The Course is Complete… So What Happened Next?
Welcome to the real world of switching careers, getting job ready and landing my “dream job”
At the beginning of April I came to the end of a seriously intense but life-changing User Experience Design course at General Assembly in London. It was the toughest three months of my life and I have never worked so hard, but it’s an experience I will cherish and fondly look back on. So what happened after Graduation?
Getting Job Ready
After a well deserved 4-day break over the Easter bank holiday, it was time to get “job ready”. This meant completely recreating my CV (previously it was a very boring word document but I needed something that stood out from the crowd and spoke “design”), create a portfolio (despite not really knowing much in the way of front-end languages I decided to code my own website, teaching myself HTML and CSS along the way) and design my business cards (which would tie in with the theme of my personal brand).
Meet and Hire Event
I then had to prepare for the Meet and Hire event run by General Assembly. It’s essentially a reverse careers fair where we showcased our work and spoke to potential employees about our skills and discussed what kind of designers they were looking for. I met some really interesting people (mainly from the startup world but also a couple from well known design agencies and a highly regarded games company) but none that were quite the right fit for me.
Finding My “Dream Job”
After trawling through hundreds of job ads I finally stumbled upon one which I genuinely thought was my “dream job”! I even emailed the hiring manager telling him so! I knew I was under-qualified for the role but I excitedly applied anyway hoping that my passion would at least score me an interview. Thankfully, it did! Three days later I was attending an interview and two hours after that I got a call from the CEO offering me the job. I could not believe my luck!! They asked me to start the following Monday (four days away) — Yikes!
So What’s The Job?
My new role is Product Manager for an insurance tech startup called Konsileo. Their aim is to disrupt the commercial insurance broking market by transforming the working life and technology experience of the staff who work in it.
Being a startup, the role I’ve taken on is broad in nature and hard to define into a neat little box, but roughly speaking it’s my responsibility to own the complete customer journey and be involved in all aspects of growing the startup. Having worked in the insurance industry for the last 6 years in a number of different roles (broker, underwriter, business analyst) I felt it was the perfect way to transition into my new career. The PM role combines aspects of my previous job as a business analyst, but with a heavy focus on user experience design meaning I’m able to directly apply the skills, tools and processes I learnt on the course.
How’s it Going?
I’ve been working for Konsileo for exactly two months now and it’s been a complete rollercoaster of emotions and experiences. Some days have been the best of my working life, and others have been the worst. But I think that’s the reality of working for any startup.
I come from a very corporate background with strict processes in place and clearly defined job roles. This environment is the complete opposite so it’s taken me a while to adjust and find my feet. I’ve had to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in all sorts of different tasks, deal with a huge amount of ambiguity and face some very difficult challenges. However, I’m learning more than I could have ever imagined, feel lucky to be part of an awesome team and am eager to deliver an outstanding, innovative product that will revolutionise the way insurance brokers do business.
My Blog
I plan to share my learnings and experiences (good and bad) of my role as a product manager in the startup world over the next 6 months through several articles on Medium. I hope you find the insights into the PM role and startup world useful. I’d love to get your feedback and answer any questions you may have so please use the space in the comments below. Thanks!
