Latinas In Tech presents Getting Hired During This New Remote Environment

Welcome. Hi everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining us for the getting higher during the new remote environment. We're here today with Latinas in Tech and a great panel that we've put together with the help of our partners. So just to start off, we want to thank our partners, Cloudflare, which is how you're watching us today, Cloudflare TV. We also have a panelist joining us as well from New York Times, Twitter and Capital One. So just as a reminder for Latinas in Tech.org register. And just to give you a background about Latinas in Tech in case this is one of your first events joining us today. We're one of our aims are our aims are to connect and support and empower Latinas in tech. What we focus on is professional development, recruiting and mentorship. And this comes from different ways of having events, providing mentorship programs, as well as having recruiting events that we put together. So who we are, Latinas in Tech. We have 11 chapter cities. We have 8000 women that are our members, 23 nationalities and 100 and plus companies. So, you know, if you haven't joined us or you'd like to be a member so you don't miss any events that we have coming up, they're all digital today. So even if you are in California, you can join the New York City chapter events such as this one. Feel free to go on to Latinas in Tech.org to register and join the largest network of Latina women working across the technology sector. So now I'm going to pass it off to Jorima, who is our panelists, our moderator today. And here we're really excited to have all of our panelists join us to talk about the topic of how to get hired during this environment, this remote environment. One of the things that we want to remind you all is to send your questions that we will be able to provide answers at the end of this panel to live studio at Cloudflare .tv. So please feel free to email live studio at Cloudflare.tv for any questions you have, and we will get these passed over to the panel so they can provide answers. So I'll kick it off now. And thank you again for joining us today. We're excited. Don't forget to register. Thanks. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for that introduction. And thank you, Latinas in Tech, for hosting us today. I'm really excited for us to chat about something that has probably affected all of us in some capacity. Switching over to a fully remote world, even more so than that, is a fully remote interviewing and job searching world. My name is Jorima Estevez. I am a software engineer turned engineering manager over at the New York Times. I am joined here today by some lovely panelists. I'm going to go ahead and let them introduce themselves. But first, before we do that, I want to let everybody know that we all have some very unique backgrounds today. And I asked all of us to pick their favorite spot that they have been missing the most since quarantine started or that they will be going to first once it's safe to go outside. I chose Los Tacos, number one, the absolute best Mexican place for tacos in New York City. You can fight me on that, but you're probably wrong. Go ahead and hit me up on Twitter if you want to get into a Twitter battle. I miss it because it was right next to the office and I went there a ton. And as soon as I can, I will be back to you, Los Tacos, number one. Don't you worry. I'm going to kick it off over to our panelists so that they can introduce themselves. So, Mariana, do you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. I'm very excited to be here. So thank you so much, Latinas in Tech. Yeah, so I work at Twitter. I've been there for about a year now and I work on our technical recruiting events team. And my background is Coyoacan, Mexico. I go to Mexico, typically once a year. So I was supposed to go visit one of my really great friends, Joel, at the end of March, but that got postponed. So hopefully that's the first place I'll be visiting once this is all behind us. Amazing. Yeah, man, I wish I could go to Mexico, too. Hopefully you can get right back there and visit Joel. Thank you, Mariana. Jennifer, over to you. Sure. I really struggled with my background because I wanted to go to Mexico as well. I get like weekly updates on flights to Mexico City that I cannot take. But they tell me to wait it out because in a few weeks they're going to be even cheaper. So I did not choose Mexico. This is the entrance gallery of the Victoria Albert Museum in London, the craft museum. I'm Jennifer and I work in innovation and I'll talk about that in a second. But my background is in jewelry design and craft making. So the Victoria Albert Museum for me is Mecca. It is the place that has rooms of lace that I absolutely adore and I could be there for days just admiring the craft. My world is a little different now. I run the innovation lab at Capital One and I've been there for, gosh, almost eight years, which is utterly shocking to me because I came from the startup world. So I thought I would do this corporate thing. And now I've been there for a little while really loving it. Awesome. Thank you, Jennifer. I wrote down the Victoria Albert Museum so that I can go there too once quarantine is lifted. So thanks for that recommendation. Israel, how about you? Tell us about yourself and this lovely background that we see. Absolutely. I will say that I also missed Los Tacos, number one, so bad. It's right next to the office and it's so good. It's so great. But my name is Israel. I am a senior manager of talent acquisition here at the Times and I manage a couple of tech functions here. My background is Tupelo, Mexico. I was actually there a year ago today. I can't wait to go there. Mexico is super popular right now and I'm loving it. Thank you so much. And last but not least, Roshni, welcome. Tell us about yourself. