Like, completely right, rewrite it. We're the only ones that deliver it in a in the way that we deliver it. Um, but we broke it down to um, we the course was five days but we broke down that into segments and actually we break it down into two and a half blocks. So every week we cover two and a half hour. Three hour live session is recorded so people watch it on demand if they can't make it live.
Speaker 2:And, um, that covers one of the core competencies. And then we give people homework up to I think it it's 14 hours of homework. It's 16 hours a week basically. So it's always slightly less. 13 hours of homework where they're practicing that competency and doing exercises and actually building out a system and also they do some trailhead activities. But they also meet with a mentor and the mentor gives them one-to-one support. They check it, they help them get it right. You know somebody's holding them hand every single week.
Speaker 2:So the whole course that was originally five days is stretched over three months. And it's that muscle memory as well which is really important. Because the thing is, when you go on a five-day course or boot camp you're learning so much in a squashed amount of time you don't actually sort of really get it. So when we do like a three-hour learning exercise and then you're for another 13 hours practicing it and making sure you've got it right, we then submit the mentor will submit a homework record, say it's been completed. So again it creates that accountability, that structure. So after three months you do all that study, you practice, practice, build that muscle memory and then you do your that study, you practice, practice, build that muscle memory and then you do your certification exam in month four. So you kind of a bit like going to university or college. You know, you know when your exams are coming up and you're like right, I'm going to focus for that, you've got your deadline and that focus.
Speaker 2:Um, if you don't have that, you'll just end up never taking the cert. I mean off the back of that course. I did with morning sickness. It took me three years to get that cert. I never got around to it. I was out of baby and everything else.
Speaker 2:But you know, in month four we do the cert and then we put people on work experience. Once they've done all of that and they've completed their homework records you know they've done this we put them on work experience with non-profits and they get real life work experience and over that time they get three references. So it's like having they can get reference from the work experience, a reference from the trainer, reference from their mentor, and these are all people patting them on the back saying well done, you've done a brilliant job. So, as you can imagine, that is a completely different learning environment to being on a boot camp for five days where you know all this knowledge is chucked at you and then you walk out going what was I doing? Again, it's like, yes, I've. You know all this knowledge is chucked at you and then you walk out going what was I doing? Again, it's like yes, I've.
Speaker 1:You know what? I had something similar with um driving lessons. I never got my driving license, um, because I never needed one, but I was younger. And when you look into driving lessons and it says crash course and you can do it in like a few days, if you because I know I'm going to be, when I eventually do it a nervous driver if I were to do a crash course, I haven't done that kind of memory of I done something and then you go away and you learn and you do and you build up your confidence as you go. I'll know I'll do it in a crash course and then go away. I might, might pass everything, but I'll get on the road on my own Confidence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally yeah, so you need that. You don't have the confidence level, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:It needs to be spread out over those three months, like you said, that instead of just a five-day course and you kind of went through it, didn't take it in, you have no confidence in what you learn and you can't actually apply it anyway, and nobody's checking it either.
Speaker 2:I think the importance of references and people checking the work you've done and you're completing assignments is really key. I think what a boot camp and, equally, what our course offers to something online is you know the sense of community and people around you. One of the things that I know you want to chat about was you know how do you get the confidence? And obviously we talked about superpowers, we talked about industry experience, but actually having other people around you on that same journey is one of the biggest feedbacks we get at supermums. You know they love the mentors, but they love the other supermums that they're meeting, that are on this journey that they have that peer support with. That motivates them when they're having that learning dip. Because we all go on that learning dip.
Speaker 2:I was talking to people yesterday because we had all our supermums together at a big event. You know you're always going to have those bits where you think, oh my god, I can't do this and that's when you need everybody else to be lifting you up. And that's made an incredible difference for people on our journey, because some of them try to learn salesforce by themselves through free training and they just have never made it. Hence why they then signed up for supermums, because one they they get lost. They have the didn't have the network, um, and one of the best ways of getting a job is the network. Like, over the last eight years we've obviously built an incredible network and reputation, so people headhunt them. You know they get jobs through each other, all of those different things. So I think that you know they're all the things you want to think about when you look for the right training. You know all those components yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:It is something that I think people don't realize. Other people are feeling that way that sometimes you think I'm the only one that's having that, that dip in enthusiasm or learning or whatever it is, and you think other people are feeling that way and you kind of just we're very hard on ourselves as well and we're like I'm the only one so I'm going to drop out of this or not continue. But you're right, you've got other people saying it and kind of all helping each other through, yeah, and you'll definitely get to the end. And that kind of leads into the challenges I wanted to ask you about, because that is something as well. If we don't have a network that's around us, that help is helping us and through the learning can be a challenge. But what are some of the biggest challenges that mums face when entering or returning to the tech industry and how can they overcome them?
