The Commons Digest (05/05/2022)

The COmmons Insider Newsletter

Welcome to the latest issue of The Commons digest!

This is our bi-weekly round-up of community news, relevant content and anything that can help us level up together.

As always, reach out if you have any feedback or if youโ€™d like anything featured in here.

Now onto the update ๐Ÿ‘‡

โ€

#community-wins ๐Ÿฅ‡

We celebrated several hiring announcements and promotions!

  • John Kim joined AlphaLayer as a Product Owner ๐Ÿค–
  • David Yang joined Instacart as an Insights Manager ๐Ÿฅ•
  • Pooja Kandikonda joined the Product Operations team at Medly โš•๏ธ
  • Danai Benopoulou will be joining DoorDash to scale their grocery business ๐Ÿ›’
  • Luis Rodriguez is joining Alto Pharmacy as General Manager, Bay Area ๐Ÿ’Š
  • โ€Aman Gupta joined Replit as Head of Strategic Finance ๐Ÿ’ธ
  • โ€Justin Collett joined Velocity Global as a Strategy & Planning Analyst ๐Ÿš€
  • โ€Anna Powell was promoted to Director, Global Operations & Customer Delivery at Shiftsmart ๐Ÿค

โ€

Community members: please be sure to reach out with a word or two of congratulations on Slack!

Join our Next Summit ๐Ÿš€

We've officially released the waitlist for our upcoming Summit on May 17th & 18th: Landing Your Dream Role in Tech.

Spend two evenings with industry experts who have been in your shoes, and who want to help you succeed too. Consider it a crash course on business careers in tech.

The Summit is perfect for anyone considering a pivot into tech.

You'll walk away with a clear understanding of the different business roles in tech, practical advice on how to advance your job search, and a new network to help you land more interviews.

Join the waitlist below โฌ‡๏ธ

Join Waitlist - The Commons Summit

โ€Questions? Simply reply to this email and we'll be glad to help.

โ€

Framework We're Pondering ๐Ÿ’ญ

Community members often remark on how tech companies have a unique way of operating. One example is problem-solving.

If you work in tech, you'll quickly encounter the term first principles. It's basically a mental model where you break an issue down to its most essential components and follow your logic from the ground up.

In other words: don't take any received wisdom for granted.

Tech companies definitely didn't invent this concept, but it seems to resonate especially well with them. You'll often hear it come up in recruiting conversations, for example, or coffee chats and podcasts.

That makes sense when you consider the fact that these businesses are trying to accomplish something that almost everyone else previously assumed was impossible. Near-instant global communication. An exchange for cryptocurrencies (before they were even a thing). Heck, sending rockets to space.

If you haven't already, it's probably worth familiarizing yourself with first principles thinking. At minimum it will help you signal to recruiters and hiring managers that you understand their culture around problem-solving. And who knows: you might even discover something no one else has thought of.

One of our community members recently posted this article from Farnam Street, which is probably the best place to start.

โ€

Community Members Spotlight ๐Ÿ’ก

Today we're featuring Eric Liou, a Commons mentor and Product Manager at The Trade Desk. He also helped develop and co-leads our Product Strategy Sprint.

Here's a quick look at his career path:

Tons of community members ask about what it takes to break into product, and Eric is someone who is incredibly helpful on that front.

He's always happy to share his perspective on different flavors of product management and best practices to successfully move into the role.

Here's Eric's advice on how to get started on your journey into Product:

"The best way to understand the product mindset is to build or launch something!

Whether itโ€™s just sketching solutions to a problem you have in your life, actually building a product, or testing ideas in the market, taking something from 0 -> 1 is a great way to learn.

This will also help you have great experiences and stories to bring to interviews."


You can read more about Eric and his work here.

Events @ The Commons ๐Ÿ—“

  • Thursday May 5th: Our Bay Area-based community members are hosting an IRL community meetup! Head over to the #sanfrancisco-community channel to learn more.
  • Thursday May 12th: We're hosting a fireside chat with Maariyah Choudery, Chief of Staff, Chief Business Development Officer at Uber. Maariyah will walk us through her shift from consulting to tech, the ins and outs of the Chief of Staff role and so much more. Sign up HERE.

โ€

Apply Early: Summer Sprints ๐ŸŒŸ

We've quietly opened early applications to three Sprints that will kick off in late May and early June: The Commons Core, Strategic Finance, Product Strategy and Revenue Growth.Applying early is the best way to secure your spot in that we'll have more time to review your application. All of our March Sprints, for example, filled up before we could even finish processing all of the applications.Dozens of community members and other smart business professionals have already enrolled in these Sprints. You can join them by applying below ๐Ÿ‘‡

Apply Early - Core Sprint

โ€Apply Early - Revenue Growth

โ€Apply Early - Product Strategy

โ€Apply Early - Strategic Finance

โ€

One (Community) Thing ๐Ÿ’š

Community members have been hosting IRL meetups in several cities over the past few weeks! Our hearts have been bursting seeing photos of this wonderful community materializing in person.

Here's a picture of our Vancouver community members hanging out last Friday.

We're excited to see photos of the San Francisco Bay Area meetup happening this evening too ๐Ÿ˜Ž

***

Thatโ€™s all for now โœŒ๏ธ If youโ€™d like to access more news and content before the next update, you can hop on over to Slack.

โ€P.S. please give us a follow on Instagram - weโ€™re bringing the community directly to your feed :)

โ€โ€See anything your friend might find interesting? Feel free to forward this issue! This community grows stronger and more valuable to everyone in it the more smart people - i.e. folks like you - learn about The Commons. Sign-up to receive all things The Commons right here.

Interested in more?
The Commons Digest (02/15/2023)
The COmmons Insider Newsletter
The Commons Digest (02/15/2023)
The Commons Digest for 02/15/2023
๏ก
The Commons Digest (02/08/2023)
The COmmons Insider Newsletter
The Commons Digest (02/08/2023)
The Commons Digest for 02/08/2023
๏ก
The Commons Digest (02/01/2023)
The COmmons Insider Newsletter
The Commons Digest (02/01/2023)
The Commons Digest for 02/01/2023
๏ก
๏€
Skillful is now The Commons.
Weโ€™re more than just skills training. We're the place where high achievers come to fulfill their career potential. We combine education, mentorship and community to empower the next generation of ambitious professionals to achieve their career goals.
The time to build the education institution of the future is now. And we're doing it.

Careers are catalyzed through skills-training, mentorship and a supportive network. At The Commons, we're delivering those critical career elements together through learning experiences that are social, mentorship-based and community-first.

Join to learn and stay for the community.โ€