How to Get a Job in Responsible Tech
If you’ve been struggling to find a job in responsible tech you’re not alone!
Whether you’ve been sending out tons of applications and not hearing back, wondering how to best make connections, or trying to pivot into the field without much luck, this article is for you.
Here at All Tech Is Human, we talk a lot about jobs. We have a responsible tech job board, a responsible tech talent pool, and we’ve recently begun recruiting for social impact organizations through Tekalo, a new talent initiative.
We also run the Responsible Tech Mentorship Program that has over 100 mentors who work in responsible tech, so we thought it would be a good idea to tap into the expertise of a few mentors to talk about navigating a competitive job market. These conversations covered networking, applying for jobs, early-career tips, and advice for career pivots.
Below you’ll find the recordings from both livestreams with six different responsible tech professionals. This is followed by some of the best advice from both conversations that addresses common questions we hear from job seekers.
Getting the Job in Responsible Tech:Part I
Watch the full conversation about getting the job with Mayra Ruiz McPherson, AI researcher and ethicist; Ece Ozkan, trust and safety consultant; Anna Butuzova, learning experience designer
Getting the Job in Responsible Tech:Part II
Watch the full conversation about getting the job with Jiahao Chen, responsible AI consultant and researcher; Laura Walker McDonald, technology strategist in international development; Numa Dhamani, machine learning engineer; James Gresham, data scientist and trust and safety specialist.
The Best Advice for Getting the Job
How can you set yourself up for success as an entry level candidate?
Getting that first job is everything. But how do you set yourself up for success and actually land that first role? Here are some of the best suggestions from our conversations.
Ece Ozkan, Trust & Safety Consultant: Do a lot of things. That's the one thing I learned. In doing a lot of different things, I changed directions a lot. I started in operations, I ended up in policy and people management. But it all happened because I was eager to try different things. I was curious, right? And that's the other pro of jobs in this industry. It's curiosity, right? If you are curious enough, if you are eager to learn and do more, there are more roles that open to you.
Mayra Ruiz-McPherson, AI Researcher and Ethicist: I think I would start with generic job searches to see what the trends of the titles are, and then also to read the requirements–usually the first three or four bullets of the requirements of the jobs really shape that role more than the ninth or 10th bullet on that on that list–and find two or three priority skills that it definitely looks like I would have to have. And then maybe two or three skills that would be nice to have that would augment and polish my overall skill set.
Anna Butuzova, Learning Experience Designer: Looking back, there's not so many things I would change, but I feel validated that I was on the right track even though I couldn't articulate it as straightforward as I could, or maybe demonstrate with some like milestones that I'm on the right path. But now I think it was all meant to be the way it was meant to be. And I think even if you're at the beginning of your career right now, 10 years on you would be pretty proud of what you achieved.
Jiahao Chen, Responsible AI Consultant & Researcher: I think it's important to realize that the nature of job searches have changed fundamentally in the age of big data machine learning because you're really fighting to be noticed by a recruiter. Networking, building a personal brand, building social media presence to make yourself stand out, that's really important. I think the way we structure resumes also has to adapt to the fact that people are using machine learning and applicant tracking systems to manage who is actually being screened for interviews. That means making your resume as simple to process as possible by AI.
Numa Dhamani, Machine Learning Engineer: My advice for people early in their careers trying to get into the space would be to join a tech community. It can be local. It can be virtual. It could be something like All Tech Is Human. But it's such a great place to network and collaborate and build your skills. It can really just help drive your professional development.
Laura Walker McDonald, Technology Strategist: I think the other thing that I was doing [early in my career] was not just asking for things, but actually putting out useful content that people responded to. So if there's an area that you're interested in, read about it. Summarize what you read and put the link up. People really appreciate that kind of editorial and it will get you noticed.
James Gresham, Data Scientist: I like to advise people to keep an open mind specifically around the idea of the first job because there is so much transferability of skills between different jobs in different areas. My first job out of university was building credit scorecards for credit cards–that was very far away from a lot of the ethical spaces that I ended up going into in the trust and safety space. But there's a huge amount of the basic framework of skills in terms of building metrics and KPIs, structuring and validating data and even basic model building that I started in that context.
What are some suggestions for networking?
Networking is such a big part of job seeking. Here are some top suggestions about the best ways to build connections whether it’s virtually or more locally in your immediate community.
Mayra Ruiz-McPherson: I think a natural first step is to find the people that you share ideas and concerns and technology about and with. I would highly recommend complementing that with tech communities that are unrelated to responsible tech. And I know that might sound weird at first. But I think it's so important as we are in this community and we all want to solve, you know, the thorny tech issues and impact society in a positive way through technology.
Ece Ozkan: As an introvert–I know there are quite a few out there–networking is tricky. In the traditional sense of networking, you feel like you need to go to an event and introduce yourself to everyone, but I think what worked for me most is learning what you can do. If you feel overwhelmed at events, it's always nice to just say hi to people and then take their names and their information and follow up later.
Anna Butuzova: I would think about which parts of your identity are not being explored so much at work or in other places. Maybe you also like arts, so you can get involved with a local museum or an association. You're a person with broad Interests and then what makes you unique is how you connect all these interests into a coherent story so that then you can be authentic. Maybe if you want to find a job in Responsible Tech, you’ll find it by talking to a group that does gardening. That's more or less how these things happen.
James Gresham: It's probably better to focus on groups that meet on a recurring basis where you’re able to build relationships rather than just having one off meetings like you'd have at job fairs. The way I've done my networking is through volunteering. That's allowed me to build much more substantial relationships. I would also say don't need to feel limited to responsible tech organizations.