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Roshni Hundle. I'm a recruiter at Cloudflare. And my background is actually our lava lamp wall in our San Francisco office at Cloudflare in our lobby and definitely miss going into the office as cheesy as that sounds. And I miss visiting the San Francisco office. So I can't wait to get back there when all this is over and see all of our amazing SF co-workers. Awesome. Wow. A lava lamp wall? Yeah, a lava lamp wall. Our wall of dystrophy. Awesome. That's so cool. Wow. Well, thank you so much. Thank you to all of our panelists. Welcome. Really excited for all of you to be here. Before we jump into questions, just one more plug for the audience to ask their questions at the end of our panel. You can go ahead and submit your questions to livestudio at Cloudflare .tv. And before the end, we will make sure to try and answer all of your questions. So kicking it off for our first question, I think we should really talk about how life has changed in this pandemic quarantine world. In a lot of ways, life has changed, of course, for everybody, but specifically in the job hunt interview sense. How has your hiring process changed since COVID-19 started? I'd love it, Roshni, if you can start us off there on this question. Sure. You know, everything happened so fast. We immediately moved everything online. I know we use the Internet every day, but just to the amount that we use it now is fascinating, just even for the interviews. Our teams moved so fast, especially like our HR, onboarding, and IT teams. We're now shipping laptops and equipment ahead of start dates. It was just unbelievable how quickly we adapted. And we started conducting all of our panels over video chats, so Zoom and Google Hangouts. Initial phone screens became also video screens overnight. And so right away, you have that face-to-face interaction with the hiring manager. All of a sudden, we weren't limited by conference room availability or candidate travel schedules. And so interviews were taking place so much faster. We have a crazy stat. I couldn't get the exact number, but there were over 100 panels scheduled for Cloudflare in that first month of lockdown. So hiring just started moving at a very faster speed. Some even stages and steps got cut out as well, just because we were able to do so much more online. And we just did everything in one panel versus two panels. And then even one of our Cloudflare products, Cloudflare for Teams, helped other companies switch to going remote very quickly as well and remote work. And so that was really cool to see that even our products were impacting people working remote and online. Wow, that's 100 panels. Wow, that's amazing. I would have thought that having to go into a completely different process for hiring would have just brought everything to a grinding halt, but it sounds like you guys really stepped it up and got through it. Yeah, we could not have done it without our coordination team. They have been killing it. Amazing to hear. Mariana, how about you? How has Twitter switched up their process now that things have gone fully remote? Yeah, very similarly to what Roshni mentioned, Twitter was one of the first companies to have everyone, all of their employees work remotely. So I thought that was a huge testament to how much they care about our safety and our well-being. And so that was really awesome to see. And our people operations team and facilities and IT, they did an amazing job at just pivoting to everything being completely virtual. So on my end, it seemed very seamless as far as just working with candidates. The team just basically within a week had processes in place and basically just pivoted completely to virtual. So as well as Roshni mentioned, everything became slightly busier because while we reprioritized our positions, it was easier and more accessible to have candidates interview and go through the process. So our recruiting coordinating team also complete rock stars. I don't know how they do it, but they did a fantastic job. And because Twitter is already a global company and we have teams that are distributed across different offices, I think that we were in a pretty good position to adapt well to this new global virtual environment. For sure. I think you bring up such an important topic in that it takes so much work to make a process as difficult as hiring and interviewing run smoothly, just generally in a normal world. But to do it almost overnight and switch fully remote has to be such a huge undertaking. So shout out to all the rock stars out there who have absolutely killed it and made life so much easier for everyone, myself included, as an engineering manager and a lot of interviews. Thank you so much. And Jennifer, how about you? We had similar experiences at Capital One. I had a new hire start every week right after we went to work from home. So no one was delayed in getting started with us. We all pivoted and we had to learn a bit on the job of how to bring that to life. So I'd argue the interview process was pretty seamless for us because, just like some other folks have mentioned, we've been working across geographies for a while. So I think the hardest part about managing an online interview is, oh, is the Internet going to work? Am I going to get my emotions through? How do I make people comfortable? We've been doing that for a little while. So thankfully, that portion of it didn't feel painful for us. Which was a very helpful thing because we could focus on the potential employees experience, getting them comfortable with having that interview. And then once we moved through the process and they could get onboarded, it was pretty remarkable to see how seamless it was. I think part of it is we're all in this pandemic together. It's not the case that I'm back at the office and you're in your bedroom. We're all here together. So I found that our team just rallied to make sure that the new associates had the very best experience. And we weren't giving them Zoom fatigue and we were still supporting them appropriately. And that's the thing that I think is really beautiful about these moments of time where it is unique. None of us have done this. And if you're bringing someone into the fold, bringing them into your family, you want to make sure they have a great experience. And I think Capital One broadly did that. So we had corporate structures to help us. But then every local team also wanted to make sure that if they brought someone else new onto their team, that culturally they were brought in appropriately, which was a lot of fun. Absolutely. I think also you touch on a really great point there. And it's that it's not all terrible. I mean, a lot of it is kind of, you know, surrounded by the doom and gloom of, unfortunately, this pandemic that we're living in. But I also see a lot of really positive outcomes of just like seeing people rally, seeing people really stand by the folks that are coming in at a very difficult time. Having a lot of empathy for each other. And I'd love to know if there were any other pros that anyone here that has seen come out of such a really difficult transition into remote life. I really love that everyone's bringing their like authentic self. And now we aren't split up between who we are at work and who we are at home. And just, you know, just to see how normalized it's become to have like your dog or your kids or something happen while you're on camera. Yeah, it just really makes you understand that everyone's just human and everyone has these other lives outside of work. And I like how it's all blended together a little bit. I know other people probably find it a bit miserable, but I just appreciate, you know, my coworkers so much more when I see all that they deal with on a day to day. