The email comes through a colleague whose child goes there. The school is holding a careers morning, and they would love someone from tech to sit on a small panel with a nurse, an electrician and a solicitor. Twenty minutes of questions from students aged fifteen and sixteen. Your first thought is that they should ask someone more impressive. You do not work at a famous company, and your route into the job was not exactly a straight line.
That is exactly why you are a good choice. Most of those students will never meet someone from a famous company. They might meet someone like you, and your ordinary, slightly crooked path is far more useful to them than a polished success story.
Start by remembering who is in the room. Teenagers who mostly know tech from games, phones and social media, and who often assume it is a job for maths geniuses who started coding at eight. Some of them are curious. Some are there because they were told to be. A few are quietly wondering whether someone like them could ever do it. You are mainly talking to those few.
Prepare three short things rather than a speech. What you actually do on a normal day, in plain words. How you got there, including the parts that did not go to plan. And one thing you wish you had known at their age. That is enough to fill twenty minutes once the questions start.
Be honest about the route. If you did a degree, say so, but mention the other ways in too, such as apprenticeships, college courses, self teaching, or moving across from another job. The options and what they cost differ a lot from country to country, so talk about what you know and avoid promising anything specific about qualifications or pay.
Expect the questions you would not ask. How much do you earn? Do you hack things? Is it boring? Have you met anyone famous? Answer them simply and with good humour. A range is fine for salary if you are comfortable with that, or you can say what a starting role often pays in your area. Nobody expects you to be an expert on everything.
Do not pretend it is all exciting. Say that some days are frustrating, that you get stuck, that you still look things up. Students trust people who admit the dull parts, and it makes the good parts more believable.
Bring something to show if you can. A screen from an app they might use, a photo of your desk, a small thing you built. Concrete beats abstract every time with this audience.
Check the practical side with the school beforehand, including any safeguarding rules they follow for visitors.
You may never know whether it made a difference. But somewhere in that room may be someone who goes home thinking, maybe I could do that. That is worth a nervous morning.
– Asael Shinder
