Our recent ‘Exploring Careers in Product Management’ webinar series unpacked product management as a career choice and delved into the challenges everyday Product Managers face across industries.
For our final webinar in this series, Professor James Smithies, Professor of Digital Humanities at King’s College London and the course convenor on the King’s Product Management Career Accelerator joined the Head of Enrolments at Fourthrev, Daniel Cairns, for a deep-dive discussion and Q&A session on the programme.
During the session, he shared his views on how the role of a Product Manager has evolved over time and how the programme’s practical approach to learning will help you gain the technical, organisational, and human skills that employers are looking for.
He answered frequently asked questions like:
How does the career coaching offering work?
What topics are covered in this Career Accelerator?
What are the practical experience learners can expect to get from the programme?
Are you required to pay the tuition fees upfront?
Watch the full webinar recording here:
For more information on the King’s Product Management Career Accelerator, request to download the course brochure here.
“We all have imposter syndrome, right? But you have to be brave and make that first move. Changing your career starts with changing your mindset,” says serial career changer, Matthew Bamber.
Matthew started his career as a ‘boring’ (his words) Tax Accountant in London. After that, he went on to work as a Financial Advisor and Bar Owner in Portugal, a Founder of a social impact start-up and a Product Manager. Throughout this career-switching journey, Matthew was searching for a role where he could have a real impact, which he says he’s found in his latest role as an Enrolment Advisor at Fourthrev.
Forbes notes that more and more people are thinking about pivoting professionally, opting out of jobs they dislike or that don’t offer them the balance they need, and are actively choosing to move into new careers. But in order to pivot with confidence, one needs to be open to possibilities and the challenges that might pop up along the way.
It’s all about mindset, and positive self-talk is key in order to push past your fears and move forward.
Matthew, now 30, started dabbling in career switching in his early twenties. For him, choosing a different career path at this time of his life carried less risk. Sure, the switch meant he’d change both careers and locations/cultures at the same time. But Matthew still had little to lose at this point in his life and had flexibility on his side. However, entering a completely new role in your 40s or later can be very daunting. The good news is that a study conducted by the American Institute for Economic Research found that 82% of the 47 and older career changes surveyed were successful in switching career paths mainly because they now did work that they were more passionate about.
The first career change
So, what instigated Matthew’s first career change?
He started his career in tax but says that after a few years, he found himself looking around the office and felt it littered with complacency. “The job offers a good salary. And that’s safe. But the safety of the job is complacency. I think it’s just a dangerous zone to be in where you can’t even remember who you are anymore or what you wanted to get out of the job initially. I didn’t want to be bitter.”
The turning point came one day when Matthew had to join a webinar with 25 of his colleagues. “At some point in his presidency, Donald Trump made loads of tax changes, and we were in a webinar to discuss the impact on us in the UK. All of my colleagues were really excited. Like really excited. I felt like I was in prison. I realised then and there that I was never going to be as excited about tax as I maybe should’ve been.”
Three hours later, Matthew was on a call with a financial management company he’d heard about when holidaying in Portugal the previous summer. The hiring manager asked him to come in for an interview as soon as possible. He booked the next available flight to Lisbon and got the job a week later.
The power of transferrable skills
From there, Matthew fell into several other careers over the years. They were never actively planned or researched but rather came through connections or out of interest. One thing that helped him along the way, he says, was his transferable skills.
On his CV, he describes himself as ‘a dedicated and detail-oriented individual with an entrepreneurial mindset, who is personable and adaptable.’ “I’ve always been really conscious about trying to harness my hard and soft skills,” he says.
Knowing Excel inside-out made him more analytical, which in turn helped him better advise his clients to make sound financial decisions in his role as a Financial Advisor. Being detail-oriented helped him in his role as a Product Manager, and his vibrant personality allowed him to connect with customers at his bar and with leads over the phone.
What led him to FourthRev? When reading about the Career Accelerator programmes online one day, he immediately thought, “I would love to do that programme.” And now, as an Enrolment Advisor, believing in the product helps him convey its value to others: “It’s so impactful to feel like I had a little part in the decision-making of individuals who chose to grab onto the opportunity of changing their mindset and lives for the better.”