Speaker 2:So I think there's two sides to look at this. One is the you know how to learn, which we've talked a lot about. I think one is you know. Just to summarize, I suppose what we've just talked about in that space is that you know, make sure you've got the right training that lends to your learning style, that you've got the support around you, that you're doing something that's going to get you the work experience and the references that you know gives kind of talk about nine ingredients really to set you up for success, to transform, because if you don't have those things, they're the challenges right? You know, being isolated, not having the motivation, not having the right work experience, all these are blockages to you going from A to Z and actually making it successful. So it's important to kind of put together that whole mix of you know, the network, the mentoring, the career coaching, the technical training that is virtual, the work experience, all of those things. I think the other challenges and I think it ties in with the success stories here really is that there's a reason why we need to change career. So a lot of the mums you know obviously I can't name names we've got amazing case studies on our website and some of the personal stuff isn't shared in those case studies. But we've got people that want to get divorced, right. We've got people with health issues. We've got people with kids who've got disabilities. We've got, you know, people who travel. Their partners travel a lot and they need a job that's going to be remote. We've got single parents you name it. There's a reason why for this stuff going on and they've got all that personal stuff going on.
Speaker 2:So we launched our mums on cloud nine podcast to bring on experts to talk about all this other stuff going on, like the health, you know, working with our you know, working with our, you know, getting good relationships with our kids, helping them juggle responsibilities, helping them think about divorce and financial planning and all these different things. Because I was like, how do I help them with all that stuff? And that was the best way for us to do it through our podcast. Um, but you're going to have all those other challenges right, which will stop you. Potentially, you know will help. You know. That's the motivation for doing this. Potentially is launching your career. But you've got all this other stuff going on. What's really important is you get support for all those other things.
Speaker 2:So, with mums on cloud nine. We've got, you know, experts that we recommend around health, around financial planning, around menopause, you know, around, um, you know, relationships with your kids. You know around, um, you know relationships with your kids, you know, because if you don't get support for those, those other things that will potentially, you know, stop you or you might be feeling quite, um, you know, depressed, say, for example, you're in an unhappy relationship and you're wanting to get your career back on track because you're going through a divorce. There's a lot of negative stuff you're having to deal with and hold on to. So it's really important.
Speaker 2:When I went through divorce, you know, and all this stuff, my, my dad passed away and everything else I had endometriosis, so I had everything all going on at once but I had a counsellor all the way through that and that, you know, I'd never had a counsellor before, but I was like, you know, I need somebody to hold my hand every week. I think it's really important that you you tap into the right support in to do with your personal circumstances to also support your career progression, because you won't be able to focus on the career stuff if the other things aren't being dealt with. Um, so I think it's, you know, the, the two sort of sets of things here, the push and the pull yes, and you.
Speaker 1:It's such a good point. You're so right because if you're, if you're going through certain things, you're not thinking. You know. I feel like I've really got the confidence to go on and learn something new and try something new and really embrace that. You're not going to be feeling that anyway, let alone feeling like you have a network around you that can can help with all of that as well. So it's such a good point because it it takes a lot anyway to start thinking about things like a career transition at any point in your life, but as life goes on and you have all of those other challenges that start to come up, thinking about a career transition and and retraining and things like that, it's just going to be so much harder because you've got all of those challenges in your life.
Speaker 2:You want to find the light at the end of your tunnel. So that's why I encourage people to lean into case studies. You know cases on the Sleep Moms website on she Can Code website because the case studies show you. You know cases on the sleep moms website on she can code website because the case studies show you. You know that's the vision, that's the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, so you know we've had brilliant feedback around.
