Community Growth: The Career Booster That Doesn't Go on Your Resume

Joanne Skiles[00:00]
Hi everybody, welcome back to Her Career Unplugged, the podcast where you get to build your own career playbook. your host Joanne.

Vimala Pydi[00:08]
I'm your co-host Vimala Pydi

Joanne Skiles[00:11]
And today we are talking about something very important in your career journey that does not actually show up on your resume. And that's community growth. personally, I am probably on the extreme spectrum side of like really involved in the community. I've run AWS user group meetups in Orlando. I'm also the vice president of the Orlando devs, which is a nonprofit group that runs a bunch of meetups, I go to women entrepreneur meetups as well and go to as many conferences as I possibly can. And I would say like, I'm probably like that extreme person that you don't need to follow what I do and do what I do because that's probably the crazy woman, but it's very important to me. then Vimala, you also do a lot within the community, right?

Vimala Pydi[01:02]
Yes, yes, Joanne. And when you were saying, what is that limit of doing the community service, I was just thinking about that as well. That's how we meet as well right? I do go to a of the community events locally in Orlando, Florida, and also go in to many — through work. I do go volunteer, try to be plugged into the communities. One of the nicest thing and a great story that we have is I met Joanne through AWS user groups in Orlando. We connected instantly just to give you a background. We were trying to pull this up from about two to three years. She was leading it. I was helping her. There was pretty much zero activity within the user group. Joanne did a tremendous job. staying plugged in for almost three years now. We were meeting weekly. We were trying to bring in the community, build a tech space within Orlando. And Joanne, like you can go ahead and tell some stories, but I feel like we have to really do a pat on our backs because from zero to running a game day that's coming in a few days.

Joanne Skiles[02:13]
Yeah, yeah, from zero to running basically a re-event style game day, which is going to happen in less than two weeks.

Vimala Pydi[02:18]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[02:20]
So we have exploded significantly and in itself, it's like its own little success story, and actually that goes into the topic we started this thing from zero, getting all these people to come in. And the first step that you have to show someone is do you actually need to be involved with the community? Right?

Vimala Pydi[02:39]
the why Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[02:41]
And that's something that really like, it's tough. I would say it's really tough not to stereotype us engineers, but it's really tough for engineers because a lot of engineers like to just keep their head down and code and be, you know, indoor cats. And women specifically,

Vimala Pydi[02:55]
engineers and women specifically Joanne.

Joanne Skiles[02:58]
because on top of that, going in and now going into an extremely male dominant field and going to a meetup is I will get it. I will be honest. I did not get involved in the community until I was actually really far along in my career. actually to be fair I got involved now that I'm thinking about it when I became a professor the first time And that was because I started making educational content on YouTube and Amazon reached out to me to be involved in their community. Until that moment. Nothing.

Vimala Pydi[03:38]
I know. actually my story is a little different. I gravitate towards the community socially or with tech space to just to keep me going. When my daughter was little, used at the time I was a Java developer, I was going to Java user group in Orlando. But the biggest mistake is I would just go in, learn, come out, not talk

Joanne Skiles[04:01]
Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[04:01]
to anyone.

Joanne Skiles[04:02]
And actually, that's the biggest failure that a lot of people have with communities. then that's where you say community involvement isn't worth it. If you play, I know I called it play, but it is kind of a game in life that way. If you play the game in life where you go in and you just consume and you don't actually give back, you're not going to actually end up getting anything out of it later on. So then people say community involvement. isn't worth it and it's not useful for your career. But there are so many opportunities that come from being part of a community. one, all the speaking opportunities and invites that I have gotten are because I'm part of a community. Every job that I've had has been a networking opportunity. the last few jobs, I didn't ever apply to the job. that's, I mean,

Vimala Pydi[04:54]
That's amazing.

Joanne Skiles[04:55]
that's from a community. we have an amazing podcast right now, right?

Vimala Pydi[05:00]
Yeah, which would lead to staying in touch, networking, and also where I am in my career right now, I think leading with a purpose is important for me. And for me to go and build this podcast with a purpose to help women and women of color and just underrepresented women within tech community to come in, it came out of, it is born through my networking through the community events. That's where I met you and we just started casually talking about it. It keeps us going with that purpose that we have and also keeping each other motivated, right? Podcasting not

Joanne Skiles[05:43]
Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[05:43]
easy. We were just talking about it before this. The organization, going in, building this for the community and going really into all the platforms consumes time. And we have each other to motivate each other.

