Maril Vernon: 0:00

Welcome, everybody, back to another episode of The Cyber Queens. We are not joined by Erika today who is out doing salesy SKO things with SentinelOne. We missed her. We love you. If you want to spam the crap out of her, feel free to send her a million DMs. We'll call it a DDoSs of love. Anyway, hopefully the whole audience gets on board. Send her DM, tell her we miss her.

Maril: 0:02

So, what is a BI, what does business intelligence even mean? What is it and how does it fit into the org?

Camille: 0:04

Skills, definitely a lot of SQL. You're working with a lot of different database technologies depending on where you're working. You can be in PostgreSQL, Redshift, you could be doing work with Microsoft SQL. Just any SQL training is a plus. I started out in BI not having a strong background in skills specific to information technology or information systems. I would say that prior to BI I was working more in general data analytics and those skills did help me in taking that step towards BI. But everything I learned on the job and with my co-workers at the time, so I learned about data warehousing. I learned about dimensions and facts, like the Kimball method of data warehousing. I learned about building out an entire data warehouse just for analytics and reporting. What it's like to build a semantic layer between your data warehouse and your BI tool. Getting training on specific BI tools. So, it's a lot of tooling, it's a lot of query optimization. You're working with data all day long and you're working a lot with people, which is also what I love about it. It's a good marriage between maybe back end, behind the scenes, work with data and working with people to see what they actually need and get them what they need.

Maril: 0:06

Well, tell us about that. So, Camille and I have worked at a number of places together. It's one of our favorite things to do, to dress the same. We didn't plan this and freak people out. We used to work at a BPO/appraisal management company. So, when you need an appraisal or a BPO, they come to us and we funnel them out to real estate people and help deal with them and stuff. Camille and I used to work on the same customer team though, not at the same time. So, Camille, tell us about when you were working in more of a customer service soft skills role, right? Because you got out of college, you're like, need a job. How did you go about identifying and moving into tech from that customer service team? Because that was the org that kind of gave you your start, right? And she's like, listen, we have a data science team. We have a research and analytics team. Why don't you talk to the leader of that team and see what can happen? And so long story short, through her support, my boss's support and then my future boss's support, I got to intern with the data and analytics team. And I think that might have been the first intern. They were excited because they wanted to start doing internships on that team. So that's the first one to do it. First Guinea pig, and it went really well. Awesome. And I got to interview for a full-time role that they opened up and I got it. Honestly, I wasn't looking for it, but I knew, as you might have remembered feeling, Maril, like not as challenged as I could have been. For those who have our kind of mindsets or background, it depends on who you are, but you might find that that kind of work can be not as challenging. You just want something more. You want to learn again. You want to see what's out there. So, it was really great to have the opportunity but I think I was very lucky in getting it. My first job in cyber was technically to attend the meetings for the other people in cyber who didn't want to attend the meetings. I was willing to do it. Camille, I will repeat one thing you said though. You said, don't say take a chance on me. And that's exactly what I said and kind of, I think one of the reasons I was able to get in is I was like, listen, you’re going to take a chance on me. I have none of the objective things that you're looking for, but you already know that I can hack it with this department. I've been here for a minute. I understand what we're doing, why we do it, and you know that if you teach me, I will learn. So, you're going to take a chance on me but you know you're not going to regret it, and I know you're not going to regret it. That's a little bit of the tenacity I have, you know? I'm very fortunate that my dad understands somewhat what I do because he's an industrial control systems SCADA engineer, which is an automation language. So, he gets a lot of like cybersecurity briefings from DHS and stuff. And they have a guy in charge of security over there so he can somewhat understand what I do and why I do it. But he'll ask me a lot of questions. It's fun. So, Camille, I have an off the wall question.