Speaker 2:I've managed to secure my first house, you know, after being thing. You know I've got a flexible job now which I can use and travel around the world with. You know I've got, you know where partners, you know, work abroad a lot of the time. They've got that flexible job that they can still look after the kids whilst also having something meaningful, because some of these women, you know I mean many of the women they've all had careers and backgrounds. In many cases, some haven't even had that. To be fair, they've been at work, you know, um, stay-at-home parents for most of their life. You know we've had people from every type of background and the success stories of what obviously makers tickets, supermums like we love helping them achieve the results and solving the problems that perhaps brought them here in the first place. So I think, you know, depending on your background, your circumstances, you know, lean into the case studies and you've got to imagine, like I want to be them. That's the vision I want for myself and, um, you know, you're only ever going to take this leap if you do the research. Um.
Speaker 2:So, going back to how I transitioned, I met people and I spoke to people um to be able to make an informed decision about whether I invest money in training to upskill. You know it's an investment, right, you know they do cost money. But, you know, and I, of course, cost about two and a half, but what we say to people is look, you could pay that back in 10 days. You can pay it back in less than a month with a job. So, um, claudia's case is on our website. You know, she said exactly that and it's the case for many others, right, you know they've literally paid off with one month's earning. So, and then you can get a 20k pay increase within two to four years, depending on how quick you want to progress.
Speaker 2:So, you know, you have to kind of think about it as a long-term plan. But also, you know, look for options, like with supermums. We have a 12-month payment plan, you know, subject to eligibility, with one of our partners. So you think, well, that's 297 pounds a month, you know, towards it. So you kind of look, you know there's options there. You know you can ask friends and family to invest in you as well. It's like starting a business. You've got to kind of look at it as like, well, if I was starting a business, people would lend me money and invest that in a business because that's going to help in my career. You've got to think about your career in the same way. Um, you know you're going to have to invest money to gain, because it's just the same as being an entrepreneur. You know there's no different. We're all trying to make a living, um.
Speaker 1:So I think it's important about how you think about it definitely, and and the more uh case studies that you read as well, the the more that that can help you find that person that you can connect with. Because I found, um, community members seem to be like that's not me. You know, I read that story and that's not me and I can't really align with that and I can't see myself doing that. But the more that you read where people are coming from from and what they've done to get there, suddenly you connect with someone and you're like, actually I could, I could maybe do that because that lady's story really aligns with with me. I wanted to ask you about some of those stories, um, on uh, flexible tech roles and and how, um, that that's transformed lives. Are there some case studies that kind of stand out or is there like somebody in your mind where you like that?
Speaker 2:that was a really good success story of ours uh, yeah, well, the thing is, I say there's a lot of personal stories which sometimes aren't shared on those case studies, but we've got some amazing ones and, um, you know there's some beautiful ones to say where they you know they've landed a great career, they've got that flexibility but it's helped them make that difficult decision about divorce, for example, and sort of moving on. You know we've had quite a few of those and similar ones around. You know, I never thought, you know I was a techie person to. You know, vokey did this one it's on our LinkedIn actually feed from last week. You know she never thought she was a techie person, been in recruitment for years working for the DWP, and then she got into it and absolutely loves it and now works as a freelance sales force consultant has never looked back, you know. So she has teenage kids. You know she's kind of that.
Speaker 2:You know, not an empty nester yet, but we've had people who are empty nesters. I'm like what do I do now? Like I'm completely lost in my life. Shanita was a vet's spouse and so she's obviously constantly going around the world and so this has given her the opportunity to have a job and not feel like she's given up everything alongside it. You know, being that stay at home mum, there's so many, yeah, rewarding stories that that's what we really thrive on at Supermums. So I think it's you know you can look and find people that resonate with you. You know we've got people from all sorts of backgrounds. You know people have been made redundant. People have lost their jobs during COVID. You know you name it, we've got it.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, I remember I spoke to a lot of ladies after COVID who said being in lockdown with my husband. I noticed that my husband, who was a software developer, a software engineer what they did for a living, and there were lots of ladies who were trained and we've got husbands and wives that do it together, and I was like do you talk about it over the kitchen table?
Speaker 2:so yeah, we have a lot of husbands and wives in the super moms community now as well. It's lovely. They can't all make events together, though, because one of us will look after the kids oh, I see different set of challenges.
