Two thirds (66%) of us completed online courses in 2020, according to research from Reed, demonstrating the flexibility of the UK labour market in light of the pandemic and highlighting the proactivity people are adopting when it comes to improving their long-term career prospects.
The world of work is changing, fast and trying to change career part-way through your working life is hard, even frightening. But reflecting and learning from your previous experiences can encourage you to explore your future options and find solutions to problems.
In this episode, we hear from Yasmina Bouabdallaoui, Product Designer, at Pennylane, who shares her own experiences of professional retraining and how examining your past can help you to rediscover key skills and opportunities to land a new job.
Yasmina has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. She began as an international key account manager in several healthcare companies, and has always been passionate about understanding and addressing people’s needs. In 2018, she created her own business where she applied the design thinking methodology. Currently, she works as a product designer at Pennylane
hello everyone thank you for tuning in as always I am Katie bakesman the content director at she can code and
today we’re discussing retraining and learning from your past experiences the world of work is changing fast trying to
change career path part way through your working life is hard even frightening but reflecting and learning from your
previous experiences can encourage you to explore your future options and find solutions to problems today I have the
wonderful yasmina or Abdullah week product designer at Penny Lane to share
our own experiences of professional retraining and how examining your past can help you to ReDiscover key skills to
land a new job welcome yasmina thank you very much for having me thank you so
much for joining us today I’m can we kick off with a little bit of a background about yourself please
sure um so I’m yes Nina I’m 37 years old I am
a product designer at Penny Lane which is a financial management platform for
uh entrepreneurs and accountants I’ve been there for the past year
um I have a master’s degree in international business
um but I have always worked in the tech industry specifically in healthcare for
eight years I was a QR code manager so a complete different uh job that I’m doing
today and then I took a sabbatical year for uh like uh
um kind of stop thinking of work and take some uh some time to step back and
think about my next step and uh when I came back from the trip I set up my own
company in food coaching where I was Benny in charge of building their
products and then I moved entirely into the product design three years ago
following a dedicated boot camp fabulous okay so you you’ve I mean it’s
quite interesting you started with an international business degree and is that something that you know it kind of
appealed to you whilst you were you know um at school and thinking what do I want to go into in higher education or what
was it about that uh Choice yeah so I have always wanted to kind of uh travel
when I was uh when I was younger and uh as soon as I could I studied abroad so I
did a year in Dublin Ireland and uh when
I came back I uh I moved directly into international business
um and my first job was actually in the international Department of a French
startup who which was developing a medical imaging software so from the
start I I knew I wanted to evolve in the international environment and uh I made
my first years of of my career in in in in in there amazing it is we um we’d love
to hear the different routes that people take into Tech and I think every time I
do one of these podcasts I hear a different route that somebody has come into the tech industry
um so yeah thank you for for sharing um your route and it sounds like as well during your time
um within the industry that you’ve moved around a little bit and you’ve done some extra training
um to to move around so um why do you believe professional retraining is so
important especially for women um well there are seven several reasons
for that obviously coming forward I think we will uh be
more and more changing our job and we don’t even know what kind of job our children are going to do so I think it’s
always really important to keep having this mindset of uh being able to
to train ourselves over the time and and and I mean change your your job if you
if you need to so uh when it comes to women there are different reasons I
think the first one is career advancements it’s a very good way to
acquire new skills obviously and knowledge and uh and help women to take
on more challenging roles with uh hopefully higher pay and more
responsibility um I think also it gives um lots of
flexibility because um the more you train yourself the more you kind of uh are more valuable on the
market and you can kind of uh ask for specific uh requests when it comes to
how you want to work and you work environment um so when you have like family
responsibilities or other commitments you uh want to have this kind of
flexibility that the retraining can kind of uh afford at some point
um also I think it gives confidence because you when you when you started
retraining you kind of left school for some time and you tend to forget how
much you can learn and and get new skills and uh and basically adapt to new
situations um so it’s it’s a very good way of feeling more empowered and I think this
is really uh skills and needed skills for for women
and eventually um it kind of helped you close the gender gap between
um men and women because you uh maybe you you’ve been through an education and
uh you’ve done some um study that you were not really motivated by but because of your
education you you you went to anyway so and at some point you’re like well I’m actually going to do what I’ve been
dreaming of doing for so many years and I will do a retraining for that and uh
even though it was kind of a male dominating environment I’m still able to
do it and and then at the end you kind of uh get the the job that you thought