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. I personally love it when I see pets and kids. I feel like sometimes people feel self conscious like, oh, hold on, let me, let me scoot them away like no, I need to see this dog. One, one personal pro that I definitely found in all of this moving to remote work is that the candidate pool has expanded exponentially because we don't have to hire just in New York City where the New York Times is based or just in like some of the cities that we have bureaus in. We have so many other states, sometimes even countries that we can pull from really fantastic talent that maybe we didn't have available to us in the past. And, and this is truly important, I think, for just diversity of thought, making sure that we have many different perspectives in the room, many different backgrounds. And I think that really ties into my next question around diversity, equity and inclusion. I'd love to know how some of your companies are coming up with new strategies or constructing different processes for diversity, equity and inclusion and how that's helping to create a pipeline of underrepresented candidates that maybe we haven't had before. And Roshani, let's start with you. Sure, um, we have, you know, we have a whole slew of ways and options of which we're trying to tackle diversity right now and bringing more diverse candidates to the team. It's definitely top of mind and we've got the momentum, the societal momentum, right. And so, recruiting's always talked about it. But it kind of falls to deaf ears. But, you know, lately it's been at the top of everyone's mind and it's super important. And we want to build the best team. So, you know, actively sourcing, using tools like LinkedIn and Eightfold, having, you know, managers filter on Eightfold through location, opening roles remotely even, or employing such things as like the Rooney Rule, which is when you want to make sure you're interviewing, you know, at least three diverse candidates before making a hire, moving forward with a hire, slowing the process of hiring down a little bit. Like I said, things kind of sped up really fast because everything could be done so quickly and we wanted to slow it back down and make sure we're making conscious and intentional decisions on hiring. Even hosting webinars and online events, using things like GitHub and Stack Overflow and Twitter as sourcing tools as well. And yeah, I think all of that. Oh, having structured interviews. That's been huge recently for us as well and making sure that it's implemented across each role we're opening. And then also rolling out interview training to make sure that everyone knows and is confident in interviewing when they're talking to candidates as well. So those are two initiatives that we've also rolled out recently. Amazing. Thank you, Roshni, for that. Mariana, how about you? What's Twitter been doing? Yeah, so, so many things. One of the reasons why I decided to join Twitter was because I had worked in the inclusion and diversity space before and they were always on my radar as a company that really valued and put diversity and inclusion kind of at the forefront of their branding and of their culture. So one year later, the company has really lived that in so many different ways. I think just high level, one of the things they are really, really good at is it's a team effort. It's not just the responsibility of the inclusion and diversity department. It's really what we call one team. So it's just all hands on deck to really make diversity and inclusion work and not just on the recruitment side, but also on the inclusion piece. So some of the specific programming that we've been doing within recruiting is involving hiring managers and hiring teams as much as possible. So we have a fantastic group of people who have been doing diversity, like sourcing jams and just connecting with hiring managers to really help them understand and work together to expand the candidate pool. We also have a lot of transparency around where we're falling short and where we can use more improvement. And so we're not just kind of shooting blindly, but we know exactly what teams and how to target different candidates for certain teams. And then my team, what we do is we work with different sponsors like Latinas in Tech, like Afro Tech. And so one of the really fun things about our team is that we're still working with these different sponsors and conferences. We have all gone virtual. But it just really opens up the candidate pool, like you mentioned, to this global audience. And I guess I'll finish with Twitter. One of their initiatives, company-wide initiatives for the past couple years at least, has been to decentralize and to make Twitter a place where anyone can work from anywhere. And while that is very aspirational and we are taking the steps to get there by just looking at candidates that are not just in these tech hubs, but everywhere within the US and even globally in some cases. Amazing. Thank you, Mariana. I love the idea that this is diversity, equity, and inclusion. These are super important topics that are not just a hiring or recruiting or a talent inclusion task to undertake. It's something that we are all responsible for and we all have a part to play in it. So I'm glad to hear that Twitter definitely takes that to heart. I do want to, for the sake of time, move on to some other questions about applying to open roles, if that's okay with everyone. I want to start off by talking about one of the first ways that a recruiter or a hiring manager is going to know who you are, and that's usually resumes and cover letters. How can candidates highlight themselves out of, let's say, hundreds or maybe even thousands of applicants and present their best foot forward on their resumes and the cover letters? Jennifer, do you want to start us off? Sure. I'll start by being superbly transparent that Capital One doesn't use cover letters. And I'm really grateful for that because I remember agonizing about cover letters and trying to figure out what's in the resume, what's in the cover letter. I think a lot of places have moved