Tech Talent Talks Episode 1 — Ron Pierre

Hi everyone and welcome to Tech Talent Talks. I’m Tori from the partnerships team here at CodePath. And I’m Daniel, a manager of student programs at CodePath, supporting our amazing students with job and internship readiness.

We’re so excited to have you with us today for another inspiring conversation. Today, we’re so excited to welcome Ron Pierre, who has been at Dell Technologies for over four years and is currently a campus program manager based in Boston. Ron brings a wealth of experience working with early career talent and helping students navigate their pathways into tech.

He’s here to share insights from his journey and what he’s learned about launching a successful career in the industry. Take it away, Daniel. We’re so glad to have you here, Ron.

Let’s dive right into it. When it comes to early career recruitment, what is one thing that makes a candidate stand out the most to you? Good question.

I would say, communication. Employers are primarily interested in in your ability to write and speak professionally, adaptability and collaboration, but also someone who is eager, willing to learn. And over here at Dell, one thing that we do look for and I look for as well is being agile, I would say.

I love that. And I love to hear that you’re interested in finding lifelong learners. My next question is, what common mistakes do you see candidates make and how can they avoid them?

Oh my gosh. Yes, I’ve seen this at plenty of career fairs as well too. Poor preparation, negative talk about previous employers, lack of company research, and inappropriate attire.

Knowing your audience. I would tell them know your audience. That will dictate on how you appear and how you speak and dress as well too.

For sure. And as you talk about company research, could you maybe provide a couple of ideas of where to start when it comes to researching a company? So what I would do is what I tell students to do prior to an interview.

I would go on the company website, research the company and also I tend to use glass door as well too to find out you know when was the company founded where where where the company resides where the company is heading towards and so forth and I would jot down about five or six bullet points on the company to speak about and I would also do research on the person or persons that’s actually interviewing ing me as well too. And make about three to four bullet points on their background so you can have questions to ask them as well too at the end of the interview. That is such great advice.

Can you share a success story of a student that you’ve hired in the past and what made them stand out? So, with this question, I’ve hired so many people within the last four years at Dell, anywhere from professionals to interns and students. To find one particular story would be difficult.

However, what what I love seeing is that when I speak to someone and I am working with them throughout the interview process to see that they re they got the offer, they got the job and to see them in office with me that summer like for an internship that’s a success for me knowing that I helped this candidate. I was the first point of contact and we actually walked the candidate throughout the whole process to get them hired. So that’s a big win for me.

Yeah, absolutely. I’m sure the satisfaction of seeing someone go from applicant all the way to be working the job is just such an amazing feeling to have in those moments. How would you say that the tech industry is evolving and what skills are becoming more and more important for early career talent?

The industry has a strong focus on early career talent right now. Talent with the focus on technical skills like coding, data analysts, and cyber security alongside soft skills like adaptability and communication. These are absolutely such important skills and I’m so glad that we’re able to teach many of these at CodePath.

But I want to turn focus to your time at Dell. What would you say is your favorite thing about working at Dell? My favorite thing I would say work life balance, the trust within my team.

Number one is internal growth. Because I’ve received three promotions in the last four years. And I call Dell the New England Patriots if you’re a football fan because if you play for the New England Patriots, you’re you’re not going to get h you’re not going to do what you got hired for.

You’re learning something new every day. It’s always changing and that’s why it’s very important to be agile, especially coming to Dale. I love to see that returning theme of the lifelong learning.

Awesome. I’ll turn it over to my colleague Tori for some additional questions. Thank you so much Daniel.

And I love the word agile. I’ve heard that a lot across the industry. So definitely seeing a trend there.

So shifting gears here. CodePath hosts its annual emerging engineer summit where top employers connect with the next generation of tech leaders. As more companies and students rely on events like this for recruiting, what’s one powerful way students can stand out and leave a lasting impression?

I would say asking thoughtful questions, actively participating in discussions and contributing contributing in meaningful event activities. I’ve seen this at career events that I’ve been to. Conferences I’ve been to.

Dressing appropriately is very key. I’ve seen disasters where students would come in with big earrings and really baggy colorful attire and they have to know their audience. You know, there’s a time and place for that as well too.

I would say be visible, be very visible and share your knowledge because you don’t want to go to these conferences or these events just, you know, being quiet and just handing your resume. You want to be visible. You want to share your knowledge.

We want your knowledge. You know, this is I wish early career students and folks knew that this is their time right now. A lot of companies are just focusing on early career individuals opposed to professionals.

So, they need to know that and take advantage of that as well. That’s super helpful. And you know, at CodePath, we always advise our students to dress neutally.

You never know who you’re speaking with, and you just kind of want to play it safe. This is not a fashion show, so don’t get And shifting gears here to talk more about the tech industry. There’s so many things changing.

Tech is constantly evolving. So, I would love to hear, you know, what should aspiring tech professionals focus on to succeed in the tech industry today? You you know what I’m gonna say?

