How a tech noobie developed new content marketing strategies
My nine-month journey with CareerContact began with product development as an Event Production Intern and led to mentorship and content marketing as a Content Manager.
Starting as an Event Production Intern
Exposure to automation software
My first task as an Event Production Intern was to organise and host a webinar using Zoom. As a tech noobie who was only acquainted with Google Drive and Gmail, it was an eye-opening experience to learn and use various automation software to boost efficiency.
One such software was Mailchimp, a marketing automation platform used to send out mass emails. Initially, I planned to email every webinar participant using Gmail manually, but Mailchimp lessened the chore by allowing me to send customised emails to hundreds of subscribers at once. I was particularly intrigued by the “merge tag” function which enables a Mailchimp user to insert a text (e.g. *|NAME|*) which would correspond to a particular data field. For instance, “Hello *|NAME|*!” would appear as a personalised text “Hello Sohyun!” in my email inbox.
Another interesting function I discovered was platform integration. By integrating Slack (CareerContact’s main internal communication tool) with Typeform, I could receive updates on every signup through Slack, instead of having to log in to Typeform separately to retrieve information.
Overall, the exposure to various automation software taught me useful tech skills and made me more open-minded in trying new platforms to enhance efficiency.
Involvement in product development
After the first webinar, a challenge posed to Nic and I was: “How can we sustain our webinars or find better substitutes to webinars?”
This led us to CareerContent, a student-centric initiative which includes small group chat sessions with industry professionals in addition to webinars. During the ideation phase, Nic and I had in mind various ideas such as an online career guidebook, Spotify or Youtube playlist on careers, and expert interviews.
The final idea we settled on was based on considerations of workability and marketability. We decided that it would be unsustainable to churn out content for Spotify or Youtube playlist on a regular basis, and neither Nic nor I felt confident leading such a project based on our limited skills and experience. As for our idea of an online career guidebook, we found it too commonplace in the market to make ours distinctive. In contrast, the idea of the expert interviews appealed to us, as small chat sessions provide a platform for interaction and engagement as opposed to a webinar and were relatively more manageable to host as compared to organising webinars.
To make CareerContent more attractive, we introduced a Thinkific curriculum for students to plan their future with adapted materials from Stanford’s Design Your Life course. This online curriculum also featured previous webinars organised by CareerContact, allowing us to repurpose old content.
Ultimately, the experience in conceptualising and executing a business product enabled me to feel a sense of ownership over my work, and it was especially satisfying to hear encouraging feedback from my younger sister who had taken part in CareerContent!
Becoming a CareerContent Manager
Exposure to mentorship and management
After the 3-month internship stint, my role shifted from event planning and execution to event management as a part-time employee. Before embarking on the student recruitment process, Nic and I engaged in a workflow review. Based on our experience hosting a webinar and multiple chat sessions, we utilised a collaboration tool called Whimsical to map out a revised workflow.
For example, there was a significant delay in allocating the student participants to each chat session — as I had only requested for the speakers’ preferred dates and timings after they had accepted our invitation, we had to wait for 2 to 4 days before working out the allocation. Hence, moving forward, we decided that having a clear Call to Action (e.g. “Please get back to us by [date] with your available dates and times”) in our first email would help speed up the process.
A point related to workflow review is the importance of ensuring that any mistake made from earlier events is conveyed clearly to everyone in the team. More specifically, in one of the earlier webinars, we created a Zoom “Meeting” instead of “Webinars”, the former being a rather unconducive and unprofessional way of hosting a webinar. Unfortunately, the same problem occurred in the second last webinar that I was involved in. Though the issue arose out of a different context, the failure to check that a Webinar had been created was a regretful oversight on my part. In hindsight, it would have been helpful if Nic and I had discussed the fundamentals of a successful webinar so as to pay greater attention to those areas than relatively less important things like checking for awkward phrasings in emails.
Overall, the managerial experience I had — from interviewing students and coming up with a training schedule, to overseeing their work and watching them pass on their learning points to the subsequent batch — has been extremely fulfilling.
Involvement in content marketing
Aside from overseeing the webinars and chat sessions, I was exposed to content marketing through approving content generated by the students for publication on Medium (to log progress and cement thought leadership) and our new CareerContact App (to share career insights).
Another area that I worked on was proposing sections to restructure this Medium publication. I found the publication hard to navigate, as there were streams of articles but no headings that organised them for easy access.
My initial proposal had the following 5 sections: “Charting CareerContact’s Development”, “Opinions”, “Insights/ Reflections”, “Tips/ How-to”, and “SME Features”. What helped me in refining these section headings was thinking of the purpose/target audience of each section. For example, the “SME Features” and one of the articles under “Tips/How-to” were targeted at attracting SMEs to join us. In light of this, I thought that having a main “CareerContact x SME” with sub-sections titled “Best Practices” to provide useful information to SMEs and “SME Features” to illustrate our close collaboration to convince SMEs of our value, would be more apt. For internal coherence, “Charting CareerContact’s Development” and “Insights/Reflection” were re-labelled “The CareerContact Journey” and “The CareerContact Experience” respectively.
It was an illuminating experience to try my hand at copywriting, and I hope to apply the similar thought process involved in restructuring this Medium blog to my future projects where applicable!
My journey as a CareerContact member
Opportunities for personal and career development
Looking at the minutes taken during my interview (which in itself is a testament to how CareerContact cares about its members’ personal and professional development!), I mentioned that “I hope to be a mentor for younger people and develop business awareness which can contribute to my career goal as a commercial lawyer.”
During my time at CareerContact, I had the opportunity to get a taste of an in-house counsel’s job. The founders involved me in the incorporation process this January, allowing me to observe how to register as a private limited company. I was also given bite-size tasks like giving an overview of the directors’ duties, shareholders’ rights, and Intellectual Property rights in plain language. My experience in producing the first draft of the non-disclosure agreement and uploading it to DocuSign came in handy for my assignments during law internships as well.
Further, attending weekly stand-ups and undertaking ad-hoc tasks like competitor analysis exposed me to the workings of the business world which I would not have experienced in school.
Final words
CareerContact is an innovation-driven company with immense potential to grow and constantly empowers its members to grow. I would strongly recommend an internship or part-time employment with CareerContact if you wish to expose yourself to diverse opportunities across various areas of business and experience working in an ed-tech start-up with enthusiastic and inspiring individuals!
CareerContact is an ed-tech platform designed to bridge the gap between school and work. We help students develop digital skills and connect them with SMEs in Southeast Asia. Whether you’re a student, educator or enterprise, feel free to reach out to us at info@careercontact.org or join us at CareerContact.app.
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