away from cover letters. So step one, figure out if the place you're looking at requires a cover letter, because we don't need to agonize about something that's not going to transpire. So really just do your homework. What type of application process is it? For Capital One, we have a website, capitalonecareers.com, and everything's available there. You can go right now and see if there are roles open. For us, the reason we do that is because we want to make it as simple as possible so that way you can interview us. You're going to be committing your time to us, and we want to know that you want this job. So the things I always tell people are, go LinkedIn stalk people. Go find someone at the company that you're looking at and look at their background. What have they done? What's the language they use about the roles and the tasks that they do? Because that language will help you craft your resume or your cover letter or even your email, if you might email them. Understanding the nuances of language is really important because moving from industry to industry, there might be some nuances that are going to help you stand out. Because when recruiters or hiring managers are looking at resumes, they're skimming them because they've got a pile of them. And they want to go through them really quickly. So I always say, hey, make sure that your language is right and that you understand the process. And then the second step is, make sure you've got a resume that's appropriate to that organization and a generic enough LinkedIn where those things match. Because the likelihood is, if I'm interested in you, the first place I'm going to go is LinkedIn. And I'm going to go read additional information on you, see if we have any connections in common. And you're going to want to make sure that that information is resonant as well as what's in your resume. So making sure those things are compatible. But again, when you're looking for a particular role for a particular team, customizing that resume to showcase the skills that you held that are helpful to that role in the language in which that company talks is really helpful. Another trick, you can just go online and see if there's articles written about those teams and see, again, what do they talk about? How do they describe it? That will help you understand a little bit about the culture before you go in. For sure. Amazing tips. Thank you. One thing you said there is really important. Go online and LinkedIn stock everyone. So for all of our panelists, get ready to receive a bunch of LinkedIn messages after this. Roshani, how about you? How can a candidate stand out in their resume or their cover letters? I think there's some really simple things to keep top of mind. And I think people just tend to forget them. But, you know, keep your resume concise. Highlight your key achievements and experiences that are relevant to the role. Make sure you're reading the job description. And if that's the job you want, kind of work those words into your resume as well and showcase how you've had that experience previously in the roles you've held yourself. Make sure it's easy to follow. Make sure the format's correct. Make sure it's a PDF. Don't submit a .doc version because that can get really messy and it doesn't always upload correctly. Triple check for grammar and spelling typos. With how many candidates are on the market right now, detail orientation can be the difference between getting an interview or not. And then one thing we really, you know, don't look for and I see sometimes is just personal information. Keep all of that off your resume. There's no reason to include a picture or your marital status or what even the year you graduated college. Don't put it on your resume. And yeah, and make sure you're just really being diligent about reading the job description and using the similar kind of language in your resume if that's the role you want. And I recommend having multiple resumes, depending on the roles that you're applying to. That will make it stand out for sure. Awesome. And I think on the same thread of doing your research and being diligent and making sure that you are trying to find the best way in. Let's talk about how candidates can actually apply to these roles. Discovery makes it so that sometimes you are on social media when you find a role posting or maybe you know the company that you want to work for and check out their career page. Does anyone have any tips, advice, or anything that you want to say on how to effectively reach out to a candidate, either, sorry, a recruiter or a company directly when you're applying? Israel, if you have anything here. I'd love to hear it. Oh, I think Israel, we lost him. I can go while he Sure. While he unfreezes. Yeah, so obviously the pretty standard way is go on the company's career site, apply. But one of the kind of fun and creative ways that I like to think about a job search is, first of all, I feel like people should always have their feelers out there and be proactive with how their industry is doing. Is there a lot of hiring going on? What are the companies that are hiring a lot? And so just kind of having a pulse on what hiring looks like, even if you're not necessarily looking to make a move. And start being proactive with building those relationships. And in my career, a lot of the jobs that I've gotten have been because of referrals and people I've known at those companies. And so just connecting with people and not so much because you want something from them, but you can connect with people on LinkedIn or even DM them on Twitter, just because you think what they're doing is really cool. So keeping up with like the company blogs, any information coming from companies and and then like Like Jennifer said, just really going to their LinkedIn, looking at the projects they've worked on and asking them to learn more about the projects. And so that's kind of just my proactive approach to the job search and to always kind of knowing what's going on and who's hiring. I think along the lines of what Mariana just said, definitely use multiple avenues. So the career page is going to be your best bet for sure to make sure that your resume gets into the applicant tracking system and is with the company. But then to like take it a step further and to stick out and to stand out, you know, you can message people on LinkedIn, you can look up who the hiring manager is or Look up the heads of the departments and then the recruiter. So try three different ways of, you know, getting getting your resume to the top or try to see if there's someone that will refer