BY TSERING ASHA
THETRANSITION
TOTECH
Meet three Calgarians who shifted their careers into the technology sector and find out how they navigated that change. MI KK I GA R DN E R SUPPORT TE AM LE AD, SHOWPASS hile studying for a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, Mikki Gardner worked in a variety of client and customer-facing roles. Eventually, she landed at Arts Commons and spent several years working at the box office. When she decided it was time for a change, Gardner took a mental inventory of what she was looking for in a job, both at the time and five years down the road. She knew she wanted to stay in the events industry because of her passion for theatre arts, but she didn’t want to be pigeonholed into one role. Gardner wanted a smaller hybrid workplace where she’d have the opportunity to transfer between different departments to find her niche, and a culture that valued individualism, celebrated diversity and had a casual dress code that would be accepting of her eclectic style. “I was really looking for something [where] I could be myself,” she says. She reviewed her resume and interests to put together the puzzle pieces of a new career, identifying her most transferable and enjoyable skills, like working with the public, managing and mentoring younger employees, and working with spreadsheets and data, and matched these to job descriptions for other event and ticketing companies. Gardner knew the tech industry was growing and that it was being supported in Alberta. Plus, she had heard that tech companies were known
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for encouraging more personal and professional growth and opportunities for their workers in a short amount of time. So, she turned her focus to the tech world, using sites like LinkedIn, Indeed and even Instagram. “I found that a lot of times, when I was looking at tech companies, they tended to have these cultures that were built around collaboration and around hiring the right people, instead of hiring people with the right experience who [checked] all these boxes,” she says. In early 2022, Gardner applied to work at Showpass, a Calgary-based virtual box office and event management company, after seeing a job posting during one of her LinkedIn searches and doing her obligatory deep-dive into the company’s social media profile and news articles. “You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can absolutely try to judge a company by its website,” she says with a laugh. Going from working at a physical box office to a virtual one was, in many ways, a lateral move. “I basically moved from a role at one company into a role that was fairly similar in another company,” she says. The new job, however, came with options such as a hybrid workplace, a workout benefit and chef-prepared lunches and snacks at the on-site kitchen, while her new managers explicitly supported and outlined a career plan for Gardner as the company grew. Six months later, she was promoted into a managerial role. “The difference is I feel like I get more bang for my buck,” she says.
may/june 2023
