I’m writing this week from Montreal, my hometown, but sending my best to all of those in Northern California, my adopted hometown, while the state battles with the growing wild fires. Hope everyone out there is staying safe.
This week I’m in conversation with Ruben Harris of Career Karma. A startup that’s on fire (the good kind). Enjoy the conversation and please share any feedback!
You don't know what you don't know. As I try to better understand how we upskill ourselves for the modern work world, I often hear that grit, accountability, and resilience are the key drivers to success. Ruben Harris, CEO of Career Karma, points out that all of those are great and necessary, but completely irrelevant without awareness. “If you’re blind to the pathways and knowing what options you have, it's impossible to level up”. This is part of why he, and his two co-founders, Artur and Timur Meyster, founded Career Karma back in 2018. With a mission to help a billion people over the next ten years, Harris envisions the site to be like the Trip Advisor for careers. A place where one can come (time and time again) to invest in up-skilling, to garner assistance finding a new job, and access on-going support through employment transitions and career shifts. Harris and I caught up recently to talk more about this vision, why up-skilling is as much an emotional exercise as a cognitive one, and ways that we as a global society need to shift our thinking about higher education.
Harris didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur of a rapidly growing EdTech company. He grew up as a classical trained cellist. His first foray into business led him to the investment banking world, but only after teaching himself finance online through resources like Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street (an especially unconventional method from ten years back). From there, he made his way to San Francisco and worked at a handful of startups. However, it wasn’t until a conversation with Michael Seibel, CEO of Y Combinator, that he finally had the belief to go out on his own. Seibel’s encouragement, coupled with his vote of confidence through a seed investment, empowered Harris to finally “step up to the plate,” as he puts it. I highlight this winding career path and emotional journey not just for prosperity, but to make it obvious that Harris is a living example of what he is preaching at Career Karma: the importance of continuous up-skilling and growth. Harris and his co-founders have since paid this forward, building a community at Career Karma that is designed to help individuals transform their perceived disadvantages into advantages.
SO YOU WANT TO UPSKILL.
Harris talks of the need to consider three things when deciding to invest in up-skilling.
How will you finance your up-skilling? Out of your own pocket? Will your employer sponsor you? What are your options for government financial aid?
What are the skills needed to land that dream job or promotion?
What are the clear onramps into a given company?
“Anyone is capable of up-skilling and working in tech,” Harris says matter-of-factly. He goes on to say that there is often an explicit focus on engineering, data science, and design but tech has permeated through every industry and field. It’s not that you need to up-skill strictly to get a job in the tech sector, but rather you need technical skills to remain relevant in whatever sector you’re already in. Harris directs me to a recent tweet to emphasize this point.
But what Harris considers the most important quality in success besides consistency, is creating a narrative about why you are investing in up-skilling. This is where you create grit. This is where you lean on your why to help remind yourself of your reason for starting this journey and why you should continue.
When I asked Harris how he thinks about the broader future of (post-undergraduate) education, he says with conviction that the college degree needs to be de-emphasized. Not because he doesn’t see the value in a college education, but because focusing on this one line on your resume has underemphasized what matters:
Who you are as a person.
How you work with others.
How you present yourself.
Can you tell a great story.
Harris promotes the notion of skills over degrees, projects over resumes, and is encouraged by companies like Tesla, Apple, and Bank of America who’ve changed their position to no longer require applicants to have a college degree. Google, another company that no longer requires a college degree to get a foot in the door, has gone as far as launching new professional certification programs in data analysis, project management, and UX design to stand in as the equivalent of a four-year degree. Why is this so important? For one, Harris highlights that “41 percent of recent college graduates are underemployed,” as they are working in jobs that don't require a college degree but are often saddled with student loan debt. Furthermore, Harris adds, de-emphasizing college enables employers to consider a much wider and diverse set of candidates. Harris also envisions greater involvement of government aid in the future, ideally through the creation of financial aid legislation similar to the G.I. Bill; and collaborative efforts of the Department of Education and the Department of Labor.
I walk away from our conversation excited both at the prospect of Career Karma helping a billion people with their career transitions over the next decade, but also with affirmation that adult education continues to take a non-linear path. By normalizing the different ways and programs in which one can learn, education continues to be democratized. I see it as part of my responsibility to promote these paths and help those with a non-traditional educational background. Through platforms like Career Karma, this population now has the ability to close the gap between the skills that they know and the skills that they need to learn to take their careers to the next level.
To learn more about the different up-skilling opportunities visit Career Karma.