you in the company. See if you have any connections on LinkedIn to people working at that company to Amazing. I think on this topic of connections. I know that back in the before times when I wanted to Find the right person to talk to about new opportunities. I would go to a conference or a meetup or some kind of event where there was an open bar and I could be surrounded by other people that were Excited to talk about the opportunities that they had. But of course, it's very difficult to do that now probably almost impossible and definitely not recommended What are the new ways in this remote world that you can meet new folks create connections with other people that maybe you don't know. Is it going to virtual events. Is it just cold calling sending LinkedIn messages would love it if anybody could jump in here. Also, welcome back Israel. Sorry that we lost you. Sorry about that. My Internet broke up. What was actually the question that you just asked here. We're talking about finding new ways to make connections with folks that maybe you don't know yet. Now that conferences meetups general events in person are not available. How can we shift that thinking and that strategy to a remote world. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to jump in, since I've working Internet now. But I mean organizations like Latinas in tech. There's a number of organizations in the space. There's places on meetup as well. All these virtual events are bringing together so many individuals who've been impacted in the recent months. And so this is an amazing opportunity to come in and network and hear from panelists directly who are working at other organizations and networking amongst this group as well. Like that's for starters, for anyone who's an active job seeker right now on the market. You're absolutely not alone. I have a lot of colleagues from previous organizations and even friends as well who've been impacted by This pandemic and they're very transparent on LinkedIn about it, talking about their experience being furloughed or laid off. And it just creates a safe conversation, whether it be on a platform like LinkedIn or or any other social platform to talk about their experience being laid off and there's someone who is in a position like us to be able to help them Either with our organization or introduce them to, you know, someone at Twitter or Capital One or Cloudflare. So it's a it's a great opportunity to just dial into these events. Can I build on what Israel said, because I think that's really important. Not necessarily. I think that the negative refrain was like put yourself out there as if like it's You know, even though I love my job because I'm maybe there's this new thing that I'm unaware of that where my skills and this moment in time collide. Right. So being comfortable being open and listening to people and asking people questions, I think is really important. And it's so much easier when you can go up to a bar and like start talking to someone while we're waiting for Rosé But you can also email people you can DM them. You can like Mariana said, I'm really excited about your project. You're like you just tweeted out about it. It seems really awesome. Can you tell me more about that when you're sincere when you're authentic. That's what builds a relationship. And that's why when you're in line at a bar waiting for a drink that authenticity shows I fully believe that authenticity can show on social media in email. But you have to start the dialogue and be okay with the fact that like you might send 10 of these and one person writes back, but you just need one. You know, and like having that comfort in yourself to go try because you are sincerely interested, whether it's in a role, whether it's in a type of work someone's doing or simply like something someone shared online. All of those things ladder up to a larger community. And I think if the pandemic has taught us anything is we are more connected than we ever knew. And that we could access each other if we really wanted to. And the world has slowed down in a manner that they can break that. And that's the surprising part. I absolutely love that sentiment. I love the idea of staying curious and putting yourselves out there and Maybe making the first move, even though sometimes it's going to be uncomfortable and you may not get the results that you want, but you never know until you try it. So thank you for that. I'd love to also switch the conversation over to another part of job hunting, which is not necessarily you're like full time professional career, but also students looking for internships. We are now at approaching quickly the end of the year, about the time when a lot of students start looking for internships. Does anybody here have some advice or anything they'd like to say to any students that are currently either looking for internships or wondering how even remote internship programs might work. Roshani, I feel like you have some insight here. Yeah, we had a huge intern program this year. We actually doubled our internships at Cloudflare when we heard other companies were Cutting internships because of the pandemic. So we ended up having around 80 interns this past summer. You know, I really recommend that people look at internships as a trial. It's your opportunity to test something and take a risk. So Look for things that you know you you might like, but then also look for things that you might not know anything about and take a risk and learn something new. Try things you don't like You may not know if you're interested in design or product management versus coding. Be open minded. You know, you can also see the different types of companies that are providing internships. You've got your fang companies like Facebook and Apple and Google, or you could go to smaller companies. You know, like Cloudflare and you should learn and understand how those types of companies with the different levels of people approach internships. You know, something at Google may be way more structured, whereas at Cloudflare your project could mean a lot more and have a higher impact. All the interns created something this summer that they were able to ship. They worked on projects that we didn't have enough people for so their projects actually made a huge impact at Cloudflare. Or you could go somewhere that's less than 50 people to, you know, and have a very less unstructured version of an internship experience as well. Where there may not be enough people to mentor you. So you have to take take all those things into account when you're exploring internships. But at the end of