you couldn’t have it um when you were studying so uh it’s
it’s the perfect way to kind of adapt to the New Market the new world that we are
all going into and um I mean I can be positive enough about retraining
yeah and I love the fact as well that um you you just said that it’s empowering
um because I think some people uh would think actually it’s quite frightening to to think about going back to
um education or or um you know even even trying something new I think a lot of us would find that
quite daunting but I love the fact that you just refer to it as empowering actually yeah I mean it can be scary
because you you you um sometimes you have to quit your job
and you have to start learning new uh stuff and it’s very tiring it’s very
um yeah it’s scary but very quickly you see that you are able
to do it and uh even though you you left school for so many years and uh it’s
never too late and this feeling is is really empowering because like well okay
I am like 37 when I did my returning I was 33 34 and I uh I felt so much uh in
my place even though uh I was back to school and uh and you know learning is
is is something that we should keep on doing the whole the whole life and uh
and and retraining is is uh is a very great way of doing this I suppose it’s
easily forgotten as well isn’t it it’s one of those things where people kind of bumble through their career
um and you think you just have to take a set path uh and and that’s it and I suppose a lot of people forget that
that’s that’s not the only way and that if you do want to retrain in something else that opportunity is available for
you I think a lot of us just kind of get wrapped up in the day job don’t they and perhaps don’t make the space to to look
at other options yeah and I think you well it depends on the job that you’re
looking at but you don’t really need years of uh new
um learnings to get into a new job as far
as I’m concerned The Bootcamp that I did was a very like intense way but it was three months and then I had I did other
stuff to have two words but after three months which is like nothing in your entire carrier life
um I was able to start a new job so um you obviously need to get yourself
organized with your family commitments and so on but um it’s not like you have to start from
um from from scratch and and go for like a three years studies
there are some retraining programs that are especially especially specifically tailored for uh working people right
yes it’s a misconception is it when when you think oh I have to go back to learning you automatically think oh you
know if I took a hybrid agree it you know it would be three years or if I took something
um that was online and it doubled and it was six years um you know that’s quite a commitment but as you said there’s lots of
different options that work for you and whatever stage you’re at in your life
um so it’s just finding the right course for you um if you’re looking to the Future for
your next opportunity why should you be looking back at your past experiences then
um well looking ahead to New Opportunities always I think a good time to take uh stock of what you have
achieved and specifically when you have years uh before this new opportunity so when
you made it like when you want to make a career change you may have a tendency to
think well I have a little experience in this field I would be competing with candidates that are much more
experienced than me um but we forget that the years that were before the retraining
uh count and they also should be taken into account so you never well you don’t
start from scratch basically so um I’m taking stock of this kit I have
acquired throughout the my career and how they will be useful for my future job even if at first glance it may seem
that this will not be the case and in my situation for example the skills of uh
understanding customer needs when I was a curriculum manager this case of project management negotiation
adaptability Stress Management all that that have acquired in my previous years
are very useful today so it really it’s it’s really true for sub
skills uh you will have to learn new technical skills but any sub skills that
you have acquired are there and can be used for your new opportunities so uh
with the right mindset you uh you don’t need to throw away all the knowledge and
abilities that you have gained and you can actually leverage them for your new job and your next opportunity
yes I I completely agree with you I think it’s something that um again I think people forget if you’re uh moving
to a different area it doesn’t mean that the the years behind you haven’t been worthwhile as you said you picked up
those skills like Stress Management or organization skills um a few years ago I moved from a role
uh from from being a journalist through to um copywriting and working at an
advertising agency um which I loved but it was incredibly new to me and I had exactly that thought
you know what I haven’t done this before I’m I’m new to this um and then certainly you do yeah almost
have to reassure yourself yes but I’ve been in work for you know 17 years or so all of those skills that I’ve learned so
far have brought me to this point it’s not like I’m completely starting a new career it’s still words I’m just trying
something new um so you’re right it’s not like entering the workplace for the first time and all of those skills that you’ve
you’ve learned and you just you take with you um I think that’s forgotten isn’t it
yeah can you tell us a little bit about your day today at Penny Lane sure well they are actually depending on
on the stage of the design process that I’m uh in um so when we start a project I spent a
lot of time with my product manager to understand the problem that we are going
to uh try to solve and uh interview users so this is what we call the
discovery phase and I then map out flows that would give an initial solution idea
and I also spend a lot of time with the tech team to understand the
feasibility of the solution that we have in mind and then I design the interfaces
