General career advice suggests getting involved in the local community and networking at casual meetups. This definitely applies to switching careers over to web development. Since I live in San Francisco, there are tons of groups listed on Meetup.com. I thought I’d try to describe the events that I go to, hopefully to push myself to attend more, and also to help others who are curious about what these events are like.
Event: Marketing, Social Media and PR Happy Hour
Time to log off, let the hair down, activate the liver and have some FUN! If you’re in marketing, social, PR or just excited to meet really amazing people in the valley, come join us!
Experience: A former coworker suggested that I check out this meetup since it was in my hood. Okay, I’m not exactly in the Marketing, PR or Social Media industry anymore, but I know that many agencies are looking for web developers. It couldn’t hurt to check it out, right?
Cease and Desist is one of the newer bars in my neighborhood. Actually, who knows, maybe they’ve been there for quite a while? I have no idea, but they have the same boring look of most recent Mission bars: black nondescript decor but solid and moderately expensive cocktails.
By looking at Gone Social’s previous events, it looks like they normally offer industry specific talks with marketing experts. This event was a simple happy hour, which was fine since I mostly wanted to get out of the house and meet people.
In general, the event felt very friendly and approachable, which was nice. Turnout was pretty large! The event space (back room of a bar) was packed. The gender mix was even, and so was the experience mix, however most people seemed to be PR/Digital/Marketing agency folks, and not in-house. And of course, there were quite a few unemployed folks doing the rounds (like me, ahemmmmm). Unsurprisingly, I didn’t run into any other aspiring developers. I mean, this was a marketing event, LOL.
Disappointingly, there was no free food or drink. It’s not so much that it cost money, but at least with open bar you just go up and get your drink. I spent quite a bit of time standing in line at the bar instead of talking to people.
Verdict: I met some nice people, including a man who worked with one of my former Edelman coworkers, a social media savvy dentist, and an aspiring copywriter. I’ll keep an eye out for Gone Social’s upcoming lectures, but I don’t think going to the marketing happy hours will help me with looking for a job. I should probably spend my limited time socializing with other programmers.