Turning 25 in a few days brought me sudden thoughts
about family, life, career, amongst a bunch of other things. Oh well—this must
be quarter life crisis, and I really am getting older!
Putting drama aside, I have realized that one of my major reflection points is how I managed to job-hop like a kangaroo in the past 4 years. And I am not speaking about mere transfers from one company to another, but rather big leaps from entirely different industries.
Of course I had to make risks, gamble, put security
on the line for promises of growth, burn a few bridges in exchange for a bigger
network, and forget all theories learned in college to make room for awesome
real learnings.
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| SOURCE: www.lukedockery.com |
How did I manage to survive? Simple – I took what I should and left what I shouldn’t.
Using corporate world lingo, I meant focusing on transferable skills.
Yes, there are such. Working as a trainer in an insurance company can make you
equally useful as an account manager in a hotel. Serving as a flight attendant
won’t limit you to that path as you can be in sales or marketing later on. And
even the oddest switches like becoming a beauty consultant from being a police
officer is indeed possible.
Transferable skills are not definite and may vary
from one individual to another, but let me give you three that helped with my
own survival.
· Customer Service
In every
organization under whatever industry, providing excellent customer service is
key. Those who are working in the backend are not excused as you still have
internal clients to cater to. The basic rule? Respond as soon as possible to
answer certain queries or requests – or to acknowledge at the least. And always
put yourself on the position of the customer you are attending to. Always
listen, refrain from assuming, and keep communication open.
· Account Ownership
Every role is
an account management of some sort. You will be assigned with a specific group
of clients, or be given a specific set of tasks. In any way, be sure to take
ownership and be accountable on how you can maintain or further improve the
work processes or standards of the “account” given to you. There is nothing
wrong in thinking out of the box and sharing ideas on how the steady now can
even be better.
· Research
Technical knowledge
is not exactly something that you need to take from one industry to the next.
Except probably for specialists (like IT experts) who may be taking the
industry leap but will remain doing the same function. Nonetheless, it is
important to keep research skills intact as every move translates to endless
learning. You will always have new computer systems to work on, protocols to
memorize, people or vendors to connect to, and client cultures to familiarize
with. Inability to do research is like constantly working in a passive way
where you just chew whatever is given.
So who said industry leaps are
always a bad thing? At the end of the day, you always take charge of your own
wheel and you can survive any new environment with a solid will.