Joanne Skiles[05:57]
And those are the unexpected moments, right? Because you don't know what you are actually going to get until you're in on it, right? Like,

Vimala Pydi[06:07]
Right?

Joanne Skiles[06:08]
I am very involved, with wanting to empower women, empower younger girls in coding, and to meet someone else that feels the exact same way, but... A little bit different, right? Because like I'm so narrow minded in tech, but you're over here and you're like, no, not just tech. And you're 100 % right. Not just tech. But that expanded my horizons and my thought processes that it's not just tech. And that's the moments that surprise you and gives you your own individual growth.

Vimala Pydi[06:40]
That is very true. Especially talking to people, you get ideas, whether it's entrepreneurship, whether you want to be within the same role, but stay put, keep surviving. Or if you want to really get on, take on, go to that next level of your career. Whatever your goals are, you'll definitely feel people within that similar space. When you go out, do that outreach within the community, at least That's my experience with the community. I do go to our user groups. I do run a woman at Solutions Architect within our space here at my work. do go to women. Joanne, actually, you motivated me to go to that entrepreneurs, women circles that we had, which was, that was amazing. When I walked in, was a little hesitant. talking about our podcast, but I think after some time we started talking about it and just that motivation, the encouragement that we got from all the POs there, it was worth it. That meeting was definitely worth it. Thank you so much for motivating me to go at six o'clock workday, traffic. So many things run on our mind, right? It's not easy if you're.

Joanne Skiles[08:07]
No, it's not easy. I think the hardest part is getting yourself out of the house.

Vimala Pydi[08:12]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[08:14]
And I'm sure like, and actually that's, that's actually a good point because you know what? You don't have to jump into the deep end and go to the meetup at the random restaurant. as like your first experience if you've never gotten involved in the community. Your community actually can be a lot closer. When you were talking about it, would realize you were saying career growth, things that move your career faster. And if you're in a larger company, if you're at a larger company right now, your company probably has internal groups, So those employee resource groups, I used to work for Capital one, a long time ago. They have like every single resource group you can imagine. So, but smaller companies can probably have it too. There's tech guilds if you're, you know, a techie person. There's leadership groups. There's mentorship opportunities internally. And that might be less scary than going externally.

Vimala Pydi[09:12]
Right, right. That's a great point because I've been in this industry for a while and love in different companies. I realized that I needed to be part of women in technology when I was working back in Oracle. Just because every meeting I went to, most of the work that I did, it was male dominated. But, also like to have someone who is experiencing the same moments in life. Like I had a little kid, my husband was traveling, like whatever my limitations were, I wanted to talk to someone who were to be in the same path. that's a very good point. I did join Women in Tech in Orlando for Oracle. that opened up so many opportunities. I was able to go do some workshops in UCF, actually take that workshop to my daughter's school too, which was really, really cool, like going in, talking to kindergartners at the time on cloud technologies. It was amazing. And there were a few girls who were really inspired by that talk. And then that led me to really look into internal social networks that you can build and help within your career progression to find those mentors, to find those sponsors.

Joanne Skiles[10:36]
Yeah. So I started externally, we like, we'd be honest here. I started externally being a professor going into the AWS community builder, very much like just jumped into the deep end and be honest, like. You guys might not believe it, but I tend to be more introverted than extroverted. I'm just really good at pretending to be extroverted. I've gotten it down to a science, but that was really like insane moment. But when I went back into industry I found communities within the companies that I worked at. So we had women in tech groups. We had just technology guilds. That's why I brought up the technology guilds earlier. We had tech guilds. I started like an observability group, which probably sounds pretty boring. And actually, as I say, it sounds boring, but it's really important because when something breaks in prod at midnight, you kind of want to know what broke. Yes.

Vimala Pydi[11:35]
Yeah, absolutely important. Absolutely important.

Joanne Skiles[11:40]
So those are those little moments, but yeah, like I actually really enjoyed that. And that's what got me into liking organizing because I would start working with the women in tech group and then they'd be like, hey, can you help with maybe running this tiny little portion? And then over time I'm like, I can run this somewhere else, you know?

Vimala Pydi[12:02]
Yeah, No, actually, when you said you were an introvert, I just want to say that too, so that other women hear it out. I'm an introvert. I get nervous with public speaking. I still do it. I take it as a challenge. But usually before going in and doing the presentations, I'm little nervous. I think being nervous is good, but just going and putting yourself out there. I feel if I can do it, anyone can do it.

