Look for the Skill Behind the Vocabulary

Octavia Howell was working with network controls before she could name every security concept involved.

In her Fireside Chat conversation, she recalled an early role supporting communications and preventing unwanted connections. She described allowing or denying traffic and working with firewalls and access controls while still learning the terminology surrounding that work.

That experience informed a concern she raised about the profession: people can be overlooked because they do not yet use the expected vocabulary, even when their experience contains relevant skills.

Ask what the person actually did

There is a meaningful difference between lacking a term and lacking an understanding of the work. Howell's story does not make terminology unimportant. Shared language helps teams communicate. It suggests that vocabulary alone is an incomplete way to assess what someone can contribute.

A useful editorial application in hiring or mentoring is to ask for an explanation of the task. What was happening? What did the person change? What were they trying to prevent? Their answers may reveal relevant reasoning that a short acronym-based exchange would miss.

The distinction matters for career changers and early-career practitioners, but it can also matter across disciplines. Different teams may use different names for responsibilities that overlap.

Howell later moved into network security after a manager helped create an opportunity. Her account ties that transition to both the work she was already doing and someone else's willingness to see potential in it. Looking closely at the experience can make that potential easier to recognize.

Listen to the original conversation with Octavia N. Howell · Read the transcript

From the Fireside Chat archive: original episode published 2023-02-22. This is an editorial reflection on that conversation, not a new interview or an update on the guest’s current role.