Camille: 0:14

That's an excellent question because I was with that company from when I started off in more of a service-oriented role and then tech, it was like five or six years. So, that was my first experience actually changing jobs in tech. So that was a little scary. And I think for me, I was feeling a lot of loyalty and I still like work credits due with that company to do what they do for people and helping them grow their skills and try new career paths. I still snap for them. But for me, I just want to point out, the reason I switched jobs is. I want to say that my manager at the time fought for what he could for what he did for me and other coworkers, my pay was significantly under a male peers pay. And no, we didn't have the same job. Like he wasn't working in BI but we both had business critical positions. Frankly, at many organizations, if you don't have the data you need to make a decision, you don't have the reporting, then you're kind of stuck in the water. But intelligence is at the crux, at the success of every organization, data is at the middle. So, I felt my job was just as important. I felt I'd done a lot of great work. And after a round of merit increases, I went through, found out I was making significantly less pay. And so, at that point, it was finally like the kick in the pants I needed to be like, all right, time to look for something new.

Maril: 0:16

You're inheriting something someone else set up, basically. I mean, take advantage of your network if they like it. But, no, it really does go down to it used to be not what you know, but who you know, but now it's who knows you, and I've said it a million times and I'll say it a million more, but, when you do reach out to your network and they go, oh, I know that if I take a chance on you and I give you this project, you'll deliver on it. It's because they know you as a person. They know what your brand is and like the type of work you deliver. They might not have ever worked with you directly but they know that bringing on someone with a certain passion and the skillset and the capability will immediately pay off for them. So, build that network, build it before you need it. Cultivate those relationships and the comments. That's where mine and Amber's and Erika's friendship came from. All this happened over LinkedIn so we can't echo it enough, but I do also love Camille, that you recognize that sometimes in order to make significant progress, you do have to leave your, or sometimes it's not going to be enough to continue to earn those increases where you're at.

Camille: 0:20

I'd say, and I haven't worked at so many companies, like … I'm still, I'd say maybe at the early midpoint in my career, but I haven't had as many opportunities to work with sales organizations. So, it feels like that's an experience that I want to chase. I've worked with, like internal teams. I've worked with client teams. It's kind of like the client after the sales. Process has already happened. So, they're established clients I've worked with marketing teams but not with sales. And so again, it's like observation but it seems like and again, I think this is what Reade, I'm saying your name correctly, is saying is that, there’s often, like sales is maybe one of the last teams to get some share of the BI resources. I've also a problem that I think a lot of consulting companies are trying to…. that's where they live, is to give data support and provide business intelligence, work and resources to, like marketing organizations and sales organizations. I don't know why that's a thing, but I've seen that more than once where it's like that's maybe the last set of teams to get a piece of the data which is not good.

Maril: 0:22

So, for both of you, Camille, I'm not sure of the type of data you would provide to these teams but maybe you can give us some examples like, types of asks, managers and departments come to you with and the type of data you provide. And if you guys did have your ideal BI marketing sales world working together, what would those best practices be? How do you recommend that org get that intel to people to empower them? And how do you recommend that they leverage the intel that they're capable of getting and like vice versa. Yeah. That makes sense to me. I've never been like I'm going to go to the BIs and submit a request to them to get this kind of data. I don't work in that world, but I was just wondering if an Amber or anyone in her sales capacity ever has, or ever would or like ever talks about that. I mean, it makes sense to me the correlation between the two.