Speaker 1:We we've spoken a little bit about the, the, obviously, the changes in the job market and what is happening at the moment, but what about the skills or roles that are currently in high demand in tech, and how can people future-proof their careers, especially those coming from non-traditional backgrounds? What is in high demand?
Speaker 2:I think we might have covered a lot of that in what we've talked about already. Like all the different job roles I talked about, like a business analyst, project manager, manager, the technical roles themselves, you know, particularly with AI component to it, that's where you know the opportunities are. You know you've got them across all the things, including the sales. You know none of that is going to go away. I think you know your background is relevant. So think about your industry experience. Or you know I was working, I do the career advice sessions every week and a lady has not worked for quite a while. She used to work in consumer goods and Unilever, so like a massive brand, but then took years off looking after her son who had, um, I think, uh, adhd or one of the neurodiverse things. I said, well, that where you, she's worked for a charity supporting that cause voluntarily, but but obviously I think he's autistic, actually sorry. And so I said why don't you work for charities that are, you know, autist? You know that focus on autism and we've had that before. We've had a lady whose daughter was Down syndrome and now she's working for the Down syndrome association. So you know the fact that you've had a child or whatever, in a sort of disability. Or you know, again one lady's working for a cancer charity because her family was affected by cancer, now doing their database management and fundraising Wow, you can think about how do you translate that? Like, you know about autism, you're passionate about it, so I'm like go and work for charities.
Speaker 2:I had another lady passionate about it, so I'm like go and work for charities. I had another lady, actually a lady from Ukraine, that studied with us because she was moved over here, obviously with the war, but she's got a complete passion about visual impairment. So I said well, you know, salesforce is very big in visual impairment charities and actually we worked with an organization that is like a membership body and they were helping put Salesforce in lots of the different visual impairment charities. So that's probably where to focus. So I think you know, think about what you're passionate about, think about what you might have knowledge and skills in based on your life circumstances or based on your industry background, and then that's where to focus yourself. We've all got these superpowers and interests and capacities and so, um, we don't normally qualify people out to kind of transfer, because I think anybody can do it, but it's just thinking about where you have your strengths to sell yourself in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and somebody helping you to sit down and identify those as well, like in your quiz, because otherwise you don't. You don't realize. You just kind of go about your career and you think you've been doing the same things throughout and people worry about things like squiggly careers and changing direction and trying new things because they think it looks it can look bad on your cv that you know you you've moved around a lot and actually it just looks like you've tried lots of new things and the stars align. So, yeah, you take all those skills that you learn from everywhere and they come together in a role that suits you and tech is really good for that to bring them all together.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you quickly about employers and companies. We get asked about a lot. What practical steps can they take? Do you think, to create more inclusive and supportive environments for working parents in tech?
Speaker 2:well, it's a big question, but I think I'll focus in on a couple of things. I think one is a company needs to think about what flexible policies they can put into place. You know what works for their type of business, what's possible and obviously to to work with, having those conversations with their employees. So, for example, at Supermums we have core hours. So we say, well, everybody needs to work these core hours, but you can have flexibility around the rest of the time. We have things like where you can buy holiday schemes, for example. You know, buy more holiday.
Speaker 2:Um, and I think you know working out what flexibility means for you and your company and what's viable versus not, is really important and to have those conversations and to advertise that right, because you you want to attract a diverse client base. You know, put that and and equally, a lot of on job specs, you know you might put full time but it's kind of like, although are you open to four days? You know you might have an amazing candidate once four day week as opposed to five day week. So I think, think about how you advertise things, think about flexibility. I think having a parental group or even a social group where parents or people can come together and discuss personal circumstances. When you have business meetings, it's always about business, right, and you don't really want to take up the time. Yes, you might have a quick social chat, but you're not getting deep, whereas we have a social lunch every week and actually that's where things come up, where if our kids you know, our kids all have various neurodiversity kind of things going on, that's when we, that's when that comes up and we talk about different strategies we're doing and things like that. So having that social group, having those peer support groups of parents and employees where they can talk more personally about stuff going on, actually builds relationships and builds bonds between employees.
