This post is dedicated to anyone who, like me, is completing a CS degree a little later (rather than straight after high school). Whether you originally got a degree in another subject, or just hadn’t chosen to go to college earlier, you likely have been working in the professional world for some time before you decided to get a CS degree and make a career shift into tech.

Personally, I have found approaching this career change incredibly intimidating. My previous degree is in Psychology, but I’ve worked in a variety of positions including real estate marketing and transaction coordination, property management, admin for a SaaS company, and freelance graphic design. None of these were super technical jobs, and only one was even tech-adjacent. I had a lot of doubts that any company would want to hire someone who had such little “direct” technical experience besides schoolwork, and who may be seen as someone who couldn’t even make up her mind about what career she wanted to pursue.

However, I knew I had to defeat this limiting, doubtful mindset last fall once I decided to interview for internships. I wanted to appear confident and capable, even if it felt a bit like “fake it till you make it.” What I wasn’t expecting was for it to actually work! After coming up with strategies to highlight this career change as a positive, I actually began feeling more positive and confident about it. Today, I am grateful to be approaching software engineering in the manner that I am, even though the path to do so was not straightforward.

Here are my tips on how to re-frame your career change if you are less than confident about it. I’ve included a few concrete examples that I’ve actually used before.

• Don’t undersell your soft skills
  • For me at least, developing good communication skills took work and practice. This work shouldn’t be disregarded!
  • Soft skills are so important when it comes to collaborating, working with a team, and sharing your ideas effectively.
  • Interview-speak: “As a Property Administrator I was the first line of contact for tenants in over 500 units, and tenants don’t usually call the office when everything’s going great. This high volume of client-facing calls was like a boot camp for my soft skills, and as a result, it made me a more clear and effective communicator. I’m not afraid to be direct and concise, to have tough conversations, but I’m great at doing so with compassion as well. This skill translates very well to communicating both technical and non-technical information with my own team and other departments when I’m not in a client-facing role.”
• Expand what you think counts as technical skills
  • If you’ve ever had to learn a new program, seek out documentation, or even troubleshoot how to fix a printer, you can relate this to technical experience.
  • Do others come to you for help with hardware or software issues? Are you the one who isn’t just knowledgeable, but who is motivated and interested in these types of problem solving? This shows your natural interest and ability when it comes to technology, and that can be applied in so many ways to so many things.
• Think about all the things you won’t have to be taught
  • When I was just graduating from my Psychology degree in my early 20s entering the full time corporate world, there was so much that I didn’t know: how to make a business phone call without being incredibly anxious about it, how to write a professional email, how to schedule a meeting in Outlook, how to communicate with a manager…the list goes on and on.
  • These are things that are not (usually) directly taught in school, but are gained through experience. Entering a new workplace with these skills already developed gives you a huge advantage. Even if the job you’ll be doing is completely new to you, you don’t have to learn all that other stuff on top of it – and it will save your co-workers time and energy not having to help teach you these things!
• Sell your love of learning/trying new things
  • Software engineers need to always be up for learning new things as the industry changes and develops. You need to show that you have the desire and motivation to thrive in this kind of environment. And if you’ve gone back to school to get a CS degree, you probably do!
  • Interview-speak: “I really do love learning and tend to feel bored if things get too stagnant – the challenge of something new excites and motivates me. After all, I wouldn’t be pursuing a 2nd degree if I didn’t love learning new things!”
• Variety is good
  • If you experienced a variety other jobs/industries, this makes you more certain of where you want to be, not less.
  • Interview-speak: “With my background across X, Y, and Z industries, I’ve developed a robust skillset that makes me a well-rounded and flexible part of any team I’m on.”

These worked really well for me during interviews and I hope they can help you too! Good luck!