Meet Mitchell, a two-time Sprinter who identified what he was looking for in a career and went after it
Read on to learn more about why Mitch decided to join The Commons, what he took away from the Strategy & Operations Sprint and Strategic Finance Sprint, and how he made the move from corporate finance to tech!
Describe yourself with 3 emojis and give us a little context on why!
🍷⛷️🕺 I love to sing, dance, cook, ski and live life to the fullest. I was recently described as a “maximizer” and I take that to heart, every day is an adventure!
Where are you located?
📍 Denver, Colorado
Why did you decide to pivot industries?
I was looking to move from a large corporate environment to a smaller team where my work was more impactful
How has your thinking around your career path changed over time?
I think COVID really impacted my thinking about career path and relationship to where and how work gets done. Pre-pandemic my future looked like a cubicle and being in office everyday was the only way to progress and advance but now I see a world where I can have balance between career growth and personal happiness and my hobbies.
Joining The Commons
What was behind your decision to join The Commons?
I joined The Commons to try and gain a baseline understanding of SQL and also to see where my skills would match up from a corporate finance background to a more startup focused company.
What did you get out of the Sprint? Anything you didn’t expect?
I did both the Strategy & Operations and Strategic Finance sprints and I think in both the unexpected learnings from teammates were what I valued the most. Just seeing their little tips and tricks across presentations and workbooks was so neat!
Your Job Search
Tell us about your job search experience!
After 5 years at one company, I had never really had to do a true job search. I had always just fielded inbound interest from recruiters so as I prepared for my job search I spent a lot of time really polishing the resume(shoutout Commons community for the help) and did a lot of LinkedIn prospecting for people in the city I knew I wanted to move to that had attended the same school as me. Once I had reached out to the network, I really started to leverage that to try and find openings where I had a contact. In total it moved along way faster than I had anticipated!
When pivoting from Corporate Finance to an e-commerce startup, what was the biggest change you noticed?
Every day I notice how much more critical thinking I have to use in my new role than prior. I think this is a function of company size mostly but being in a faster pace environment where the norm is more about testing theses and driving efficiency I find myself really relying on those critical thinking skills.
Any other words of wisdom or motivating thoughts for people who are looking to make a similar career move?
I think we all struggle with wondering if we’re good enough for a job we see, but you’ll never know if you don’t apply. A lot of life is about initiative and not skill! One of the quotes I love that illustrates this goes something along the lines of “the man who takes a leap of faith owes no explanation to man who stands by watching”.
Something fun to end it off
Tell us some of your favorites:
🎙 A favorite podcast: Invest Like the Best, McKinsey Strategy and CFO podcasts
📰Where you get your daily news: Skim, NYT, Litquidity Exec Summary
💻A tech company you think should be on everyone's radar: Ibotta!
📚Book: The Metaverse by Matthew ball, Sapiens
🎨What you're doing outside of work: I love to ski, travel, and cook…I’d really like to get a side hustle started
🌟 A CEO or leader you admire: Jamie dimon
💬An inspiring business quote: measure twice, cut once
➕A handy shortcut: buy quality items and and always have a joke memorized
Ready to take the next step in the career you’ve always wanted? Apply to the Strategy + Operations Sprint or Strategic Finance Sprint like Mitch did to learn valuable skills for operations & finance roles under the guidance of pros in the field.
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