and I tested those um so this go through several weeks
but in any case I’m always talking with my product manager and my uh Tech
colleagues on a day-to-day basis um and empowered it to those projects uh
the rest of the design team we discussed like on a weekly basis our obstacles or
ideas we also have what we call Design critics where we present the projects
and the the almost final interfaces and we get their feedbacks and this is a
very efficient way of improving what we are going to propose to the to the users
um so yeah it depends on the face uh being of the of the the process lots of
meetings lots of interviews and uh and going through uh more in uh with my
design software uh face to face and uh and working on on the interfaces that
we’re going to implement it sounds like you collaborate with a
lot of different team members and that your job sounds quite varied do do you
find yourself that you learn uh new things every day that in Penny Lane is
that type of company where you’re you’re continually learning um even though uh you’re not actually
you know retraining as such yeah definitely so Penny Lane is a is
what we call a scale up so I it grows very fast we went from like 100
employees last year to more than 300 um in a year so we grew yeah we grow
very fast and uh and so is the product so our scope is is getting more and more
like um complex and uh and lots of features are required to
um to fit with the with the market needs so there are many uh areas where I learn
every day first year accounting of course because I’m on the accounting uh part of the product
um so this is a complete new area for me and then uh
depending on on the on the phase of the project I have also to collaborate with
the data team to um to make sure that what we have in mind as a solution can be measured for
example so I uh working with the data team is is new to me so I there again I
learned a lot and um and the more the product evolves the
more I have to dig into different uh um way of Designing and uh and well the
design itself is also a continuous uh continuous way of uh of evolving so I
have to learn every every like all the time you otherwise you cannot get lost it sounds like um
how much fun it is to be part of a company that is growing so fast I mean
100 to over 300 you sometimes um I speak with ladies on the podcast
that have been part of um startups and uh you have to have a certain mindset
don’t you do you have to and be able to to learn fast and be okay with rapid change
um but it’s incredibly hard work but but really fun as well I think that takes a
certain person doesn’t need to be part of a company that’s growing that fast
um yeah I think it’s also it also depends on on where you are and what you want in your in your life obviously
um this is intense uh you have to be keen on learning fast you have to begin
on being autonomous very very quickly um but on the other hand
um I like those changes I like those new uh people coming in all the time I like
because we also have um we try to
um hire people with lots of different backgrounds so we have a lot of
diversity in the team and it’s so uh it’s a it’s a way of being enriched so
much so um I I can get bored very quickly so being in this kind of company
um allow me to like get motivated all the time and uh and basically I think
it’s because I learned stuff all the time as well so um but it comes with lots of hard work
it comes with sometimes uh long uh working hours
um not all the time that uh yeah when you when you go into this kind
of company you have to know the working environment that you will be in and uh
and be okay with it otherwise you you’d be very
um very unhappy I’d say yes yeah I
completely agree that as long as you you know what you’re getting yourself into because it can be so rewarding
um on the other hand as I said you can have long work hours but it can be incredibly rewarding
um uh being a growing company so um yeah I completely uh agree with you
on that um there is a stereotyping Tech that you have to have a computer science degree
at 21 to enter the industry um is this something you would agree with or is it never too late to retrain
and get into Tech do you think um well of course I believe having a uh
academic background matching your field is clearly an advantage for any
profession um however and I think it comes back to what I was saying at the beginning
entering the tech sector through professional retraining is also uh
the possible way and it’s no coincidence that many training programs for this
have been developed in recent years um on the other hand to not
underestimate the effort that are required to achieve the level expected
for your first job and I think this is really important to keep in mind um because after completing those
courses there are usually a few weeks to a few months lens
so recruiters will often often see you as a very
um inexperienced profile we need a lot of time to become operational right so
uh you must therefore prove that you would be autonomous very quickly quickly
so again taking a step back and looking at
the sub skills that you have acquired throughout your career it’s easier to get the technical skills than the soft
skills right so uh when you in front of a um a recruiter and you say look I have
done so much in such um short of uh amount of time so it just
shows that I’m I am able to learn I learn really fast and uh in a six months
time I’ll be as much operational as the other ones plus I’m coming with my ex
years of experience behind me so um I’m actually a much better provide
that you think I would be and I’m actually not a Junior at all yeah even
though on this specific job it’s my first job
um and I I think also building a network uh specifically in this new profession
is very important uh because you will be able to stand out much better if you
have uh the opportunity to talk with a recruiter
um apart from the recruitment process right and and basically show who you are in a
more uh natural way than in front of the orchestra um in interview
um so as soon as you can go and talk to any people in this industry to uh help you