the day, it should be something that you know you can come out of saying that you're proud of doing and showcase that you learn something new and showcase that you had a skill set that you developed. And then you can try something new. The next time as well. So definitely, those are like things I would take into consideration when considering internships. That's fantastic. I love staying on the thread of being open minded trying new things. Thank you for that Roshni. I'd also love it if we could chat specifically about What your companies are offering in terms of internship programs and Israel. I know that the New York Times has a fantastic internship program wink wink nudge nudge to anybody looking for an internship next year. Could you tell everybody what we do over at the Times? Yeah, absolutely. So we're actually going to be kicking off intern hiring in about two weeks or so, three weeks, so it's Already underway and budgets for next year are already being looked at. But for the summer of 2021 we will aim to have roughly around 60 interns covering Non tech tech and newsroom functions. And within the interim program. Again, you know, really, the goal here is to provide Our interns with work that they can be able to complete from A to Z. It's a hands on experience for them, something that they could actually take away and something that's tangible to add to their resume. And also for an opportunity to for them to learn a little bit more closely of what it's really, you know, like to work at a fast paced moving company. Especially I could say for some of the interns that I've had an opportunity to speak with this past summer. It was obviously really interesting being an intern remotely in a pandemic while taking care of yourself. And so there's a lot of ways for There's a lot of ways that we shifted our intern program this past summer to accommodate that and I'm sure a lot of that will roll over to next year as well. But yeah, we will start hiring some point this month so That's super exciting as someone who currently manages an intern. I absolutely love working with her. I feel like she's had such a great opportunity to Work really closely with our engineers and see the work that she's done on the New York Times website. So anybody out there who is looking for some hands on work, definitely check us out. Mariana, I know that Twitter probably also has some amazing internship programs that they offer. Can you tell us a little bit about those Absolutely. So Twitter is also hiring our internship program for 2021 the applications will open. I believe in October. So people anyone interested can stay up to date by going to our career site, but we also pivoted all of our interns to complete Completely virtual this summer. So our university recruiting team did a phenomenal job at creating programming and Events virtual events to really make it so that they weren't really missing out on much there. There were a ton of different programs going on just to help with team building every Intern gets a mentor, which is really awesome. So aside from their manager. They also have a mentor to guide them along the whole process. They also had, I believe, more check ins just to ensure that the whole process was going well, given that they weren't in the office and around everyone Another thing that's really cool that I would love to talk about is our employee resource groups. They are the life and energy and culture of Twitter and they have also done a phenomenal job at programming for everyone at the company, but I know there were a few Events virtual events for interns specifically to have additional mentoring to have virtual onboarding breakfast. So Yeah, there, there's a lot of opportunities to stay connected and to have a full well rounded experience. Awesome. I love a good just morning breakfast with a bunch of pals hanging out on zoom with a cool background definitely down for it. I want to shift gears here a little bit because we only have a few minutes left. And I think maybe one question that I'll try to move everything into In terms of the actual interview. There are a lot of different things that could influence how you go into an interview, what you're doing the questions that you're asked. If we could talk about some of your top tips for interviewing remotely, whether that's some interview etiquette or how you can convey your emotions or just really Express the work that you've done. What could you tell our audience for how they can be really successful during a remote interview. And Jennifer. How about we start with you. Totally. Um, I think having a successful interview starts with you being comfortable and confident. And, you know, like that sounds a little cliche, but if you're nervous, concerned, it's going to show. So like I do the baselines. You had to do your homework right you did your homework because you're in the interview. The resume was good. You said the right things on the chats right like you're in that interview know that you deserve to be there. The step one is like give yourself that pat on the back and recognize you're there. And then for everyone. What makes you comfortable is totally different for me. It's like I wear animal print. I'm on Like that's a little bit about who I am. It tells my personality. It tells like me that I'm like comfortable being fully myself in this moment. Maybe for you. That might not be it. Whatever that is for you. Like, don't be bashful and showing that because I think one that allows you to sit comfortably in your own seat, but then it also like tells a story about yourself. Next, there's just some very basics around Internet. Internet can be spotty. So the thing I always tell people is make sure you've got someone's phone number. Whether it's the recruiter, the coordinator, because it could be your Internet. It could be their Internet, frankly, who knows anymore. Right, like these moments happen. So you want to be able to call someone not on the Internet. To actually help you. And that's a really simple thing you can do and just have it right there, ready to go. Because in that moment, you're going to panic. So you want to override the panic. You want to know what you're going to do in a chaotic moment. So that way when the chaos comes you calmly act. And I think that's a lot about keeping your cool. So assume something bad is going to happen. I don't want to say that, but like just assume your Internet is going to go out. Like be ready to handle that in the moment. So if it does happen, you can do it. And then finally, the next thing I do is always check to make sure the other person can