The number one thing right now focus on AI every tech professional should invest in understanding the essence of AI how it works how it’s used and the associated risk as well too cyber security every tech professional learn should learn cyber security with the increasing frequency and sophistication of cyber threats understanding cyber security is crucial creative thinking and again agility the word of the year agility I love it and And yeah, thank you for going into the depth of AI and you know, we got to know how it works and and how to use it. So, and the associated risks. I think that’s a great response.

So, thank you. I and my other question I have for you is what’s your resume hot take. Oh, yeah.

So, this is a good one. I just love a clean resume that has a story. And when I say story, meaning that I can look through the resume and see that, okay, this person’s still in school.

They’re inter like there’s no jumpiness in there. There’s no gaps. It’s just a clean resume with the right information in terms of skills, education, experience, and there was one more.

In a summary I would say but something clean to answer your question opposed to reading a resume with that’s two to three pages and I’ve read a student’s resume that was two and a half pages and I was asking why do you have two and a half pages when you haven’t had one job yet and that was one of those things where I had to help the student out in fixing their resume because they threw probably a page full of projects that they did. So, I always tell students, brand your resume towards the job that you’re going for. So, you can have a three-page resume, that’s fine, but you’re going to take that three-page resume and you’re going to take everything that’s related to the job that you’re going for and add it to your new resume.

So, that’s a whole story. Yeah, that’s helpful. And I mean, there’s so many schools of thoughts of how many, you know, how you should frame your resume and things like that.

So, it’s always great to hear from a recruiter. It’s, you know, and get hear it from the source. So, that’s really helpful.

And then my next question, you know, hindsight is always 2020. You know, at CodePath, we’re we’re talking to students all day and looking at what they’re doing, and I always reflect, I’m like, gosh, I wish I would have done XYZ. So, you know, what do you wish you knew as a college student and to pass along to our students that are currently in college?

Work life balance. I mean, I went to college 10 years after I graduated. It’s a long story.

So, I went to Nor Eastern University and I was working at the same time as a recruiter. I just couldn’t I was and I was taking finals and it was just so hard. I was just crashing and I wasn’t balancing out my work life balance basically.

Until I met a how should I call this a mentor who basically showed me how to go about work life balance. So, you know, cutting certain classes and and but still keeping both of them. So, to answer your question, I wish I knew more how to deal with work life balance while while in school.

I love that. And that’s so important to like perform your best on a daily basis. You got to rest.

You got to rest to perform your best. So I Yeah. And I’m sorry to cut you off.

Yeah. Because I was just trying to do great at both, you know, school and also work. You know, I’m taking coffee and a bunch of aderalls trying to stay up and nothing’s working and you know, but at the same time, I’m abusing myself.

Totally. I had to get a mentor and find and fix it up. Yes, mentorship’s so important and and it’s it’s real.

I mean, burnout is real and you you think you have to do more and in reality, you need some time to re to rest and and balance it out. So, really good answer. All right, we’re coming to our the end here.

I have one more question. This is for our recruiters you know, really looking to build their brand up in front of this this next generation. What advice do you have for companies looking to improve their recruitment strategies for early talent?

I would say companies should focus on building a strong employer brand, optimizing job posting, leveraging technology, especially especially leverage leveraging technology, and I’ll speak on that after. Prioritizing candidate experience, that’s another huge one, while emphasizing growth opportunities and inclusion. Everything I just said is I mean I’m really passionate about.

I’ve been through everything I just said. Especially, you know, leveraging technology. We get new technology every year, recruiting tools every year, and I just love finding out how it can benefit myself, how I can learn from it.

I just love new technology. It makes life so much easier. And focusing on the the the the employer brand itself.

That’s going to be huge. That’s going to be huge. And you know there’s certain now you see like there’s young talent looking for remote opportunities or hybrid opportunities.

Then you might have other companies that are going in five days a week. So it’s like that’s part of your brand. So, I think the brand that’ll stick out for a younger audience would be, "Oh, this is remote." just putting just adding more to the brand to capture more talent.

I would say companies need a focus on and yeah, prioritizing candidate experience because there’s a lot of candidates that would apply to a position in January but wouldn’t get called until April. So that needs to, you know, be prioritized as well too and fixed up. So companies should really focus on that as well.

And that’s what we’re working on as well here. I doubt that’s amazing and that’s super helpful. And yeah, leveraging technology is key.

I mean, we’re in the world of AI. If you don’t use it, you’re going to get left behind. And I think that’s really key.

And then the the candidate experience is is very important. At CodePath, we work with our students. We help them land jobs and we’re constantly coaching them through that process and you know also working with companies to make sure that you know that that process is smooth and there’s a lot of moving parts but we commend you for all the things that you’re doing.

Dell is doing great work. I’ve seen your booths at conferences so thank you for you know supporting the next generation and giving them you know this really invaluable advice. And so ultimately that brings us to a wrap on today’s Tech Talk Talent.

Huge thanks to Ron for sharing his story and insights and thank you all for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.