My Experience 1 week into Carousell…
Only having been in Carousell for a week, I was ecstatic that Carousell 101 would begin just the week after. Just starting out, I was feeling a little lost as to what everyone else was doing, how the company was being run and what to expect. Even when I did have conversations with friendly colleagues, I’d wind up extremely perplexed with the terms they were using and what they were talking about.
It was only after Carousell 101, Carousell’s version of on-boarding, that things began to make sense.
What is Carousell 101?
Carousell 101 is a 3-day on-boarding session organised for all newcomers. It is aimed at giving new employees a holistic view of the tools, resources, and knowledge to help them become successful and productive in their time at Carousell. A crash course of everything and anything related to Carousell, how Carousell operates, and how the company is driven.
Day 1 & 2: Company Introductions
Carousell 101 kicked off with an introduction from our co-founders, Siu Rui and Marcus, who shared about the Business Strategy and Culture & Core Values of Carousell. It was really amazing and inspiring that the co-founders, the guys who made it all happen, still take the time to onboard new people to their mission.
Besides the introduction from the co-founders, we had sessions for every aspect of the company, from our culture and engineering to the design team. Although some sessions may apply more than others depending on your role, it was eye-opening knowledge and good introduction to how every department functions and works together. It was nothing short of an extensive introduction but each session was concise, to the point and easy enough for everyone to understand regardless of role.
Every session was a different experience but the thing that ties all the sessions together really is Carousell’s overarching mission.
Carousell is a user-centric company, with our focus and attention squarely on our users’ needs and wants. Having only worked for small businesses in the past where the focus was usually on making money, it was heartwarming to see that Carousell really cares and prioritises the users.
The sessions that impacted me the most…
“Culture & Core Values” taught me a lot about how instilling good values and cultivating good habits not only impact us as individuals but the people around us. In particular, “Stay Humble” is one of the values that resonated with me deeply. It applies greatly to how we treat our peers and most importantly our users. In putting others before ourselves, listening more than we speak, we lift each other up to rise together in the process.
“Our Strategy” gave us a glimpse of Carousell’s business strategy and key milestones. It taught me how creating an experience and making stories happen, can bring about a meaningful economic impact.
Carousell aims to inspire more people to start selling by making selling super simple. To achieve this, the company looks at how to remove friction in selling and buying, and how to make things faster, efficient, more personalised through the use of artificial intelligence.
“The People Team” session was especially interesting because it gave us insights on how the Human Resource department actually works. Carousell’s People team helps look after all the needs of Carousell employees, especially when it comes to career, growth, and development.
They are more than just the people to turn to when you have to raise an issue or dispute. The whole team aims to create a harmonious and conducive workplace environment for everyone, acting as a mediator to minimise as much friction between employees. What’s unique about Carousell is that they also encourage employees to actively and openly provide and receive feedback from our managers to achieve consensus together.
Day 3: Team bonding activities
Aside from the usual company and function introductions, what makes Carousell’s on-boarding session unique is how time is set aside for activities for each batch of new employees to bond over. These activities are aimed at building relationships within each batch, and instills the values Carousell upholds and lives by but teaches us the importance of teamwork.
For my batch’s activity, we traveled all the way into the kampong village areas of Khatib to find a little quaint place called the Ground-up Initiative or GUI for short. GUI aims to cultivate holistic solutions for a happier, liveable and sustainable future for modern society. The team engaged a guest speaker from Green Nudge to teach us how we can make “eco-bricks” by simply stuffing plastic bottles with various clean unwanted plastic bags. These “eco-bricks” would eventually be used as building blocks for furniture and other up-cycled creations.
The great part about these activities was the fact that everyone could be an active participant. Everyone’s voice mattered and was taken into account.
Carousell 101 culminates with the traditional “mini hackathon” on the last day. As a batch, we were split into teams with technical and non-technical roles, where we brainstormed solutions or new approaches to the user experience on the Carousell app.
Each group had time to discuss and brainstorm on the problems encountered as users of the app. All the teams came up with brilliant ideas that were actually feasible. As an introduction of the multidisciplinary nature of problem-solving that Carousell embraces, it was really inspiring how everyone onboard had so much to bring to the table.
My Overall Experience of Carousell 101
Carousell 101 was a blast! I not only got to delve into more in-depth things about Carousell but I got to meet an amazing bunch of people from different walks of life. It was an exhilarating 3 days filled with me getting to know everyone in the company and activities that made me understand a whole lot more about the company.
Carousell 101 is just a snippet of what’s more to come and I can only imagine what the future holds. I am looking forward to what else I can help out in aside from just being the workplace receptionist. I don’t want to be limited to my role. I want to expand, reach out and see what else I can do to impact the company positively.
Here’s to creating many more magical moments ahead!
