We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech
We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech
32. PeterJohn Hunt: How to Convince Employers to Take the “Risk” on You
On today’s episode of We Belong Here, Lauren interviews PeterJohn Hunt. Who tells the story of how he went from convincing his first job to take a risk on someone who had literally zero formal education to becoming the Chief Technology Officer at Useful Group in Chicago.
About PeterJohn Hunt:
PeterJohn Lives in the suburbs of Chicago with his wife and children. He’s a self-proclaimed web developer and problem solver. He likes to bring the nitty-gritty of the technical world to people in an intuitive, analytical, and efficient way. Using his IT, networking, and programming background, he builds beautiful websites for people and businesses – from startups and local restaurants to large corporations and Fortune 500 companies. He believes every problem has a solution and loves the thrill of learning or building something new!
PeterJohn Hunt is 1 of 9 children and was homeschooled throughout his educational career. He was interested in tech but didn’t have access to the traditional educational tools to learn it. He didn’t love the traditional parts of academia and thus was not ever curious about pursuing a college degree.
After high school, coding wasn’t of interest to him as the stereotype of being a coder looked unappealing and tedious. So instead, he found a glorified internship skimming log files. Ultimately he became curious about automating that process, which ultimately was his introduction to coding in that he experimented with writing Python scripts to make his job go faster. Once he was able to see the value and application of learning technical skills, he became passionate about teaching himself and helping others solve real-world problems with code.
It was then that he started knocking on doors, trying to convince employers to hire him as a software developer. He was looking for someone to take a risk on him and believe in his problem-solving abilities, even though he did not have a formal education in the subject, nor did he have much experience in coding. He promised a small agency that it would only take 4 weeks of online learning, and he would perform for them. And it worked! They took the leap of faith and hired him.
Today, as someone in charge of hiring for Useful Group, he looks for those who have that same fire inside of them. He searches for candidates who can demonstrate self-owned learning and are curious to approach problems in an out-of-the-box manner.
Resources:
Useful Group in Chicago
Follow PeterJohn on Twitter @PeterJohnHunt
PeterJohn’s website
We Belong Here Podcast:
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com website
