Oracle Academy was delighted to collaborate with our colleague Radu Nicolae, Senior Manager, Customer Support, Fusion SCM Cloud, who gave of his time to present to students on career topics. He focused on what they need to pay attention to if they want to have a successful career in the technology sector, and how to acquire knowledge for their career development.
In his presentations, he outlined what a career in the technology sector is like and explained that this was not an easy “job” but a rewarding one. Radu visited different high schools in Bucharest, Colegiul National Gheorhe Sincai and Colegiul National Mihai Eminescu. His presentations on “Choosing your career and planning your future” covered the following topics:
Starting a business/startup vs. getting a job
He mentioned that the average age of a successful startup founder is 45 years old, based on Harvard Business Research, and emphasized that it is important to build experience, gather contacts and experiment when young, although the pressure to “make it” in your 20s is unrealistic.
He noted that Steve Jobs launched the iPhone (the product that exponentially grew Apple’s market share) at 52 years old, Jeff Bezos diversified the Amazon catalogue (including items other than books) at 45 years old, and Elon Musk launched the Tesla Model S (his first truly successful product) at 41 years old.
Where to go next?
Radu talked about university study vs. self-taught and online courses, and how the “pandemic” of courses has been the fastest growing online business in the last two years. He also covered the topics of staying in Romania vs. studying or moving abroad – the reality of life in other cultures. And he touched on volunteering during the student years.
As a hiring manager, what am I looking for in a candidate?
Radu explained how CVs are triaged by both recruitment teams and managers, what he is looking for during an interview, and other factors that can influence hiring ― hiring freezes, budget limitations, and other stakeholders.
Competition vs. collaboration
The presentation noted that some competition is healthy, but too much will isolate people. It’s important to collaborate together with others and share knowledge rather that gatekeep. “We as a society are based on collaboration, we cannot know it all, we cannot be experts at everything,” he said. And, time is a limited resource.
“I believe in leading by example and I felt like today’s students are bombarded by too much information from social media and influencers. Therefore, I wanted to go and give them some direction based on my personal and professional experience. Students today are extremely intelligent and have more tools at their disposal than ever before. But they do need to be able to filter out the irrelevant or potentially toxic advice given freely online,” said Radu. “With this presentation, I provided some foundations on how they should approach their career and personal and professional development. Of course, I also talked about Oracle Academy, an education program that ignites students’ curiosity for the IT field and then gives them a plethora of very detailed courses. This is a program that I was also a part of and loved when I was in high school, over a decade ago. I was happy to see that they were very receptive and eager to participate in the discussion,” he said. “They did ask some more challenging questions and overall, it was a very constructive environment.”
We thank Radu for giving of his time and expertise to the grateful students!