Interview with Industry Professional

For my interview with an industry professional, I reached out to Timothy Elliot, an application developer working for the California Association of Realtors. The reason I chose to interview him was because of the experience he had on his LinkedIn profile, which seemed to have a lot of potential for an insightful interview. Elliot was kind and happy to share his career journey with me, although I would say his responses to my questions consisted more of technical challenges he came across and self-evaluations he had made rather than career advice and industry insights.

Elliot did provide some key pieces of advice I feel I could benefit from. For example, he said the connections with the friends he has made have been essential to finding new career opportunities, especially one friend he had made through his church who helped him get two different jobs throughout his career. Another piece of advice Elliot had to share was that learning was an active process and that practicing or applying what you’ve learned is the only way to know you’ve learned something. He plans to demonstrate this through his future YouTube channel, where he will learn the inner workings of older technology by taking them apart and restoring them. The advice that Elliot had shared that stood out the most to me was to take care of my mental health by finding a balance between work and personal life. I’ve found this is an obstacle that I come across often, where I stress about school while on the job and stress about finding free time to relax and de-stress throughout school terms.

When it comes to industry insights, Timothy Elliot didn’t have too much input to share. When asked if he had come across any new trends within the industry like AI, low-code/no-code, blockchain, progressive web applications (PWAs), or heightened cybersecurity, Elliot said he uses AI to help write code and has used a PWA called Blazor but has come across nothing else. In response to whether or not he believes any of these trends would create new opportunities in the industry, he believes AI would. I asked if he believed it may lead to heavy reliance on AI, but he said it wouldn’t as long as it is used safely.  

In terms of challenges he has faced, Elliot shared how during a period of unemployment he had to endure numerous grueling interviews that would result in rejection and knock him down emotionally. In response to this challenge, he said making the effort to get up and back out there taught him resilience. Another challenge Elliot has faced is staying up to date with industry developments and trends. He claims it’s difficult for him to learn about things if it doesn’t first strike his interest. The challenge Elliot has dealt with that stood out the most to me was how he has struggled to find a balance between his work and personal life, which has caused poor mental health for him. This stood out to me the most because I feel like it's been a challenge for me as well.

In reflection of this interview, I feel like there was not much information to develop an understanding of what career options are available in this industry. This may be due to a combination of Elliot’s work experience consisting of more lateral employment changes than promotions and a miscalculation in what questions I should have asked throughout the interview. Similarly, Elliot’s struggle when keeping up with current developments and trends within his industry and his responses to the interview questions focused on his own experiences had limited the potential to learn about the industry itself.

Although I may feel there were a lot of missed opportunities to learn about career options and the industry, I did feel there were a lot of things I was able to take away from the interview to prepare myself for the rest of my academic and professional journeys. For instance, I can see how Elliot’s struggle to stay current with industry developments and his mental health struggles may have contributed to his lateral employment career. Because of this, I pledge to start setting time aside each week for my mental health and to learn about things going on throughout the industries I have my sights on. Additionally, I want to be a little stricter with myself about making meaningful connections in addition to professional ones, as it seems to have helped Elliot. Lastly, I want to invest more time into practicing development skills, like coding, designing, planning, teamwork, and leadership.