building your network and uh and set you apart yes I love the fact that you mentioned
about being a junior because you’re you’re right if somebody uh it was if a
lady was you know sort of 20 years into her career you don’t want to be seen as a junior for trying something new or
treated differently because you’d be so used to being treated as somebody that’s quite senior
um but I think it’s that it’s that worry isn’t it is an employer suddenly going to treat me as like I’m a junior again
and I think this also um it’s not a mindset because it’s true right but this uh this can
um refrain specific specifically a woman from getting into those new jobs because
they have uh certain um like wage and that they don’t want to
go down to the junior to the junior level so
it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a tricky moment but I think the recruiters tend to be
more and more aware of how uh interesting those profiles are for a
company yes absolutely and what advice would you pass on to other women to help them
retrain uh to progress in the tech industry
um well I think I would give the same advice to a woman as to a man
um first is uh getting away from the preconceived notions about tech jobs
um you don’t have to be a geek to be a uh an engineer you don’t have to know
how to draw to be a designer right so that’s that’s really important and then
determine your goals and learn the realities of the job and how much work
the training entities by meeting people by listening to podcasts like chicken
code for example so at least you know where you will land and the reality of
the market and uh as I said the important thing is to start creating your network right away and uh instead
of waiting until your training is actually Complete because it takes time and you don’t want to wait months before
getting your first job so um networking can set you apart in your career and it’s always good to uh Do It
um as soon as you can basically and well with regards to women if I have any
advice is there to step out of your comfort zone even though it’s not really
comfortable but there to step out anyway uh do not be afraid to kind of Forge New
Paths and to challenge the stereotypes that were instilled in your uh in your
educations um we we women tend to forget how much and how
strong we are and how adaptable we are um we’ve proved that for so many years I
think it’s uh it can be also used for uh our own career and uh and it should be
um and the tech industry needs a woman right there is a shortage in in the
in in people with high capabilities so
uh yeah to to not be afraid of uh doing this change
yes I love that and I love uh not um paying any attention to the
stereotypes because it really does step people back and just see they they don’t want to get things a go
um I completely agree with you there and we’re almost out of time but I’ve got one last question and I wanted to ask
you a little bit about uh role models and Your Role Models because I think
that really helps isn’t it it helps people go into to choose certain careers
or to um you know have the the courage to move forward and uh try something new
um do you do you have any role models in particular that you admire yeah
um um um I I’m surrounded with really amazing women
um I I tend not to take uh as a model
like people women at least who I feel are so far away from my life
um because you can you can be kind of disappointed you feel like you will
never be able to achieve uh such a career or or anything that you admire
with this with this uh person so I tend to look at the women that are around me
and I kind of big stuff that I feel like I am liking
like for example I have in my friend of mine she’s um she’s been promoted as the CEO for uh
company and she’s so assertive so
um like um Earth grounded and I’m I’m so different
right so I I try to take some uh some some of her way of doing to apply to my
uh own job because um I know it’s it’s it’s possible why to
apply to apply those otherwise um I I like um
I tend to follow on on the social media a lot of feminists or a lot of
journalists that talk about gender gap and how far we are from uh being from
the the gender equality and again there are very like concrete actions that you can
make for your own career like I have a I had a
I read an article like months ago where it kind of blew my mind because I was like the only I was a kind of um a bit
angry I’ve uh are not being um uh did I didn’t have like the the salary
raise that I was uh hoping for and but I didn’t ask for
it and it sounds really stupid right but I
know yeah yeah and I was like but maybe the first thing I should do is asking for stuff and not being afraid of of
asking for what I think I deserve right and because I was kind of always always
waiting for stuff to be like grunting to
me so it I was lucky because uh uh I have always
been like promoted on time and so on but um when I have the feeling that it
doesn’t go um quick it’s not quick enough uh I was I
didn’t dare to ask and that’s my next challenge as for what you think you deserve and
um it’s the first step for uh for any changes right and uh and men don’t uh
are not afraid of asking so we shouldn’t be yes oh my gosh yes absolutely I think as
well some people um I think you you tend to think perhaps your employer will just do things um and
they should just know when to do things whether it’s a pay rise or a change in you know uh offering training for you or
you know some something um to progress your career path but sometimes it’s you have to voice what
you want um because uh it works both ways and you need an employer that is
um going to offer you opportunities but also listen when um you need to voice your opinions as well I think that’s
um so important that’s lovely advice uh for for um our listeners and it’s lovely
advice to end it on because we are already out of time and so thank you so much yasmina for coming on and sharing
your insights today it’s been a pleasure chatting with you thank you very much for your invite
thank you and to everybody listening thank you for joining us um and as always we hope to see you again next
time
