General Assembly, Author at General Assembly Blog

Dalona Turner, Partnerships Specialist at General Assembly, recently sat down with career expert and best-selling author Ashley Stahl, to discuss how to pivot into a career in tech. 

Both Dalona and Ashley are career changers themselves, which is important because it’s sometimes hard to discern if advice is rooted in theory or experience. If you’ve been thinking “I need a new job”, “I need a career pivot”, or “is technology a good career path”, here is some career advice that will help you get any job you want. 

It was 2021, and Michelle Artreche was working at an edtech startup in a marketing role. Although she had a passion for the discipline, she wanted formal training. Michelle wanted a stronger educational foundation so she could take her career to the next level, though she wasn’t sure where to start.

As a military spouse, potential relocation was a fact of life—which meant enrolling in a traditional in-person training program wasn’t really a viable solution. She needed a flexible, career-focused program that could fit her life.

Through a connection on LinkedIn, Michelle heard about The Adecco Group U.S. Foundation Service Scholarship, which awards scholarships to women veterans and military spouses that can be used for courses offered through General Assembly (GA). She took the initiative to apply, landed an award for GA’s Digital Marketing course, and began a new chapter in her tech career story.

Michelle has parlayed her newfound skills into a role where she’s tripled her income—and continues to grow in a career she’s passionate about. She is an incredible example representing the military/spouse community and showing continuous growth as a professional in her field. Read the following interview to learn more about her journey. 

Novel sights. Magnificent cultures. Unexplored tastes. If you feel you live your best life on vacation, a career in the hospitality industry could provide the flexibility and travel perks you crave—and help you see more of the world sooner rather than later. There is no better environment for a sociable “people person” to make a memorable impact on the lives of countless guests and patrons day after day.  

When we think of hospitality, we may think of a front desk hotel concierge, wait staff, or theme park attendant. But the hospitality industry has become increasingly saturated with job postings for software engineers, data analysts, data scientists, and UX designers amid the digital transformation that’s taken place across all industries over the last decade. 

Take the story of Peter Cho, for instance: he made the move from line cook to software engineer after his restaurant shut down during the COVID-19 crisis. Though he didn’t have a college degree, a four-month software engineering bootcamp taught him how to code and break into a six-figure salary with better security, ambiance, and work/life balance. 

“I’ll never go back to restaurant work because my quality of life is so much better now,” Cho has said. “While I feel challenged at my current job, it feels healthy and more enjoyable, stemming from puzzle-solving rather than being yelled at in a kitchen.” Best of all, he no longer has to worry about job security or work 60 hours to make ends meet.

Continue reading to learn which changes have made hospitality a “tech industry,” and what emerging trends promise plenty of tech work in hospitality for decades to come. 

Do you love retail therapy? How about the idea of a career that puts you on the leading edge of new product launches—ones that improve lives daily? If you dream of working in retail or ecommerce, a tech role might be the best way to break into the business, as retail is a top 6 employer of tech talent.

The blanket term “retail” encompasses any business that directly sells consumer goods. Retailers can include e-commerce sales that take place across the web, as well as brick-and-mortar stores like supermarkets, department stores, or specialty mom-and-pop shops. Household goods, appliances, fashion apparel, beauty products, toys, entertainment like video games—these subsets are all part of a $30.3 trillion global industry.