Kabria Holmes

I attribute my success to making sure that I'm happy in what it is that I'm doing. There are so many different careers and paths you can take in the tech industry, and because there's so much you can do and so much your career can take you - whether it's transitioning from one role to the next or moving up with more senior responsibilities - I'm always thinking about my happiness. I ask myself, is being a BPC still making me happy? Do I need to make a change? Am I yearning for something more? Or would I be happy doing this or that? I definitely always make sure to focus on that happiness and alignment with what I'm doing.

When I was thinking about transitioning into tech from my role as an executive assistant at DHS, I spoke to a career coach from Vontus Federal. I was in my last semester of finishing my bachelor's degree in business administration, and I shared all my fears with her - do I have to start over? Is it too late? The one thing she told me that stuck with me 4 years later is that you do not need to start over, and you can make the transition at any time, whenever you feel ready or even if you don't feel ready. She told me that certifications, experience, and projects matter more than a degree. She said to keep getting my bachelor's in business administration, but focus on getting training, maybe a boot camp or self-paced training, study, and then get certifications. She emphasized to continue getting certifications because you always want to stay relevant and up-to-date, since technology changes every single day. By the time you graduate college, the curriculum you learned about technology may no longer be relevant because it changes so much. I'm happy she told me that because I never thought of it from that perspective, and it made so much sense. I could not have told you 4 years ago we would have been in this huge AI space, but here we are.

The first thing I would say is do not put an age limit on your goals. Do something when you are most afraid, even if you are afraid. I have learned that the best results come after taking the leap when I am scared, because maybe I don't know the results or I don't even know how to get to a particular destination. I always make sure to live in that fear and do what scares me, and that's where I end up producing the best results. Just don't be afraid of the unknown. Sometimes you take certain paths and you might not know the end game or the outcome or the end result, but then it comes to you essentially as you're venturing through it. So never be afraid to do anything, and if you are, do it and live in that fear.

I would say the biggest challenge for me when transitioning into tech was narrowing down what it is that I wanted to do. A lot of that came from me not knowing all of the roles or paths I could take once I obtained certain certifications. When I did my bootcamp, I was just searching for system administrator roles because based on the certifications we obtained, that was the only role I thought I could do. Looking back on it, I felt very limited because there were so many roles out there. I ended up stumbling upon a business analyst role because LinkedIn recommended this job to me based on my experience, and I got my first Junior BA role before the bootcamp was even complete. But I didn't even know it existed. Sometimes roles that we might not know exist are actually out there, but it can be a challenge trying to determine the particular title or wording that companies use. Even for BPC, there are so many different ways you can title it - business analyst, business process analyst, business process consultant, business analyst, system analyst, and so on. You have to know how to word particular titles when you're looking for a job. That's definitely still a challenge, especially because there are so many avenues and different routes you can take.

In both my work and personal life, I would say always showing up as my true, authentic self is most important to me. I never dim my light, and I always make sure that I can give back in any sense that I can, whether it's simply responding to a DM, responding to a comment someone posted on my Substack or any of my socials, or just networking and giving someone my full, undivided attention to truly try to give the best advice or help that I can - even if it's something as simple as 'I don't know where to start.' I focus on showing up every day and being genuine in everything that I do.