Joanne Skiles[12:32]
that's probably, I mean, I'm assuming for others why people don't go out and get involved with the community is that step of just, my God, I have to go outside and talk to people.

Vimala Pydi[12:45]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[12:46]
It sounds horrifying, but it's not horrifying

Vimala Pydi[12:49]
Right?

Joanne Skiles[12:50]
because everybody out there that's going to that meetup, we're all there because we want to go out. We want to learn. We want to be part of the community. So everybody there feels the same way.

Vimala Pydi[13:04]
That is actually you should say it again, right? Like 80 % of the people who are out there are nervous introverts and positive.

Joanne Skiles[13:12]
Yeah, you're nervous. You feel that you might not belong. You are scared and

Vimala Pydi[13:19]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[13:20]
and you're outside of your element because you kind of just have to push yourself out there. And you know what? Everybody is feeling the exact same way. So actually, the most important thing is just like that's why there's the that's where us as the community organizers come in. If we know everybody's feeling that way. So we come in and we kind of just Hey, I'm Joanne, what do you do? You know, what do you do? Someone will tell

Vimala Pydi[13:45]
Yes, yeah.

Joanne Skiles[13:47]
you something about their job and then, and don't worry because that's my job at this point. It's like, what do do? You tell me I'm a software engineer and then I'm going to ask a controversial question because I want to make sure to get you warmed up. And like controversial, not like a,

Vimala Pydi[14:02]
Yeah, yeah.

Joanne Skiles[14:03]
but if I'm a software engineer, how do you feel about, you know, the recent release with, you know, the latest? or something to that

Vimala Pydi[14:10]
effect, you know, if it was an AI meetup, be, I want to ask a random AI question at a non AI meetup. But those are those moments. Like everybody feels that way. And this is a totally different topic that we're not going to get into, but like that is like now like the art of being a host.

Vimala Pydi[14:31]
Right. Right.

Joanne Skiles[14:32]
And, but that's okay. So the most important thing to remember is you are not alone. Everybody else feels that way and is just as nervous — I was running a Orlando Lady Devs group a couple of weeks ago — and — the girl came in and she goes, — I — made myself put on makeup. because at that point I couldn't say, I'm not going, I already put on the makeup. And I'm like, that's the trick. Like if you gotta

Vimala Pydi[15:03]
next week.

Joanne Skiles[15:04]
get yourself dressed, you gotta get yourself dressed two hours before the event so that you don't flake out on yourself because that's what you're doing. You're flaking out on yourself if you choose not to go.

Vimala Pydi[15:15]
Right, you need to figure those elements out, right? Like just get rest two hours before, which would push you to go. Put it on the calendar or whatever your element is to get you out of the house. You need to figure that out and then the rest will come by itself. And also remember 80%, like if you want the data point, 80 % of the people there are in the similar boat as you. They might be introverts, they might be scared. There might be extroverts like speaking too much out of their way too. That's okay. If you're worried about that, that's fine. This is like usually a safe space. Community is a safe space that you can build yourself.

Joanne Skiles[15:58]
Yes. Yes, it is a safe space because

Vimala Pydi[16:01]
at least

Joanne Skiles[16:02]
for me, I am very protective of my communities and I do not let anything become a non safe space. It's all about growth and everybody is at different points in their lives and we're at different points in our journeys. And that's actually what's so exciting is that you're going to go there and you'll meet someone who's like a baby in the field and it's amazing because they're going out and they're making themselves ready and, you know, trying to learn as much as they can. And then you meet the person who, who's seen it all, lived through it all, has the war stories around it. And it's just, it's reassuring because they're going to say the same things that we're saying right now is, yeah,

Vimala Pydi[16:47]
visiting them.

Joanne Skiles[16:48]
we've been there. Everybody's been there. It's, it's, you know, a rite of passage in a way.

Vimala Pydi[16:53]
Yes, yes. I know, I think before we go into our next segment, I have a story to add on to what Joanne said where community helped her, the networking helped her to go land in those jobs. Within our AWS user group, there is one of the gentlemen who is trying to get into this space very early in his career. He reached out to me specifically, but there are others, other experienced people within the community that that you can really reach out to, see if they're open to a mentoring. I've seen this gentleman really working through game days, working through hackathons, really winning it, learning from almost three years. And he just reached out saying, hey, there is a job opportunity within your company. Do you mind sending a recommendation? You have seen me, you have seen my work. I can provide whatever I've done. And I'm open to do that. That is the of the story.

