My name is Camilla Syska. I work in GFT as a group client compliance manager. And at the same time, I am, I am the mentor and business coach for women supporting them on their career.I hope that you already heard about GFT, but just in case you need the reminder or just in case you, you never heard about that. Uh We are the newest technology provider uh mostly in banking industry and insu insurance sector. And our aim is to provide real business value for our clients to empower them to be the leaders in their market. We are operating in 16 countries currently and we have 7000 and more employees worldwide and we are hiring so check our career website and now let's listen to the story. So let me take you back in time to 2004 and please get to know Margaret. We can call her Maggie. Maggie is very energetic person. Around 15 years old, lots of enthusiasm. She likes activities with teams and other people and it seems that she's quite good in organizing stuff and she has this natural sense of leadership. Maggie just finished her high school.

And she's facing the dilemma of choosing her university studies as she was quite good in every subject. This is very hard for Maggie to say which one was the most interesting for her and which field she would like to explore f even worse because right now she feels it's unfair. But her three years older brother had no problem with that. He's almost born it developer and it was so obvious for him to choose the computer science in the technical university. Having not too much time to make a choice. Maggie eventually chooses the studies, but his name simply sounds interesting and sexy. And it gave Maggie another five years to think about her future career after five years, Maggie graduates and she realizes that she's ex at the exactly the same point that she was five years ago, she still doesn't know which subject was the most interesting for her and which career path she would like to take.

At the end of her studies, she was working part time as an accountant just to have something in her resume and to get first money. What Maggie learned from that experience is that that for her and for energy, the tasks were too boring, too repetitive and requires not much creativity. So the only thing Maggie knows after the studies is that, that she doesn't want to be an accountant in the future. She got a job after the studies, unpaid internship and as an intern headhunter, she really liked the job. Lots of people, lots of different activities, uh using her language. But unfortunately, the company doesn't intend to hire Maggie for the full time contract. So Maggie's looking for another job.

And as the only strong experience on her resume is based on accountancy and finance, she got a job in a consulting company, but her tasks are still based on this boring and repetitive part that she doesn't like. And this is the moment when Maggie decides to check what her colleagues from studies are doing for a living because it seems that their jobs and professions looks much more interesting than hers. And Maggie decides to check what do they have, but she doesn't. And she concludes that she needs to finish another studies in English this time because her friend from the college did it and her job at least title is quite interesting after the year when Maggie graduates graduates, she already knows, but studies alone doesn't solve her problem of finding her passion and finding her future way of career.

So she's observing the consultants in her consulting company. It and business consultants and as she thinks, wow, their job, this is something interesting. So I need to check what do they have, but I don't. And Maggie realizes that these people have really strong qualifications and lots of certified skills. So Maggie did almost all of this certification, project management, business process optimization, business uh process modeling. She even finished another studies in it analysis.

And she informs her boss about each of her new achievement and she's passively waiting to be noticed and she waits until her boss will give her new tasks that would match her new qualifications. But that never happened. So Maggie decided to change the job thinking that she has so much to learn. Still this time, Maggie is in the financial planning and business analysis department in one of the biggest banks in Poland and she's surrounded by really powerful analytical brains. Maggie feels at least average among experts. It also seems to Maggie that her natural energy, her countless ideas and this sense of leadership are rather obstacles in that profession. So Maggie decides to control her natural traits to control her energy. And although Maggie was quite good in each of her jobs and she got really good feedback, there was always this small part of the area for development and Maggie focuses only on that part, on her weaknesses, but she still needs to work on. So one more time frustrated Maggie convinced that she has still so much to learn and that she doesn't fit in the department changes the job to GFT technologies right now. But at the same time, Maggie goes to one year professional business trainer school and that was another try of Maggie to find her way and to find her path.

At the end of these studies, each participant was asked to take one small piece of paper and write down 3 to 5 main positive characteristics of other participants. And this way, Maggie got in hand 15 separate cards. And she realized that actually in almost all of them, there are the same unique, strong qualities mentioned her energy, sense of humor, optimism, her insightful and inspiring observations and her willingness to share knowledge and support others. And that was the moment for Maggie when she first time thought, wow, my natural predispositions, my natural characteristics, something that I wanted to control and work on are perceived by others, like my strengths and it's perceived very positively she remembered from the past.

But actually many people told her so far, Maggie, you should be a career advisor or business psychologist even be my manager. People told because conversations with you are always motivating and supporting. She also remembered from the past that she had a chance to make the personality test and career aptitude test and the test showed her that she has really strong motivational and inspirational personality type. But at that time, Maggie thought, what's the nonsense? What does this knowledge give me?

I'm really happy that you like, talk to me and I'm glad that it's helpful and you feel motivated, but I won't make my own career and I won't make money based on advising, motivating and inspiring others. But today, with these 15 cards in her hand and in the wave of enthusiasm and curiosity, Maggie decides to take a Gallup talent test. And that test showed her that five of her main natural talents perfectly match what was observed by others so far. Her talents are focused around relationship building, influencing and executing. And this is this point at Maggie's life when she finally stopped to work only on her weaknesses and she stopped to come um to, to try to check what other people does, but she doesn't. And she got to know that we are different and we have our own predispositions. And from that moment, Maggie starts to focus on the career development based on strengthening her talents, he starts to choose her next steps very carefully to make sure that she will be able to use them professionally. Why I'm telling you the story of Maggie because Maggie is me.