Camille: 0:26

Yeah. I was working, I was not looking for a new job but last spring, well around last spring, maybe like late winter, someone just reached out over LinkedIn and that's credit or credits due was actually putting in the effort to add detail information to my LinkedIn profile is definitely like, check the box, LinkedIn, help me get this job because someone reached out to me over just LinkedIn. Dan said, hey, I'm hiring for this job. Are you interested in learning more? And the job that he was hired to fill was a director level role. And so, for me at the time, I didn't…. I mean, I was, I had manager in my title, but I hadn't really had prolonged experience being a people leader. And so that intrigued me. I feel like I have some pretty good natural leadership qualities that would help me be successful. But in general, I was intimidated by the position because I'd be a director of an entire analytics team. So, they reached out. And at first I was like, my first gut reaction was like, that's really nice and I feel very flattered but I'm not qualified. But then I tried to fight that feeling and be like there's no harm in learning more. There is never any harm in learning more. There is never any harm in taking the phone call and just seeing okay how I feel? So, that was an example of me just taking the shot and it was also an example of me chasing the money because I'd never held a position like that before. It's obviously a different tier pay wise. And the person who recruited me, who had become my boss, I thought he was great. He's awesome. He's a great people leader. He's really good at mentorship. He mentored me in the interview, like the question came up about salary and I immediately very…. undersold yourself. Well, no, I started talking about what I was earning or like the pay band I was expecting based on what I was earning then. He's like, I don't care about that. This job means a certain dollar amount and I'm going to ignore what you just said and here's what we should pay you. And I was like, okay, I like this guy a lot. You have a lot of integrity. And so, I went for it. I was like, I don't necessarily feel that I have all the tools in my tool belt and experience, I need to be successful. But this person has reviewed my experience and said, I think that you're right for this role and I want to help guide you through the process. And it's also an opportunity to kind of build a team how you think it should be built, given what our current challenges are, given the projects we have, the needs we have data-wise at this organization. And I was like, this also feels like a once a career opportunity to do that. Not many people get to enter a role as a leader and build a team how they want or how they think it should be built to staff the right skills and the right experience. So, I was like, you know what? I'm going to go for it. Also last year, I mean, I moved to a different state. My partner started a graduate program. So, there was just a lot of change I was going through and I was like, why not add one more thing to the change? Go for it. but just unfortunately that just didn't work out. There were some rifts that happened and my boss was no longer at the organization after a time. So, a couple of peers also left and or got riffed and it's like, okay. This job has completely changed. I have a new boss. The people, I didn't know anyone, I didn't know who to trust. And the asks of the organization just didn't jive with the resourcing I was allowed to do. Because at that point, if you're riffing, you're not hiring, like you're not hiring any roles. And I was like, I needed to, I thought I was going to come into this and staff appropriately to get this work done, and now I had to make do with the resources I have and I was expecting to get a certain amount of mentorship and guidance from my boss. And at that point I was just expected just to get it done. And I was like this isn't going to work. Also, my mental health was like in the toilet with that because it was so stressful to step into a role like that already and then to have all these things happen. Internally, I was just like, okay, I think I'm done. Like, yeah, Yeah. Well, there was another company before that wasn't a startup technically, but that startup environment was still very present, which is interesting. But started as a BI engineer at another company and unfortunately within a month, there was a RIF just because of what happened with investors pulling out, with the economy, doing what it was like, folks were… those investors just had a lot less capital they could invest. And so, while they'd promised to fund or like they had, committed to funding a company, that company, they had to pull out. And so that company had to reduce staff significantly and kind of go down to skeletal crew. I went part-time, which was awesome for me because I still had some income. But after a month of working there, I was like, cool, the new job's going to be great. I'm going to make the most of this. I'm going to learn so much, it's going to be awesome. And then a month later, no, you're looking for a job, Camille. I'm like, crap. That's not ideal. But what was nice is it wasn't as scary the second time around because I'd been there. And it's also wonderful that I have such a supportive partner and such a supportive family and friends and network. I think the things I ask about in the interview setting are culture based. Obviously always come prepared in an interview with questions for anyone, even if it's something someone's already answered and you want to learn more about it. But I always ask culture questions like I ask folks who would be my teammates? What do you look for in a teammate? Because I know what I look for. I look forward to someone who's really collaborative. I look for someone who's willing to share and learn and get down into the weeds with me. Someone who brings their own diverse background to the table. So, I started asking more about cultural things. I, from the beginning, started asking… like from the beginning of working with a talent acquisition person or a recruiter, it's like, what is the pay range? Because I know exactly what I need and there's no point. I don't want to waste your time or mine. I ask that from the beginning now. And then I ask hard questions. So, from like a BI perspective, it's like, okay, so do you have data warehouses? What kind of documentation do you have for people who are onboarding? Do you have an onboarding process? Because I mean when you go to a startup, you just have to know there's not going to be much of an onboarding process demented. These folks haven't had time to kind of put that thing together. When I was in the job for a month, I started writing my own documents for whoever would come.

