Janet’s story: From computer science to a career with purpose and passion
Janet’s story is particularly intriguing. She was initially set on a medical career, but it was too expensive. Instead, she studied psychology, found her aptitude for computing and graduated with a computer science degree. Still passionate about medicine, she applied for a role at a medical systems company.
Although her interview wasn’t successful, she asked them to reconsider. They did, and her IT career working for pharmaceutical company Merck and its new spin-out Organon has allowed her to follow her passion. She uses technology to enable medical research and make clinical trials more successful. Her career is filled with purpose and passion — all because she had the confidence not to take “no” for an answer.
Liz’s story: From 19th century lit to 21st century IT
Liz showed a similar determination to find a career she loved. As an academic with an interesting background in Spanish and neurobiology, she took a leave of absence from her PhD in 19th Century Literature to try for a role in corporate America: “I had a lot of begging to do because my resumé said I was not someone anyone in corporate America really wanted to hire,” she said.
Given a chance to join a team helping to turn around a struggling financial services institution, she focused on the organization’s technology challenges – despite having little or no experience beyond being able to switch on a computer. She discovered that many of her IT colleagues were similarly unprepared, so she used a willingness to learn and to ask questions and identified people with the right expertise, to start making improvements. She retained an external firm to support her priorities, and ended up working for them full time, serving her financial services firm as a client. The business was subsequently acquired by EY.
Liz’s and Janet's stories show that being determined, not willing to take “no” for an answer and being open-minded can help you get started.
Building confidence through adversity
Being open to new opportunities can lead to some career-defining moments. Originally from the suburbs of Ohio, Janet stepped out of her comfort zone to live in Prague for an international opportunity with Merck. It was a move that would shape the rest of her career and produce a major career-defining moment.
On what seemed to be a normal morning in the office, Janet received a message from her tech team containing the sinister word “ransomware.” Despite being in a global leadership meeting, she left her seat, shutting her computer and grabbing two incident responders on her way to the operations room. On the wall was a list of countries and the number of calls received from each region. The head of operations turned to her, saying, “You’re the most senior person in the room — what do you want to do?”