Joanne Skiles[17:51]
Yeah, and I mean, but that's exactly the point. There's so many things by going out there. And honestly, really in the year 2026, I'm just going to be honest here, like the way that you're going to get your resume to stand out is a reference. I'm not saying go to communities just to build the networking to get references, but you never know when that opportunity comes along. And, and like I said before, where I've most of the jobs now in my later my career I've not applied to is because people that I've networked with, they would message me and go, hey, I got a director of engineering job here. Like, would I really like you? Would you like to like come here? And so you never know what's going to open a door. And... Life should be now, I will say there are doors that are supposed to be closed in life and you can close those doors, but you should open as many doors as you

Vimala Pydi[18:52]
Yay.

Joanne Skiles[18:52]
can.

Vimala Pydi[18:53]
Totally agree, Those are like words of wisdom for sure, those three when you're saying like, you can close some doors, but you always have to be open to like other opportunities that you have out there.

Joanne Skiles[19:09]
So we talked a lot about what you get out of the community. How, you know, you're listening right now and maybe you've not even been involved. So how do you start? Right? Well, thankfully websites for this. you can start internally, right? We talked about that. You can join internal user groups. If your company has those employee resource groups, go there, get involved in a woman in leadership, woman in tech, or, you know, just a standard leadership channel, anything there. If that exists, you know, that's on your company Slack or something to that effect.

Vimala Pydi[19:40]
I want to add on there, Joanne, just not like our company, is an enterprise at a bigger scale, but we do have... There are a lot of these social networks that you can internally be joining, which is not even tech. Like if you

Joanne Skiles[19:57]
Yes.

Vimala Pydi[19:57]
want an affinity group to wherever, like for example, Asian Women is one of the groups.

Joanne Skiles[20:04]
Yes.

Vimala Pydi[20:04]
So subscribe, grow your network through that, right? Like just wanted

Joanne Skiles[20:07]
Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[20:08]
to add on to that.

Joanne Skiles[20:09]
Yeah, no, you're right. Another way is there are sites like Meetup, right? That's like I run Meetup groups. Meetup, you can go in there, you put in your zip code. You can find the groups that are within your area. mean, it does not even need to be a career meetup. Like, go ahead, join the local Pickleball group. You know, you never know. You might meet someone in Pickleball that's like happens to be like a CEO of some random company. You never know. So like putting yourself out there.

Vimala Pydi[20:43]
I am in a running And it's a woman only. We do have a lawyer in there. We do have a woman who runs the company. And there is an event planner too. So there's this conversation I had with the host where she said, I never hired a lawyer. I never hired an event planner. I hired all these wonderful women who were helping me out.

Joanne Skiles[21:03]
amazing.

Vimala Pydi[21:03]
Thank

Joanne Skiles[21:04]
I need to join my running group, I guess, and meet some event planners, which actually goes in the next part. If you've already done stuff and you're part of the community, maybe it's the next step now. Volunteer to help with an event or organize a small part of the meetup. I'm to be honest with you. I pray every day that someone will volunteer to help me. Organizers do want the help, so don't worry. We do not brush it off. We are very grateful for any help because a lot of these meetups run on volunteering.

Vimala Pydi[21:38]
Yes, totally agree on that.

Joanne Skiles[21:40]
All right, we had a lot of serious conversation. Let's

Vimala Pydi[21:42]
See you later.

Joanne Skiles[21:42]
wrap it up with a lighter ending here. Our rapid fire.

Vimala Pydi[21:47]
I have a perfect question for you, Joanne. I want to start off if you're ready for the rapid fire. Okay, all right. Worst networking opener you've ever heard.

Joanne Skiles[22:02]
I got the funny one, I got the true one, so I'll go with the true one. is,

Vimala Pydi[22:05]
Okay.

Joanne Skiles[22:06]
hey, are you single?

Vimala Pydi[22:09]
yeah, especially if you're in a career focused networking group. Don't ask.

Joanne Skiles[22:16]
It's those moments where I'm like, I put my hand up like this so everybody can like kind of see like, oh, try to like make that ring very obvious.

Vimala Pydi[22:26]
Yeah, and it depends. Like I'm from India, we don't have a ring to show that we're married and I don't like jewelry. Like if you see I usually don't

Joanne Skiles[22:35]
Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[22:35]
wear jewelry. Okay, yeah, not a good one.