hear you. Sometimes you can't tell. So if you haven't heard your partner say something in a while, just check in and you can do it very politely and simply making sure that you're maintaining that rapport and dialogue is super helpful. Amazing. Yeah, thank you for all of those. Those are all great. And many of those are things that I should probably do in my normal interviews as the hiring manager. So I will take some of them and adjust them for the interview. Yeah, just take them out when you need them. Roshani, how about you? Can you tell us one tip that you can give to someone who is going into remote interviews? Yeah, I mean everything Jennifer just said. Make sure you're in a well-lighted room. Make sure your background is, you know, not too busy. Be somewhere where someone can see you well. Be aware of your body language. Make sure that you're looking at the camera when you're speaking to the person, your camera set up correctly. Try the Hangout or Zoom link ahead of time. Make sure it works. And if it doesn't, then email the recruiting team that you're working with and let them know like, hey, I'd love to hop on this link with you just real quick. Do you have five minutes today? Just check it out and test it. You know, recruiting teams would be more than happy to do that with you and make sure because we want things to go well on our end as well. So, you know, something as simple as that. And then always do your research on the person and make sure you're able to connect on a personal level, especially because we are over camera these days. So make sure you're looking people up on LinkedIn. Make sure you know their background, what they've done. Be able to speak to it. Also just clarify that the person you're speaking with is the person that was sent to you in the schedule. You know, there's a lot of scheduling going on. Panel members can change. People are out of office. They're not feeling well. So always just be like, hey, yeah, like just to confirm you're so -and-so, right, as a candidate. That's super important as well. Instead of calling the person the wrong name the whole time, the interviewer should correct you as well. That's a tip we give internally too. And then, yeah, I think having that phone, that was going to be one of my tips for sure is make sure you have a phone handy. And make sure you're, you know, you can email the recruiting team right away or call the coordinator right away and say, hey, don't panic. Take a deep breath. Technical glitches happen. It's okay. People are more understanding these days. Interviews can always be rescheduled. So don't freak out and just keep your cool and make sure you over communicate. Amazing. Thank you. That tip about making sure you know who you're talking to is very important. I have definitely made that mistake many times. I would love to keep hearing some more tips and tricks for interviewing. Unfortunately, we are just about out of time for the panel and we're going to move into some audience submitted questions. If you'd like to submit your questions, don't forget you can submit them to live studio at Cloudflare.tv and we'll go ahead and try and get through as many as we can. First question I have from the audience. I think, Jennifer, maybe you could pop in and speak to this the best given your background. The question is coming from a non tech background. What were some of the adversities that you faced switching into the tech sector? I never imagined I would be in technology. And part of that was just my own perception of myself. I came from a creative field and it was physical goods. So I made furniture. I made jewelry. I made all these things that did not use electronics. And then moving into a world of software and technology was personally like something I had to overcome. We talk a lot about imposter syndrome of am I skilled enough to do this? And I'd argue that was the biggest deterrent from entering into the world than anything else. When I moved into technology 10-ish years ago, I realized I was just using the skills I already had in a different manner. And I think that is one of the greatest things one can learn is like you have so many skills that you can apply to technology you just haven't yet. And the best thing you can do is try and fail and then pick yourself back up and the next time it will be better. So I always think like if you haven't had that experience, it's just a yet. And it's your duty to figure out how do you test and learn your way into it. When I advise like people that are trying to transfer into technology or design, I always say go give yourself a project. Don't wait for someone else to grant you, anoint you with the ability to go do it. Give yourself that chance so that way when you go to the plate, you feel excited and confident knowing that you've overcome something to get there and you're not waiting for anyone else's approval. And I think that's the biggest thing when you're entering into technology from a non-technical field is like you're just desperately waiting for someone to like you. Don't do that. Amazing. I love that. I'd also like to add as a hiring manager, I absolutely love seeing folks from non-technical backgrounds making their way into technology. Again, diversity of thought is super important diversity of perspectives and I always try to build well-rounded teams and not always having someone who is a computer science major or someone who has gone to that top Ivy League school. Those are not the things that matter to me. It's the person and sometimes it's the background and sometimes it's their perspectives and what they bring to the table. So definitely don't let that stop you from applying for a job or interviewing or anything like that. I want to quickly add, Yorama, if I can, what was mentioning, especially if you're coming from a non-tech background and making your transition into a technical role. And let's say you have a lot of those foundational skill sets, but you just don't have that experience. Just like Jennifer said, like absolutely find those extracurricular projects and add them on. But let's say once you get past that initial hiring manager screen and you're in the technical assessment, a lot of what I work with and with my hiring managers is all around how you're able to problem solve through that technical assessment. So let's say you may not have three out of the four technical skill sets that we're looking for in a particular technical based role, but you can think critically, you can problem solve effectively. That often enough will help carry you over into being successful with us. So that's really