Jazmyn Foster

I honestly attribute my success to both of my parents. I know small children usually ask why a lot and ask a lot of questions, and most of the time you have parents who will make up answers or just answer the question. I did not have that. I had parents who said, look it up. Go look it up. They would use big words I didn't understand. My dad would be yelling at me at like [AGE], saying, you need to eradicate the mess in your room, and I'm like, what does that mean? He's like, look it up! So now it's like my initial mindset, if I don't understand something, or something doesn't make sense to me, or if I'm confused about something, I look it up! After school, school didn't just end. I had to do phonics, I had to do math problems, I had to learn a new vocabulary word every day, write it 3 times each. I had to read for fun for 30 minutes, and then I get to watch TV. My parents were very consistent on forcing habits that will allow me to be able to create those habits on my own. So now I do read on my own, now I do look stuff up, now school is very structured because of that, and them pushing that on to me. You need to be able to learn stuff on your own and not just wait for someone to teach it to you. That was very important in my family. So I think that's kind of where it all came from, was being a small child and being told, you gotta go, I don't care if you're [AGE], you know how to use the internet, go look it up, you know how to read a book, let's go to the library, let's go get a book on it. My mom would take me to the park and the library, that was pretty much it.

My father is full of gems. I call him the corporate godfather, he is so good with advice. His first gem is, and a lot of people find this controversial, but he always tells me it doesn't take two weeks to lay you off, it doesn't take two weeks to fire you, so you don't need to put in two weeks if you want to leave. He said you will be fine, and he believes that if you did good work at a job, it doesn't matter if you put in a two weeks or not, a lot of times they will still rehire you. He's like, stop doing that, because a lot of times you do that, they'll fire you anyway, so don't ever depend on those two weeks. His other one is a big one, and it's always follow up and always cover your ass. He always says CYA. He has given me millions of examples throughout his life that has saved his butt, and it has been very helpful for me in the past, because a lot of times you will be told things verbally so that there is no track record of what you were told. So if somebody tells you something verbally and it sounds really strange, you tag people BCC and you send an email saying just so we're clear, this is what you meant when we had that conversation today, because you need to make sure there is an actual paper trail for everything. It has saved his butt, it has saved my butt in the past. I always tell people, paper trail. I don't care if the conversation was in person, paper trail. Record your calls, meetings, paper trail. We need to be able to say they said this and you said this. His third and final one that I will say is that you have to keep a tally of what you do. What have you worked on? What projects have you done? What have you accomplished? How have you supported the team? Keep a record of everything you do, how it has impacted the company, and whether that scope of role is inside your scope or outside your scope. Keep a record of everything you do, especially the stuff that's outside your scope, because you do not want to be sitting there when it's time to do your review or to work on raises and you have nothing to show for yourself. You need to keep some sort of record or printout of recognition you've received, everything, so that when you go into that review, you know why you deserve that raise. And you don't always have to wait till your review to ask for a raise. I don't know who came up with that. If you feel like you are being underpaid and you are not being valued, you can ask for a raise. I've received raises outside of review time because I asked for them. So I feel as though if your job scope starts to change and you've noticed it's been changing, especially if it's consistently been that way for a couple months, ask for the raise. Have the conversation, but just go in there with proof.

I think it's a little bit different for young women, especially young women these days, because of all of the differences within the industry and what's been going on. But what I would say for young women is that there is a space in this industry, and you deserve to take up space in this industry. When I first started in this industry, I wouldn't even... I had an account that I owned, and my manager would talk to the person who previously owned it for updates, would not talk to me because he was a man. Yeah, would ignore me, would not talk to me about my client, but would talk to my coworker who used to have the client, and the coworker would be like, well, Jazzy knows the most accurate information, she's got it now. And I would just have to tell him before our meetings because I would be ignored. So that's another moment I was like, no, I'm taking up space here! And so I would speak up and say, actually, because you deserve to take up space. You deserve a spot here, you deserve to take up space. Your ideas matter, and your contribution is so important as a woman because of our ability to problem-solve, think outside the box, and think creatively. We need those skills in this field. We do. We need those skills in the tech field, and we are gifted with those skills in the tech field. And so, take up space, and use your natural-born gifts to show them what you got.

One of the biggest challenges right now in the field is all of the tech layoffs that are happening. People are not specializing like they need to be. People are kind of just doing broad tech careers, but the more you specialize in something, the more valuable you become in the tech industry, is how I've seen things going. So if you're a software developer but you specialize in Python, you are going to be a necessity because of all the AI developments. So specializing is going to be key because of all of the layoffs that are happening, and make yourself kind of valuable. Big tech is not your only option. There are so many companies that need people in the tech industry. You can be in the tech industry in so many different ways. I never thought you could be in the tech industry at a payroll company. You don't have to work at Meta or Google. There are so many other options. It's not just banks or startups. There's credit card companies, there's banks, there's so many companies that you can utilize your skills at and still have a very successful tech career. So not limiting your options and exploring new options. Another challenge I see is with user interface design, where unclear button labels and hidden functionality create difficulties for non-technical users. I've even had to tell management or the dev team when we've implemented new systems, hey, this is dumb, you need to make this bold and put a color on it because clients can't see it. How would you know to click that? You have to help them help you. You can avoid clients calling in and emailing and chatting saying help by just making it user-friendly.

Perseverance is incredibly important to me. Life can happen around you, but it doesn't happen to you, and you can still go after your goals and dreams no matter what happens in your life. You can make those choices and really just push through and persevere and make those goals and your life and your dreams come true. It's never, ever too late. I've seen so many videos on TikTok about, I'm in my 30s, it's too late! No! It's not too late to change your life. It doesn't matter if you're in your 60s, you can go do something else, you can change your life, you can make your dreams come true, and it's okay to pivot. At the end of the day, I've proven I can start over more than once and figure it out. Life will throw you challenges but you have to keep pushing through and eventually you will get to the other side. I think my message is more for the young girls who see this as a career and are getting so much discouraging information about it.