Reflecting on his career journey up to this point, Matthew says that it’s important to industry-proof yourself from the start of your career by focusing your attention on building up a base of skills that make you a valuable employee, no matter what field you’re working in.
Knowing what you want, why it’s important to you and how you can make it happen are key to feeling satisfied and excited about your career. If you’re unsure about how to make this happen for yourself, a Career Coach can help you. That’s why we’ve included one-on-one career coaching as an integral part of our Career Accelerator programmes. We have a dedicated team of coaches to help you understand and set your short and long-term career goals so that you plan for your future with confidence.
If you’re curious about this, you can read more here.
Leading global technology consultancy, Thoughtworks, has become the latest employer partner to join the Data Analytics Career Accelerator, a new programme being developed by The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in collaboration with online education company FourthRev.
Set out as a specific skill in need earlier this year by the UK Government, there will be an estimated 20 million data analyst roles required by 2025 globally. This, combined with Thoughtworks’ research showing that just 40 percent of CEOs worldwide regard their own knowledge of data strategy as ‘good’, points to the fact that companies are eager to address the issue.
The six-month career accelerator will train students from a range of different backgrounds and disciplines to develop holistic data analysis skills. It will be designed and developed by expert faculty from LSE’s Departments of Statistics and Department of Methodology, in collaboration with leading industry partners to ensure outcomes align with industry demand. The programme will introduce core concepts of data analysis and develop data-handling capabilities.
In the final stage of the Career Accelerator, learners will work directly with an employer to apply the analytical skills that they learn and build their portfolio of evidence. As an industry partner joining the programme, Thoughtworks will provide projects designed to simulate real-world situations and which are focussed on issues that support Thoughtworks’ approaches and values. These will allow students to apply their newly acquired knowledge in an authentic business scenario, as well as develop their collaboration and communication skills.
Danilo Sato, Head of Data & AI Services UK at Thoughtworks says:
“Data strategy now sits at the heart of successful digital organizations, and these highly prized data analytics skills are essential to a company’s success. We feel fortunate to have the opportunity to collaborate with a university as renowned as LSE. At Thoughtworks, we strive to hire and nurture future-fit talent equipped with the competencies and skills needed to thrive in the digital economy. We believe that a programme of this kind is one step closer to helping both us and other organizations resolve the digital skills gap.”
Dr James Abdey, Programme Coordinator and Associate Professorial Lecturer in Statistics at LSE says:
“The powerful combination of expertise from LSE faculty with industry experience is at the heart of the Data Analytics Career Accelerator and we are delighted to welcome Thoughtworks as collaborators on the programme.”
While this programme is specific to data analytics, the Career Accelerator model was developed by FourthRev to offer learners a launch pad for careers in the digital economy.
Omar de Silva, Co-Founder of FourthRev notes:
“The collaboration between world-leading universities, tech companies and employers is central to these online programmes. This approach combines the robustness and recognition of a world-leading university education alongside the best job-focused technical education, designed by top industry and employers. Thoughtworks’ perspective will help to ensure that course projects meet the expectations of industry.”
Visit the programme page to find out more about how this online Data Analytics Career Accelerator sets you up to become an in-demand data analyst.
Note to editors
Unless otherwise stated, the research referenced was carried out online by Maru/Blue in February 2021. It surveyed nearly 1,000 C-Suite decision makers, comprising of CEOs, CIOs and CTOs across 12 countries, all markets where Thoughtworks has a significant market presence and can provide market commentary (USA, UK, Germany, China, Australia, India, Brazil, Singapore, Italy, Romania, Finland and Netherlands) and across seven sectors.
About Thoughtworks
Thoughtworks is a global technology consultancy that integrates strategy, design and engineering to drive digital innovation. We are 10,000+ people strong across
48 offices in 17 countries. Over the last 25+ years, we’ve delivered extraordinary impact together with our clients by helping them solve complex business problems with technology as the differentiator.
