In 2016 I did not get through a job interview, the person who interviewed me provided me with constructive feedback. I understand you are technically good but other candidate has a blog, active on social media, connected with community and the things that are being done outside the job makes this candidate perfect for us.
I took the feedback and charted a plan to replicate the same. I spent 2017 building a plan of action and put the plan in 2018.
1. I started actively writing on accessibility at digitala11y and slowly built a tribe.
2. I started a community initiative HelloA11Y in 2020.
3. Did an internship on how to organize online and offline conferences, curate speaker proposals, communications, and everything to do with events.
4. Hired coaches to help me with emotional intelligence, communications, social media.
5. Got back to SEO- search optimization so that I can work on my blog and increase readership.
6. Enrolled into a master’s program.
There are ton off things I acted, and everything paid off in compound. I have more diversified skill set and knowledge now. It took me 5 years of relentless effort too build each one of this, I did not wake-up one day and achieved any of these. It is a persistent and slow process; I kept faith and just did what I decided to do.
I do not want to play the card of my illness, but I was going through a kidney failure and was on dialysis for more than 2 years and then transplant. My work never stopped.
Even today I spend 2-3 hours each day to see what I can learn, build or better a solution for existing problem.
I follow the mantra “slow is smooth and smooth is fast”
HelloA11Y
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