Intro

Today my guest is Brandon Quinn, a program manager at Amazon who went through multiple pivots. He was a civil engineer by background but only stayed in this field for the first couple of years as he wanted to get more into a business-focused role. His first pivot happened only a year and a half after graduation when he started at ExxonMobil's Global Projects Company. He had a couple of roles at ExxonMobil that gave him the engineering and project management introduction. Then, he went back to Washington, DC and took another pivot as a consultant for the Deloitte Advisory Group. After that, he took a big pivot when he moved to Amazon and is currently working in program management for talent acquisition. He is now out of the engineering space but still uses the skills learned from his previous roles.

Topics covered:

4:00 Brandon’s reason for his career pivot: To have more control over his work
9:03 Networking by having conversations about shared backgrounds
13:01 Random resume drops might not work
15:47 Brandon's strategy to a successful job application
18:55 Focus on the roles that you are most qualified for and are aligned with your interest
25:20 How Brandon used his engineering background to do talent acquisition
27:55 How Brandon communicated his cross functional skills during interviews
31:13 How Brandon prepared for an interview - using the STAR method, not preparing scripts, and doing mock interviews
39:30 Make a strategic career plan and see if it works or not
43:33 Brandon's career-switching advice: Pick what you value most and do not be afraid to do that