Laura Walker McDonald: Affinity groups can be really great. If you’re in the queer community, for example, Lesbians Who Tech was last week. So that's a really great way to meet people in a smaller group that then might remember you and can maybe help you out, give you advice…Just be a member of the community and be a person about it and be thoughtful. That can work really well.
I think, especially if you are struggling, don't focus on trying to find a mentor, find many mentors–they are all around you. It's everybody, including all the people who are in the trenches with you.
Numa Dhamani: Look at your local tech communities. I live in Austin and we have the Austin Forum on Technology and Society and Austin Women in Tech. You can do some good networking because you're able to go do that in person. Find the communities that are local to you.
How do you get your application noticed?
When you send a job application out into any application ecosystem, there are a lot of hurdles: applicant tracking systems, hiring managers, recruiters, and so on. How do you stand out when there’s so much noise (and other applications)?
Mayra Ruiz-McPherson: For every job you can imagine, there's anywhere from 100 to 300 plus applicants. The number one mistake that all applicants make is not following up with the hiring manager or the, or the department head or a human person.
Ece Ozkan: I think there's also another thing to consider that you might be applying to too many different tracks. If you don't really position yourself well, so your CV obviously won't be standing out as much. It only takes one person to say yes, so it's important to have that CV tailored well first and then thinking about who you know who can help you get in the door.
Anna Butuzova: I think it’s important to recognize that you are dealing with a very unstable market. A lot of folks have been laid off. There's a lot of confusion in terms of budgets and things that aren’t your fault.
And then following that, kind of thinking: Okay, what can I do in this situation of extreme uncertainty? There could be a variety of resources that you can reach out to that are maybe not necessarily about job search, but maybe there's a transitional solution to address your financial situation. Or maybe it's actually some sort of psychological self help and trying to keep your motivation up. It's hard–it's a big change when you're in between jobs.
What’s the best way to reach out to someone about a job posting?
Sometimes it can make sense to reach out to a hiring manager or someone who posted a job (if you know who that person is). It can be easy to do this on LinkedIn, but it’s hard to know if that’s always the best way to get noticed.
Jiahao Chen: Don’t be shy. Definitely reach out to people even if they're not actively hiring or posting. Quite a lot of hiring activity happens behind the scenes and it's not necessarily an open call for applications. That's not true of all employers, but that's where having a good network is to your advantage.
James Gresham: Don't just reach out to people to ask about jobs and roles, particularly people you don't know. They may get a lot of those kind of requests where it's somebody just talking for three paragraphs to say: can I have a job?
Referrals do happen in that way, people do get onto the hiring ladder in those spaces, but there's a world of difference between someone you know and have had conversations with or have worked with in some way, someone you have a genuine relationship and a referral that you're making because somebody emailed you and asked you to make a referral.
So it's good to network in a more active and substantial way.
Can you get a job in responsible tech without a technical background ?
A lot of responsible tech has to do with subject matter that requires technical know-how. But does it always? What can you do as a candidate without a technical background?
Laura Walker McDonald: I think the thing you need to have is confidence in your own ability to think critically about what is unfolding in front of you… you just need to understand enough about the technology to understand how it interacts with the real world and then think critically and bring your skills you already have to think about how it's going to play out.
Numa Dhamani: I think to build responsible technology or to address society when ethical concerns from technology, it really depends on the socio-technical response, right? And you need more than just engineers to be able to do that. So for you to be able to understand like ethical implications of technology, that's ethical reasoning for you. And I’ll say that being an engineer, a legal background would have been so helpful to me.
Jiahao Chen: There is nothing more frustrating than looking at the work of an engineering team that worked really hard to solve the wrong problem. And oftentimes that happens when they don't fully spec out the problem, or there's some key component that they fail to account for in their technical solution.
I think that's why, um, from a personal perspective, like, I am very happy to support All Tech Is Human because you guys are doing a really good job at, like, making sure there’s a broad tent and different viewpoints and different incorporated in that discussion. And we need more of that, not less of that.
James Gresham: I would say that certifications at a very early career stage are a little overvalued. It's probably more useful to spend your time on things like volunteering or something like a GitHub project, something that you can present and show as a tangible piece of work that you've done. There are specific certifications like AWS or project management, but for most things, you're probably better off building proof that you can practically build things in a working environment.
General advice for anyone looking for a role in responsible tech
A lot of advice about job seeking requires job seekers to be persistent, and that was definitely the case in our conversations. If you’re looking for your next role, don’t get discouraged! Always keep moving forward.
Jiahao Chen: Just be persistent. It is a very difficult job market right now. Especially PhD students and people in the machine learning community will be like: Oh, I applied to Facebook and Google and I got turned down. And I'm like, well, did you think about other places? Like, have you thought about other companies that, uh, are hiring for machine learning that are not in the very narrow space of big tech? Are we thinking of startups? Are we casting your net broad enough?
James Gresham: Don't get absolutely wedded to the idea of a specific role at a specific place. Think about roles in terms of what value they're providing to you, how they're developing you and how they're going to build your career, not in terms of, I want to work at a specific place doing a specific thing and try and go straight to there immediately and just focus entirely on that.
Laura Walker McDonald: If you don't look like what you think people are looking for, it's really hard to do the conventional job application. I think my first job took me 84 applications or something to get it, and then after that, it gets easier. I think building content is the best way that you can get your personal brand known and go to conferences and things like that. Sometimes lateral moves take a long time you have to be very patient and opportunistic and and just to say that I have all the solidarity in the world and my heart for For all of us.
Numa Dhamani: Networking goes such a long way, so find your community, reach out to people. Don't be intimidated to reach out to people. You probably have as much to teach them as they do to teach you.
If you’d like to learn more about our mentorship program, or get involved in the next cohort, check out our Mentorship Program Page to see where we’re at in the current application cycle.