Joanne Skiles[22:40]
Not a good one. Yeah. So don't be that person. Unless it's a dating, but hopefully they would be.

Vimala Pydi[22:46]
yeah yeah yeah

Joanne Skiles[22:49]
All right. Mine's a little nicer. Coffee chat or lunch meeting.

Vimala Pydi[22:55]
I would just because I'm pressed for time I do travel and work and there's like usually people would want to meet during the business days I go with a coffee meetup if they are strangers maybe if I

Joanne Skiles[23:10]
Yes.

Vimala Pydi[23:11]
know them more I am okay to go in for a lunch

Joanne Skiles[23:14]
Right there with you. I do lots of coffee meetups with strangers, not lunch with strangers.

Vimala Pydi[23:20]
Right. I was going back to the previous question. You said you had two.

Joanne Skiles[23:28]
okay, the joke one. Okay, so worst networking opener you've ever heard is the question. The

Vimala Pydi[23:33]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[23:33]
joke one, but it's not really a joke is true. Hey, I have a podcast.

Vimala Pydi[23:38]
Okay, I'll remember that.

Joanne Skiles[23:43]
I don't have enough fingers on my hands for the amount of times I've heard that one,

Vimala Pydi[23:47]
another question, LinkedIn messaging or email?

Joanne Skiles[23:52]
God, I hate both so much. guess it depends if I've emailed you before then maybe I'll email. Otherwise, it's a LinkedIn message. Just know that any LinkedIn message I have ever sent someone, if you're listening and you've received like a LinkedIn message from me first, I probably sat there in anxiety for like an hour before I hit send. So yes.

Vimala Pydi[24:18]
I'm the same too, LinkedIn message if I don't know them or email them personally otherwise email but mostly LinkedIn message I'm little different in that aspect I feel like it's quicker so I just send in a message

Joanne Skiles[24:35]
All right. Big conference or small meetup.

Vimala Pydi[24:39]
That's a good one, actually. It depends on what you're looking for. If I'm trying to network, small meetups, I feel, more impactful where you are able to talk to people. Big conferences, I'm talking about like re-invents or DC summits, whichever we have been to. It's hard to network with people. You have to be very intentional, check, get on their calendars, find that and go. So small meetups is my answer to that.

Joanne Skiles[25:11]
Yeah, small meetups are my jam.

Vimala Pydi[25:13]
All right, last question. First thing you do when you walk into a networking event, it's similar to the other one, but it's the other side.

Joanne Skiles[25:22]
First thing I do, okay, it depends on how big the networking event is. So there are some where I walk in and I will stand socially awkward. But

Vimala Pydi[25:32]
Thank

Joanne Skiles[25:33]
if there is a bar, the first thing I do is I go up to the bar and get a glass of wine and then I am ready for the networking event.

Vimala Pydi[25:42]
For me, the first thing I do is I scan the room. When I'm scanning, I'm looking to see if I know any familiar face. And that's not a good thing. Like, I tend to just be with the people that I know, then actually networking. So I should get out of it.

Joanne Skiles[25:59]
Yeah, but you know what? I'm so happy that we do have extroverts in this world because I'll let you know they somehow can sense us and then they like adopt us and then they bring us around to introduce us to people. So

Vimala Pydi[26:13]
You

Joanne Skiles[26:14]
thank you, extroverts. We need you.

Vimala Pydi[26:16]
Yeah, that's a good one and I totally agree. You're right. There are people who really come in and be on our side and get us out of that shell.

Joanne Skiles[26:26]
at the end of the day, you might be afraid to go to an event. But honestly, if the event, just like if you go there and it's, I don't know, if it's farts, you know, guess what? You just stand up and you leave. So remember that you have control over your life. So take chance, take that opportunity, go somewhere, try something new. The way that you grow is becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Vimala Pydi[26:58]
And that's how you grow with your community and also grow your community. All right, so thank you so much for listening to us. Please do subscribe if you're on YouTube or LinkedIn. And also we are on Apple, we are on... Spotify and we are also curious to know what do you all think Provide some comments give us your experience on community growth. Tell us what you want to learn more. We do have our website hercareerunplugged.com. If you want to come and speak with us on our podcast you can share that through our form there that you would find on our website as well. Until then stay curious, stay bold, stay unplugged.