Connor Harney

Background

About Connor Harney

I graduated from Appalachian State University in December 2013 with a major in History and a minor in Psychology. In May of 2016, I received my MA in History from Appalachian, finishing in just two year, no small feat. History has been a lifelong interest, instilled in me by my grandfather as a toddler. In 2018, I took what I thought was a big step forward in my career as an academic, beginning my studies as PhD student at UNC-Greensboro. It was a difficult transition from working a full-time professional job to the precarious life of a graduate student. Having a family to support, I cobbled together an existence that kept me out of debt and with a roof over our heads. Now let's fast-forward to 2020. Even before the pandemic hit, it was a transformative year. My second son was born and I completed my graduate coursework. With my teaching load pushed online and no longer needing to commute, I took on more hours at my part-time job. By the end of 2020, I was working more than full-time between my various jobs. In 2021, one of those jobs turned from part-time to full-time. I began tutoring at Achievement Charter at the end of their first school year. Based on my performance, they asked me to come on as Reading/Language Specialist. That proved serendipitous because I was at a point in my PhD when I was no longer working with an assistantship and would soon no longer have teaching course load. It also came at a time when I came to grapple with the likelihood of actually getting a job at a university after completing my degree. At the end of 2022, I made the decision to leave my program without graduating because of the toll trying to juggle everything had taken. As of July 2023, I’m back where I started my sales career at ShareFile. At work, I’m surrounded by a group of extremely talented people doing great work. Since I started I’ve returned to mastering the craft of the cold call with a goal of becoming a territory manager by 2024. I’ve hit the ground running and already hit my target of meetings booked for the quarter after only two weeks on the phones.