Philly Tech Fair 2k15

On Tuesday, February 10th, 2015, Technically Philly held its second annual Tech Job Fair. The event was held from 1pm to 7pm at the Union Transfer in the Spring Garden section.

Mike Matranga of Tonic Design lead things off with a talk on starting a career in tech. He spoke of how he started his career selling phones at a mall, and then eventually found a job on Craigslist to run errands and discovered that he could also find books on coding, which piqued his curiosity. He then shared with the audience that speed in business comes with time, and that you should learn to be patient when you are trying to accomplish your business goals. Another key takeaway that I got from his talk is that it is always important to start building your portfolio right away and to share what you know; this way, even if your current project doesn’t make you any money immediately, it can and still will net you a profit at least indirectly by proving to your prospective employers that you do in fact have the necessary skills and qualifications for any particular internship that may be available while you are still building your side business. He also touched upon how the barrier to entry is low both mentally and emotionally, which allows you to build upon what you originally got started on.

There were other tech talks presented throughout the remainder of the evening that included topics related to women in tech jobs, web accessibility, optimizing your Linkedin account, as well as several other topics related to the tech field.

In and around these talks, job hopefuls were awarded the opportunity to visit booths sponsored by up and coming small businesses that were looking for tech savvy individuals to help grow their enterprises, including people looking for freelance work. Free Hubbub Coffee was available in the cafe as well as free headshots in the Expert Hub area.

The evening concluded with a talk on how to ace an interview with Nick Shiftan of Curalate and a happy hour in the vendor expo with free food and drinks.

Look forward to Technically Philly’s next major event when they showcase Philly Tech Week this upcoming April.