Building Your Tech Career Character: Turning Gaming Skills into Project Management Success with Jay Jackson | Ep022

Episode Information Show Notes Career Downloads Episode 022: Jay Jackson Takes Us Through His Journey from Entry-Level Tech to Project Management Success In this episode, host Manuel Martinez welcomes Jay Jackson, a dynamic figure in the tech industry whose career spans sales, project management, consulting, and education. Jay opens up about his fascinating path that began at CompUSA and evolved into a successful career in project management and consulting. Jay shares how his early experience in video games shaped his approach to problem-solving and business challenges. He explains his innovative RAKSE framework for building a professional brand: Reputation: The foundation of career success Ability: Understanding and leveraging natural talents Knowledge: The role of formal education and continuous learning Skills: Transforming knowledge into practical capabilities Experience: Building a track record of successful implementations Key Discussion Points: Converting an entry-level cashier position into a springboard for tech career growth The natural progression from sales excellence to project management expertise Balancing teaching with consulting to stay current in technology Building and maintaining professional networks through authentic curiosity Real-world project management successes and lessons learned Listeners will gain valuable insights into: How to navigate career transitions effectively The importance of building and maintaining a professional reputation Strategies for continuous learning and skill development Practical approaches to project management The value of authentic networking and relationship building Connect with Jay Jackson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjackson2/ Connect with Manuel Martinez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelmartinez-it/ Follow Career Downloads: Website: https://careerdownloads.com YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ProjectManagement #ProfessionalDevelopment Transcript Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to really learn more about their career. To understand how they navigated it, different lessons that they’ve learned to really try and pull out actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So, for today’s episode, I have with me Jay Jackson. So we have crossed paths on two different occasions. He has a very interesting background. He has done a number of things, different areas that we’ll touch on as we kind of go through the conversation. And I’ll let him explain that, kind of his ideas on professional branding, the different and things that he’s done, how he’s kind of navigated through different career choices and different roles. So with that, I’ll introduce Jay Jackson. Jay: Hey, Manny. Manuel: How you doing? Jay: Good to see you. Manuel: Good seeing you. Jay: Beautiful house here, Manny. Manuel: Thanks. Jay: I like the setup. Manuel: Took a little bit of work to kind of put it together, but I think overall it’s starting to look semi-professional. Jay: Starting to, right? Yeah I like it. Manuel: So what I’ve been doing with the guests is if you can just kind of start off, just give us your current role or position and then just kind of a summary of some of the responsibilities and things that you kind of do in those roles. Jay: So I’ve got a lot going on. So, you know, cut me off if I’m going the wrong direction. But right now I teach at a local college, a couple of them actually. And my main role as an instructor in the Networking and Cybersecurity program and the classes I teach, I’ve taught are introduction, I like intro classes, because it’s like getting someone interested in a concept, I’ve taught introduction to Linux, Introduction to Information Systems, Project Management, Networking, and Introduction to Cloud Computing and helped develop their AWS Cloud Architect class with someone from AWS. I believe you know him. Manuel: I do. Jay: Great guy. [Laughter] So, I’ve done that and I’ve helped with the project management at the grad level here at local college. So that’s my teaching. And then I also consult, because teachers don’t make a lot of money, so it’s good to have that extra income, right? And consulting, I generally do project management. And that’s everything from managing software projects, which I’m doing primarily now, to implementations. I’ve done, as you know, you’ve helped me out on some data center implementations, little data center implementations. And also, if a company has an enterprise application that needed help implementing, people think that I go to Best Buy, buy software, install it, and then we’re done. That’s not how it works, right? [Laughter] There’s a lot that goes on to make the implementation successful. So we do the soup to nuts entire life cycle of the implementation. And really odd things, like every now and then I get a call saying, hey, I need to make a website, and I’ll help out manage it, or I’ll do myself, if it’s really simple. That’s because I’m interested in projects. So whatever becomes interesting, and it sounds great, and I like the person I’m working with, that’s what I’ll do. I also have a couple of companies I’m a part of, I’m a part owner of. One of them is a car dealer wholesaler. And we’re looking to, you know, technology is like evolving so rapidly now. For those people who are leveraging the newest stuff, AI, APIs, they have an advantage over those, especially legacy industries, like car sales, pretty old school. So I’m working on a project where we’re trying to leverage APIs and AI to understand the true value of a car and what it’ll take to get it to a certain level. So working on that project, and I’m also doing house flipping in Indiana with my brother, part of that, which that one’s not really interesting too much, technology too that we’re trying to, but it’s been pretty messy. So, and then I’ve decided hobby stuff that I do every now and then, like refurbish electronics from Amazon Returns at the eBay store. I still do, but I’ve kind of slowed down on that. And everything I do kind of use it as a mechanism to teach students if they’re interested. So I generally will bring a student on to help out and they get the experience and I get the energy from them, the excitement of doing something new. It’s kind of a win-win. Manuel: It’s very interesting, like how you’re using all these different avenues. And similar to you, right? I see a lot of these businesses and when they’re not leveraging technology, I had another guest on where we’ve talked about it, like where she was working at a hospital, like she got out of tech, started working in the hospital, but she saw a lot of inefficiencies like where technology, process, procedure, like things that were used to, and especially you, you know, with project management, like, hey, here’s steps that we follow, just building a lot of efficiency and you being able to go through. And like you said, the auto industry, like, you know, most people wouldn’t think that that’s somewhere where AI and, you know, APIs would leverage, but the way that you’re doing it, it sounds like you’re trying to kind of, when you say what it would take to get there. So are you kind of understanding, hey, based on mileage, condition, what is it at now? And kind of to bring the value up for the resell, like 10 grand, hey, what are the items that would be needed based on, I’m assuming you’re using AI to just kind of do research for you, right? Jay: Yeah, so, you know, information gathering and making decisions takes time, right? And also, you know, just to walk through it, you go to the auction, right? You see the car and you need to know the value of the car when you’re bidding on it, because you want to take the car, this is triage, right? I’m sorry, arbitrage, this is arbitrage, which I, you know, I’ve done that for a while. You take something, you add some value to it and sell it for more. And the more value you add to it, obviously the more margin you make. But in order to do that, you need to know the potential of whatever you’re getting, whether it be electronics, car, anything really. And that’s kind of hard to do if you don’t have experience in the domain. And, but the information is out there. And also, an auction is kind of a fast-paced environment. So you need to make quick decisions and very time consuming. And I have a very good friend of mine who kind of showed me the ropes, helped him open up his dealership here in 2007. And it’s a lot of work. You get there early at the auction, you have to like do a bunch of stuff. But all that’s been done forever and there’s data out there t...