Amber: 0:36

Yeah. I was going to say another good question just for anybody that is listening for this that I always ask, especially nowadays, is how do you keep your team motivated? And I ask every single person I talk to. So, every member of leadership, I say, what do you do? I'll ask the CEO how do you keep the entire company afloat from an emotional and mental standpoint? How do people know that it's okay and everything's good and to keep them motivated day-to-day? Or at least giving them a bigger purpose and how they answer that, we will tell you everything that you need to know. A lot of times they will be super proud to talk about things like, oh yeah, we do this and we do this and we do this. We have milestones, we have programs in place. We have this, we sit down with you every now and then to see, hey, is this still the direction you want to be going? Those are green flags to look out for. Red flags are like, whoa. And they have to like, kind of think about it because they've never been asked this question. Some of those are things to really keep an eye out for. Because that's going to be at the end of the day, your teammates matter but so does leadership as far as keeping you grounded when things seem uncertain and stressful?

Camille: 0:38

And depending on who you are, maybe you're fine with that thrive in ambiguity setting. Maybe you are that person who is like, okay, that's fine. I'm just going to be the person who asks a million questions. I'm going to bug you until you give me time on your calendar to go over something. And I'm just going to dive into everything I can get my hands on. And that's fine to be that person. And I've just discovered over the last year, that's not me. I will dive in on my own and go. I learned something solo but I still need to have some structure I thrive in at least. There's like a baseline amount of structure I need to be successful. The other tip, because I didn't want to miss this, you talked about like going through that experience. Taking the opportunity when experiencing unemployment to just rush up on new skills or even existing skills. Because I did that. It had been like five months since I'd actually done any development in Amazon QuickSite. I'm like, well, I want to see what official, like formal trainings people put out there now. Taking the time to do that just so key. You can keep your mind fresh, keep your skills fresh and you can also show that you made the most out of the time you had while you were between jobs. I think it's huge.

Maril: 0:40

I think it's so valuable to be a self-starter like we are. You and I, you give us a key word and we're like experts in that thing. We just google the crap out of it and like to train ourselves up. ChatGPT. But it's important to know if you are more of a structured person, if you do need the input, if you do need the guidance, say that. Be like, don't just leave me on my own for three weeks and assume things are going okay. I need you to check in with me. I need you to give me the next step, the next milestone, the next bit of progress I have to hit. And that comes down to knowing yourself and how you learn, and how you perform. For those who don't know, Camille is my inspiration to try tech and cyber. Because, like I said, when she moved off the customer team, I actually took her job. I like backfilling her there. My mom was like, we got another one if you want another one. And I needed a job. I had a newborn and I was pregnant at the time so Camille was the one that I was like, Camille made the transition. I wonder if I could do that. I wonder if I could learn a technical skill and hop over to the golden land of the techies over there. So, Camille was the one who inspired me to try and appear to fail. At least hopefully I'll fail up. I'll figure out something that I enjoy.

Camille: 0:44

Yeah, it's hard but do it.

Maril: 0:46

Yeah, or I mean, the longer I held off on the positions that weren't quite what I wanted, the better things were able to fall into place. So, I agree completely. Alright, well thank you so much for sticking around with us this long. We know this has been a longer episode but the discussion was great. I think getting a little BIT of insight into another area of tech that's not necessarily cyber affiliated was awesome. Camille, thank you so much for taking time out of your day and thank you to Camille's org for letting her be here. This has been another episode of The Cyber Queen. If you love the content, please feel free to like sharing, to subscribe. It's totally free and the number one way you can support us, if not come at us in the comments cause Maril's bored and needs something to do. No, I'm kidding.