"It took a lot of encouragement from colleagues and friends at the beginning of my career to go for it and to face my fear of rejection or not feeling good enough at times."
- Jackie Ariston
In what ways do we embrace equity at UpGuard?
We follow skills-based hiring. We do not focus on specific education requirements in our hiring process unless it's required for specialized roles, we focus on prior experience and role-specific skills which we look to assess in appropriate technical assignments based on the role. We also encourage candidates to interview us back in the hiring process to determine whether this is the right role for them and whether we as a company are a good fit for them.
Each employee has an L&D budget to help them develop skills in line with the role and career aspirations
We empower our employees by providing information to them in our company wiki so that they can find what they need and how to access it and feel safe doing so
We value our team's feedback and have multiple channels in place including anonymous feedback
We know that we need to listen to our team and are committed to hearing where we can improve, examine, and update our practices.
What piece of advice could you give to help women navigate in this or other high-tech industries?
Shoot your shot and don’t be afraid of a non-linear career trajectory.
I think all too often (and I can say this from personal experience and from what I’ve observed with my female friends and colleagues) women typically apply for the role or put their hands up for projects we’re qualified for, we need to keep putting ourselves out there and putting our hands up for opportunities that might seem where we don’t tick off all the requirements.
It took a lot of encouragement from colleagues and friends at the beginning of my career to go for it and to face my fear of rejection or not feeling good enough at times.
On the non-linear career journey, I think there are so many transferable skills that you can apply in your current and future roles and even life when you’re willing to try something new, personally, this has helped me a lot and I wouldn’t be where I am now without taking this path, that being said I realize that for certain roles/professions, this advice might not apply. Whenever I talk to my team about where they want to go in their career I start with what do you enjoy? What don’t you enjoy doing?
Stepping outside your comfort zone is a great way to get broader exposure and find something that you might not have previously considered and at the end of the day, you walk out with something new in your wheelhouse that can make you more effective.
Was there someone - of any gender, colleague, or mentor - who was an example or direct influence that inspired you in your career? How?
Absolutely! I’ve been really fortunate to have a few great mentors throughout my career, our CEO Mike has had the biggest influence on my career so far.
Early on when I joined UpGuard, like a lot of people I didn’t have clear goals on where I wanted my career to go and what that would look like. I was really open to several different avenues and was given, encouraged, and in some cases asked for the opportunity to run a range of pretty diverse projects.
The encouragement I received from Mike helped me try new things, build confidence and my skills as a generalist which ended up being very transferable and also helped me form a better idea of where I wanted my career to go.
I felt like our 1:1s were a safe space for me to ask for feedback, help, and talk through how I was approaching projects, problems, and situations which helped me grow immensely - I became comfortable with not having all the answers, felt safe to make mistakes and learn from them.
One of the things I really admire about him is his value of continuous learning, that’s something I increasingly value, and encourage that mindset with my team. Similarly, the level of trust we have in our working relationship is one that I hope to have and develop over time with my team.
