Huma Saleem has always had an unwavering passion for technology and a deep love of problem-solving. That passion led her to pursue a degree in Computer Sciences, which she completed with distinction, and then embarked on a successful eight-year IT career.

When Huma started a family, she decided to take an extended career break to ensure she could give her children the time and care they needed during their formative years. While she devoted her time to her children, she kept in close touch with the technology industry, pursuing learning opportunities and obtaining several certifications.

Nine years later, Huma was ready to rejoin the workforce in Australia. However, she faced challenges because of her extended career break and lack of recent Australian market experience. Always a self-starter, she decided to volunteer as a part-time project manager as a first step to re-entering the workforce.

Then, opportunity struck. She attended a webinar on Women in Technology that was hosted by ServiceNow. She says she found the webinar exceptionally valuable and felt inspired by hearing stories from accomplished women in senior positions in ServiceNow. ServiceNow's commitment to supporting women in technology convinced her to take a closer look at ServiceNow.

She reached out to the webinar host from ServiceNow, who introduced her to the ServiceNow NextGen program in Australia. She saw this as an exciting opportunity to open up new avenues for her career and applied.

For Huma, the nine weeks of NextGen training — which is specifically designed to help people like Huma start rewarding careers in the ServiceNow ecosystem — was a revelation. She explains that NextGen took a structured approach to covering all the essential topics needed to prepare her for entering a competitive market, giving her valuable knowledge and skills. She's particularly enthusiastic about the hands-on project at the program's end, which allowed participants to put what they'd learned into practice.

Huma says that the program's biggest benefit is that she was now job-ready, which allowed her to transition at the end of the program. She had a series of interviews with potential employers and accepted a position with a ServiceNow Elite partner in Australia. She says the company went out of its way to support the transition back into the workforce and was given the opportunity to work on projects that help customers harness the full potential of ServiceNow. She also highlights how she gets to work with a team of highly talented individuals, allowing her to further deepen her ServiceNow knowledge.

Following on from NextGen, Huma has also continued to pursue her passion for continuous learning. She is now a Certified System Administrator (CSA) and Certified Application Developer (CAD), and she's also certified on the ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM) suite. In fact, she's completed more than 130 courses on Now Learning and has over 110 badges.

Way to go, Huma!

If you're looking to re-enter the workforce in a fulfilling and rewarding role, why don't you RiseUp with ServiceNow like Huma? There's a huge demand for motivated and skilled people, and the ServiceNow ecosystem is somewhere your talents will be truly appreciated. RiseUp with ServiceNow today!