Speaker 2:I think that's really important and I think also a lot of companies are introducing paternal leave, like why the reality of why women are challenged in the workplace or with gender equality and pay gaps etc. Is because the onus obviously has always been on the women to have a maternity leave, and actually a lot of companies are offering paternity leave, so actually it could be the man or woman taking the time off, like you know. Why is it not always the woman? You know, actually, and there's a really interesting statistic, um, and it was about 40 percent of households, um, where the woman is the main breadwinner. So actually if the woman's earning more and the man's not, the man needs to be the one taking, like, the paternity leave. So I think times are shifting quite a lot and that's significantly shifted. So you know, and I was quite surprised by that, I obviously had like that autistic view, but actually the men is the one earning the more. Like why do we think like that? Like it's quite, you know, that has evolved quite a lot.
Speaker 1:So I think more companies need to make sure that they are accommodating for whether it's the man or the wife that take the maternity leave and not make it so biased all the time yes, and putting those things in job descriptions as well, because a lot of companies, um, we find that that they they do a lot internally but they forget to put those things in their job descriptions. So when you are reading them, it's just the bog standard. You know, somebody from hr wrote this, and they might put a little bit about diversity and inclusion at the bottom, but they won't actually list the things off when we talk to companies and they might put a little bit about diversity and inclusion at the bottom, but they won't actually list the things off when we talk to companies and they do like a company profile and they'll put the benefits and anything. All of this should be in your job description.
Speaker 1:So everyone sees it all the time flexibility for parents and you know some people have said to me it's a lot more than a Slack channel. So it's actually a feeling of how you feel at work every day and how your company makes you feel when you come to work and you need things suddenly like flexibility, whether that's becoming a parent or caring for a family member or whatever it might be. I think some companies think, well, we've got a slack channel for that. If you've got, you want to put things in there, discuss. You know we've got a slack channel.
Speaker 2:So I guess it's a bit more than that and the things that you are doing and the thing also is I massively encourage women in our community to influence that, because some companies don't know they might be small business, they might not even thought about. I massively encourage women in our community to influence that, because some companies don't know they might be a small business, they might not even have thought about it or have nobody to really take the lead on it. So I think you know, don't sit there and moan. I necessarily, like you know, take action and say look, could I set up a peer support group for this and do things. And one of our supermums, she got a job at this and previously I'd spoken to this company and they just didn't seem supportive of women.
Speaker 2:Um, and I said to him like you know, did it feel aligned with you? And she said, well, I've got them to change their policies. I'm like, okay, and from the interview and you know she's a good South African, bold, you know, that's it. We need to learn from the South Africans. I do love them, they're very bold. Um, and I think you know, stand up and encourage and ask, um, don't sit there and sort of, you know, accommodate a lot of. You know, a lot of us can be. Um, you know, don't want to necessarily be putting ourselves out there feeling like, you know, inconvenience in they might not have thought about it If they love you and they want you and they, you know, are seriously like going. Well actually, yeah, you're right, we need to do something about that. Encourage them to be family friendly, encourage them to think about how they can support people.
Speaker 1:If they don't listen to you or they're not interested, you know it's not the company that's right for you, so you just need to walk away and find the one that is yeah, because if you've been for a company before where you've experienced something that was very supportive, and you've gone into another one and you point that out and you're like, hey, where I used to work, they did this, then yes, if they're very open and they're like you know what, we hadn't even thought about it, then they implement it great. If they don't, you kind of that's a red flag and you start thinking, yeah, maybe this, I won't be here for the long term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:And Heather, we are already out of time. I could keep chatting with you on this topic all afternoon, but we are already at the end of our episode. So thank you so much for sharing your insights. With Spilling the Tea today, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2:Oh no, you're welcome and it's lovely to be with such an ally. You know this is what we do every day. We want to support women in tech and if we can help anybody, please do visit our website at supermomsorg. We offer free career consultations as well to women considering careers, so we encourage you to book in, find out more. But I wish you every success in your career journey and thank you for having me on the show no, right, and yes, our community members.
Speaker 1:You can find super moms inside our community as well, and we're going to include all of their contact details along with this episode as well, so please check them out. We absolutely love super mom's work. So for everybody listening, as always, thank you for joining us and we hope to see you again next time.