My name is Camilla Margaret Rosina. And you just heard the story of the change of my approach to career development from focusing on weaknesses and things that I still don't have to focus on my predispositions, talents and personal traits. I joined the GFT company in 2018 and knowing my strengths, talents and predispositions had a huge impact on my career in that company. I started as a group operations manager but thanks to my open-minded sharing ideas, my energy to act, I was proposed the opportunity to join the group co O office as a consultant for strategic operational efficiency and delivery excellence projects. I changed my approach from passively waiting to be noticed, to proactive approach for looking for a best fit in the organization, for myself and to broaden my knowledge about different activities in the organization, I found an experienced person and I asked him for advice and instead of trying to follow and duplicate his steps on the career, I openly said, hey, I know my talents, I know my strength so far and I want to use them in the company.

Could you please help me to create the next steps in my career path? And could you please help me to point the place in the organization that could use my skills and predispositions best? Now, I'm group client compliance manager, but this is only one of my activities within the company. I pursue my passion being an internal mentor, coach and trainer, I lead strategic projects and I motivate and inspire others. Now, think about for the moment, how could I have better targeted my development efforts if I knew my strengths earlier, if I knew that there are talents and they have so much power? And if I had this courage to ask others for advice and to ask them for being my mentors instead of just following the career path of others and checking what do they have. And that's why I'm standing here in front of you. And I'm sharing my experience to help you save your time and focus your career development efforts in the proper direction. So how about the career in it? Remember that especially today, there are the really broad range opportunities in it world. But first of all, I strongly encourage you to get to know yourself, make a talent gallup test, take a test of your personality or career predispositions, ask other for feedback, ask your friends, what's your strength and what's your natural predispositions?

And then try to find your field, not necessarily the programming language or technology yet. Think about what you like. Maybe you like analyzing businesses needs working in the huge organization using their experience. Think about business intelligence or business analysis. Maybe you love design, creating products and influencing final users. Then front development or weeks designing can be for you if you like this structure and analytical part of programming, think about beck and despite the whole web development which usually but not always contains both front end and back end. Remember about the wide wide world of devops it, administration, it support testing project management. I also encourage you to join an IT community and think about networking. Keep your linkedin profile updated, open your profile on github or other portal for developers to survey thoughts and knowledge and code.

And that would be the perfect place for you to find people and ask them questions about their interest, about their job and about what they did to get here. And that would be the best place for you to find your first mentor. If you work already professionally and you still, I sure if you're in the best place in the organization, do not hesitate to find experienced people and ask them for being your mentors. And last but not least stay updated, read books, blogs and watch inspirational videos. And on my side, I sincerely wish you all the best on your career path no matter where you are. Now, remember each of you is unique in your own way and the T word just waits to use your talents. Thank you very much for listening. I hope that that inspired you a bit.

Thank you so much Camille. That was a fantastic presentation. Thank you so much for putting so much effort into bringing your energy to our conference. People absolutely loved it. Nice storytelling, so inspiring. And here's a question from Anna Camila, all those studies you did and the jobs you had. Do you regret going that way or you, did you learn things and skills that you can still use today?

Definitely. Yes. Uh But still I would encourage you first to think about what to do and what we, what will help you in your career because I made lots of them and for years, I couldn't use them uh professionally. That's why I was so frustrated because I thought that after studies, I will just simply go to the tasks from my boss, but he will notice me. So actually, maybe the change I would do uh would be not just resigning from the studies but being more proactive. So first talk with my boss, hey, I'm going to do, do these certificates. Would it be helpful? Can I change my task in the company? If not, maybe that effort shouldn't be put here. If yes, then I would know. Ok, I'm putting the effort but then I will just get the, the payment for that.

Yeah. So just check in with the team with your manager to make sure that this is something that you will make use later of just doing it for the sake of doing it or just for doing something. Absolutely. Here we have so many nice comments in the chat and we see that uh people are a great presentation. Very good use of storytelling. So you nailed it. Great job. Uh was engineer field through studies certificates. Helpful.

Um I must admit that yes, I, I use all of these certificates and knowledge right now, but I really needed to grow up to this uh to this level and actually lots of, I use lots of the knowledge and certificates. But actually if you, if you just see on a whole of the the spectrum, this is the minority. I don't need all of these papers really. So I've got the completely another job. So, so these, these certifications like itself alone does nothing for me because employers look for somebody who already knows about it, got excited about it. Not only showing the paper.

Absolutely. It's about the experience. It's not about how many certificates you have. Do you, do you have actual experience or do you have the right attitude to acquire it? Right.

But still don't worry, you don't have to have like the, the huge experience. That's why I would encourage you to go to this, it community and try to do some stuff. So, so you will be able to tell, hey, I was doing it. This is exciting. I know how to do it. I need to learn more. I don't have certificate, but I know that this is exciting. But with only certificate, usually you have only the theoretical knowledge and it's and it does nothing

just to be aware of that and see how you can get some practical hand. Fantastic, fantastic talk. And thank you so much for answering the questions. We did really have great time at the Q and A part. So thank you so much Camilla. And uh let me know if you are going to be at the GFT booth so people also can drop, say hi. And I'm sure that many of them would love to have you as a mentor coach or trainer because you said you're doing that job at GFT. Thank you. So,

so quickly check the linkedin profile. You can always reach me out there and, and we can be in the contact and I try to

do that, check out GFT Booth. Thank you so much. Kin, a great job.