Gratitude Monday: legacy

Today I’m grateful for the next chapter of my life and how I got here; I report to work as senior product manager at a cyber security company. It’s my aspirational job at my aspirational company in my aspirational field, something a year or two ago I’d not have imagined possible.

I’d thought that my last job would be my legacy gig—running innovations for a non-profit. But it didn’t turn out that way. Instead, I think it was a stepping stone to this new position, an opportunity to do strategic work that positively affects lives, industries and nations; a different legacy. Something happened in the last months of the old place that turned me around, energized me and drove me forward in a way I’ve seldom experienced.

Late in the hiring process, when I was waiting for the offer, a friend who’d been supporting and encouraging me throughout said I should write about it, and it occurred to me that going through and sharing this particular round of job search is another legacy as well. This one broke so many constraints that have described my life and my career; perhaps it can show the way for others. (Not least of whom are those of a certain age—another friend has abjured me to “win one for us older ones” who become invisible, especially in the tech world, once we hit 40.)

So, a quick recap.

The day I posted about my D-Day convo with the program leader, when she announced I would be laid off, I knew this was going to be different. For one thing, those clowns pissed me off. For another, I started reaching out to former colleagues, friends and people I kinda knew on social media. And they responded. JB found a product manager job at his company, made an internal referral, chased up the recruiter and gave me good gouge about the job and people involved. They decided to go with someone else, but the experience was positive, professional and encouraging inasmuch as they clearly saw my skills as valuable.

MGB offered to help, and gave me an internal referral to a product marketing position at her company, which I really appreciated. SM gave me leads and did some LRRP work. JD sent my résumé to a few people he knew and spitballed some companies that might be interesting. SA introduced me to a friend who works at Salesforce, and he gave me terrific advice about expanding the job titles in my search, because solutions engineers there don’t have to be super-techie.

Social media was instrumental in my search this time. In addition to the friends who responded to my Facebook post, I also announced my status on Twitter, both publicly and via DMs.

Because I’ve been following various infosec accounts for years, I got on occasional Friday night frivolous discussions about hair bands, horror movies, 80s TV shows and other pop culture “this the hill I’ll die on” topics. That led me to RF, a security old-timer in Boston, who’s helped me for the past year in matching my skills to job requirements, and giving me connections to companies I’m interested in. The instant I told him about my altered circumstance, he kicked into high gear and showered me with job leads and connections for internal referrals.

CT, who leads a regular careers chat on Twitter, not only asked for my résumé to distribute at an HR meetup, but she caught an embarrassing typo on it and enabled me to correct it before I submitted to the company that eventually hired me. What a champ!

My friend CN gave strategic advice as well as leads. She’s responsible for articulating the change in my approach: #playingtowin as opposed to playing not to lose. That gave me the courage to tell the world not only that I was looking, but what I was looking for. As though I had the confidence and the moxie to find it. (Which, as it happens, I did.) AM (who requested this post) gave me further context about this distinction: playing to win means leading with your strengths; playing to lose is all about covering your weaknesses. I’d been doing the latter most of my life, but that ended in June.

Because I’d smashed the stigma of being laid off, when MW (a champion of diversity and inclusion, whom I’ve followed on Twitter for a couple of years) announced that he’s happy to help with job searches and the best way for him to do that is for seekers to book a 30-minute call with him—I jumped up and down, waved my hand and shouted, “Me, me, call on me!” And he did.

And here’s where the stars shifted into alignment. He gave me concise, pragmatic advice on how to present myself, and made this offer: whenever I found a job I’m interested in, if I sent him the listing, the hiring manager and/or the recruiter, he’d see who in his network could help. Like SA’s friend, he also suggested that I rethink the limits on job titles. And he closed by assuring me, “You got this, girl!”

I spent a day or two redoing my matrix of target companies—all infosec—and then went down the list to see what job openings each one had. Blow me if my topmost company didn’t have a product manager listed, and every single bullet point was well within my capabilities. I’d dismissed the notion of being a product manager in cyber security, because they’re universally heavy on tech bona fides. But not this one. RW’s friend DR, who works in the company, not only made an internal referral, but he dug around until he found both the hiring manager and the recruiter. I created my résumé with matrix matching my skills to the job requirements, and sent that with a link to the posting and the names of the hiring manager and recruiter to MW on a Thursday. His response within 30 minutes: “Notes sent!” The next morning, I had an email from the recruiter asking to set up a call, and the hiring manager had viewed my LinkedIn profile.

Then there was a steady stream of phone interviews—in each of which I felt confident and excited by the opportunity I’d have to contribute in a meaningful way to an important solution for an acknowledged industry leader. Then a three-hour onsite interview in which I refused to worry about what they’d think when they saw that my LinkedIn photo is definitely 20 years old. (Tech is still largely a young man’s game, and I am neither.) But it didn’t seem to matter to them; what they focused on were my ideas and my questions.

And I considered the prospect of living a life of joy.

Throughout the process, I enlisted the support of friends; I invited them to share in the journey, instead of trying to do everything on my own and hiding in case it didn’t work out. In addition to CN, AM, MLD (in England) and RF, the Viking Maiden beseeched the gods and crossed everything as I progressed—even on her vacation in Denmark. CB on Twitter also sent most excellent vibes.

It wasn’t over even when I got the offer, which was quite good. But women (including me) tend not to negotiate offers, so #playingtowin meant I had to counter. Again I consulted with MW, and here’s how I did it: I collected screen captures of what senior product managers in Internet/software in this area get paid, which came to a range of X to X+$10K. (Yes, there were some sources that were lower than X; it wasn’t my job to counter my counter, so I didn’t include them.) And I simply asked, “This is what my research tells me is the range. What flexibility is there to raise the base salary to X+$5K?”

It took a few days for them to run through their internal process—during which I was your basic cat on a hot tin roof—but the recruiter and hiring manager came through like champs. Did you hear me doing the happy dance when I hung up on the call? Probably.

One more star in alignment: I can walk to work.

Dear readers—in the approximately three months since my last day at work, it feels as though my life has changed course. I named—to myself and to others—what I really wanted. I invited help. I received all kinds of support. I spoke easily about what I’ve done and what I can do. I inhabited an atmosphere of joy. I negotiated. I won one for the elders. I played to win.

Here’s the thing: if I can do it, so can others. I’m happy to help. That’ll be my legacy, too.