just the other aspect to this audience that I want to let you all know if you're looking to make that transition from non -tech to tech, really think about how you want to problem solve and think critically during these technical assessments. Yeah, thank you so much for saying that Israel. That's so important to emphasize there. I think this is a really great question, and I'm going to pose this to anybody on the panel. Are hiring practices more scrutinized now that we are remote? Are the stakes higher to land a job than they were before we went into quarantine? And please feel free to just jump in. I will say for Cloudflare, you know, the number of applicants we've been receiving has just skyrocketed through quarantine. And so I think in that way, it has become a bit hard, like, we'll open a role and then three days later, there'll be 300 resumes and that never used to happen that quickly. So, you know, it is easier to get lost in the mix. It is harder to go through 300 resumes. So please be patient with recruiting teams while we try to do that. And then, yeah, I mean, it is harder to stand out because there are that many more people looking right now for roles. So make sure you do those projects, make sure you connect on LinkedIn, make sure you try other avenues outside of just submitting a resume as well. And on top of that as well, even if you apply for a role and the market is incredibly saturated right now with job seekers, but let's say you don't get that call, don't feel discouraged. You know, at least for me and some of the groups that I manage, I still look at recs that I closed in February and March and April to see what other candidates applied back then that could be great now. So it's really just about building those relationships at first and you really never know how they continue to blossom from there. One thing that I would like to add as well is that while the job market is, I mean, it's definitely saturated, right, there's way more people looking for jobs. At the same time, I think trying to understand, like, who are the companies that are hiring? Like Twitter's user base has grown significantly. And while we reprioritize hiring, we're still going to ramp up hiring for the rest of the year because we need it to run our platform. And so definitely pay attention to those companies like Twitter, like Zoom, like Slack that are most likely continuous, still continuing their hiring and probably hiring more than before. So definitely, like, keep in touch with those companies like Israel, you mentioned, and so many companies are having virtual events and you have access to these virtual events for free from your room. So take advantage of all these opportunities to really connect with companies. Make sure to keep up with the tech news. Make sure you're reading blogs every day. You know, it's a great way to keep up with who's hiring and who's looking for more people. For sure. Absolutely. I think maybe one last question is what we have time for and it piggybacks off of what we're talking about here with making connections with people, trying to network in a remote environment. Are there any networking events that y'all know of that are happening this year or maybe even next year that our audience should know about and save the date so that they can go ahead and participate? One that's not quite a networking event, although I think of it as such as the Grace Hopper Conference for Women. Capital One has been a big supporter of it for a really long time. I'm so excited it's going virtual. It is a massive opportunity for students and there's lots of ways to get access as a student. One, I'll just call out, it's amazing to be, whether it's virtually or in real life, in a room with like thousands of women in technology and just like the hype that comes from that is a great thing. But there's so much built into that community that that's a great opportunity to go learn, but then also meet up with other people. And there's so many ways to do it with Grace Hopper. So if you've never been or don't know about it, that's something I highly recommend. We're going to be there and I'm really excited about it. It's great to hear. Yeah, so Twitter is going to be at Grace Hopper as well. Super excited. Maybe I'll see you there, Jennifer. In addition to Grace Hopper, we also partner with Afro Tech. We've been going every year. It's typically in October here in the Bay Area. I believe they're going virtual. I hope they are. So that's a huge opportunity to tap into different companies who sponsor Afro Tech and then there's also Next Play. They specifically are for a community of black and brown engineers, technical folks. And so we do partner with them as well. And obviously it's welcome to everyone, but yeah, I think those those two events are coming up in the fall and I can share my information later, but I'm happy if you want to follow me on Twitter. I'll have information about our events as well. Twitter has their own curated events, several different series coming up in the fall. So yeah, lots of fun stuff coming up. Thank you so much for that, Mariana. And of course, don't forget, if you haven't already registered, go to latinasintech.org slash register and you will be signed up for a fantastic organization. They hold events like these all the time. So you'll be in the know for when these kinds of events hit the Internet and you can jump in and start meeting some new people and networking or just like have a good time. I think that about wraps it up for us. Unfortunately, we are out of time. What I'd love to end on here is this is a very unique time that we're living through. It's very difficult for many, many different reasons. And on top of that, there are a lot of folks that are looking for jobs, possibly in stressful situations. I truly encourage you all to take what all of our panelists here have said to heart. Try to use some of their tips and tricks. They will be super helpful for you. Maybe take some of that stress off. But most importantly, take care of yourselves. Prioritize your well-being. Take care of each other and your loved ones. And don't forget, definitely LinkedIn stalk all of these folks. You can LinkedIn stalk me. Join Latinas in Tech.org. And thank you so much to our sponsors, Capital One, Twitter, Cloudflare, and the New York Times for having us. This was a fantastic opportunity to get together and learn a little bit more about interviewing and the job hunt process. So thank you to all of our panelists. Thank you to Latinas in Tech and thank you to our sponsors. Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.