My way to think about career

Agnes Li
Agnes Li
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

For those who want to change your career or just curious, things I learn along the way, from worked at Digital Agency, Start-up and tech giant.

*Declaimer: I am absolutely respect people I worked with and they are all very bright and talented. I even hold some of them most dear. The view from below is all from my own perspective, no judgement, just sharing.

At my early stage of my career, I worked in a digital media agency. It was a pretty good job cause you can learn so much on the latest tools and digital trends. Also, in agency, you can get in touch with a wide range of account, from financial industry to luxury brands. And then It was a time I realised something that changed my perspective of my career, so I put myself in a start-up and find my way out. The key takeaway from digital agency is,

  1. Scalability
    The business model of an agency, by default, is not scalable. The scalability is hindered by the way they expand their business. When we got a new account to handle, we will increase our headcount right away. It implied that , if we have more accounts, we will need to hire more people. You can image, unless we got a product or service to sell, the profit margin will be eventually diminished by human cost. I know there are tons of amazing agency people making lots of money, I really admire that. I am talking how you think your position of business in the world, not looking into some exceptional cases or odd factors. I put this rule into my job as well, I set prioritises of what skill set I should improve for the long term career, criteria as below,
  • It can be scalable, example: automation, storytelling skill
  • It can provide actionable next step/ insight : analytical skill, business sense, product knowledge, some framework

In contrast, some skills I am personally not a big fan of it. like skill can apply for single campaign, outcome of skill is not measurable, skill can be replaced by automation.

So I have developed a list of skill I need to master and material I needed to go through. Here are some materials I have read and found it quite useful.

1. books I read (more on my to-read-list)

see more on my goodread profile

2. blog or website I am following

there are more, the list is way too long, usually I will spend one or one an half hours per day to read them through

Then, I tried to find a way to test the idea/ tactic or framework I learn from above. Then we set success metric, learnt from the result. I am thankful that I have a luxury to try and fail. That’s how we learn and how we growth.

Next time, I might share some experiments I have done and see how the thinking process helps.

I will start writing blog twice a week, or ideally once a week. Cause writing actually help me think and present. The goal I have set for myself is volume. I write as much as I can, I believe if I simply just do it, it will get easier.

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