Ruben Harris: Career Karma- Breaking Into Startups

Ruben Harris is the CEO and co-founder of Career Karma, which gives you the information, tools, and support you need to get into a tech career quickly. Career Karma was founded through Y Combinator and has raised over $50 Million to date. Ruben began his technology career working in Partnerships and Sales after writing a viral blog post called Breaking Into Startups about how he moved to San Francisco without a job and landed a position 3 weeks later. After receiving thousands of emails asking how to break into tech, Ruben Cofounded the Breaking Into Startups Podcast to demystify the process.

Prior to working in tech, Ruben worked as an Investment Banker focused on Food, Consumer, and Retail companies in Chicago and Atlanta. Ruben has had more than his fair share of careers and interests, noting almost 30 years of playing the Cello among one of his oldest-held passions.

This Episode’s Heavy-hitter’s:

A large inspiration for starting Career Karma was Ruben’s own experience entering the world of investment banking. He was lucky enough to be recommended for investment banking, where he otherwise probably would have never even heard of it because he wasn’t part of the Ivy League banking culture by default.

When Ruben was 19, he learned the importance of event marketing working as a promoter. Through that, he learned how to use celebrity draw through figures like Kim Kardashian, Drake, and more to pack out venues in Atlanta, which was a strategy that he also used to break into the world of Silicon Valley.

Today, Career Karma focuses on educating their career candidates to the full-scope of career opportunities that are available. In addition to that, their fee structure for doing so is based on actually getting hired, and claims a percentage of salary so that working with the company doesn’t limit financially disadvantaged candidates.

Ruben was already no stranger to the world of corporate “lip service” when it comes to the actual execution of DE&I initiatives, so when the George Floyd murder and consequent movement occurred, he and his team focused on transforming high-level corporate placements to help shift substantial change at scale.

A personal motto that Ruben lives by is “your race at your pace” meaning that you have to determine your strategy for navigating your life, career, or business and have faith in the process. This keeps you from the constant comparison that can distract you from your vision.


To learn more about Ruben, please visit: https://careerkarma.com/

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