Reflections on my Carousell internship
As the end to my 6 month internship at Carousell draws near, I’ve been feeling extremely sentimental, and thought it would be rewarding to write about my time here.
I came in as a blank slate with almost no background in business. My time here has been so meaningful because I’ve learned so much so quickly, and met people that I will cherish forever. I thought it’d be a good idea to pass on some of my learnings to anyone interested in recruitment, working in a startup or even entering a field with no prior knowledge of it.
In my time here, I’ve been helping a lot with recruitment and sponsored marketing through LinkedIn. As such, I’ve had the opportunity to do a few experiments in two main areas.
Sourcing
I was primarily tasked to help our recruiter Charlotte with sourcing for new talent. Luckily, Charlotte is a really good manager, who took the time to train me and gave me the bandwidth to experiment and fail.
In the beginning, sourcing was very troublesome because I didn’t know much about who was the “right candidate”. I kept coming across technical words I didn’t know, which made it feel like I was reading profiles in a whole other language. Sourcing also felt like a never ending process, because there is never a shortage of candidates in the world.
However, over the various experiments, the plethora of candidates made it more of a game than a burden. I’ve started to enjoy tweaking my boolean searches, and now get a feeling of intense excitement when I come across a right match, even more so when they respond.
Surprisingly, I can now understand most of the technical language that engineers throw at laymen too, which has been super helpful for me in other aspects.
Experimenting with LinkedIn Campaign Manager
I started by sponsoring content for hiring a bunch of tech positions. I later added content for Carousell’s Product and Data positions too.
To optimize our content, I used three different variations of copy for each role and similarly used different, randomized images to find out which combinations gave us the best results.
I found that images with more red had better click-through rates (CTRs). Possibly because it stands out and people identify red as a Carousell color.
Secondly, I found better success when I put the copy on the photo and call to action on both the photo and description. This encouraged readers to connect more with the photo because they don’t really like to read captions anyway (less verbose — more visual).
One my favorite parts of this experiment was when I started to track each applicant to identify which picture they were applying through. This gave me really clear insights as to what was actually working.
Networking opportunities
Because this feature on LinkedIn was fairly new when I started, most of the experimenting I’ve done with the Campaign Manager has been self-taught. I had no knowledge of digital marketing, and learned the how-tos and jargon through online research and a workshop that I attended at the LinkedIn office.
Going for the workshop was really intimidating for me, since I was the only intern there amongst seasoned digital marketing executives. But the chance to learn from LinkedIn, meet their employees and see their office was an opportunity I cherish.
I’ve gotten a lot of amazing opportunities like this through my internship at Carousell. Just recently I visited the Airbnb office, got a tour of their amazing workspace, and hear from people that work there. Surprisingly, most of them knew me through the friends I’ve made at Carousell. I never imagined that so many people would actually know of me!
One of my favorite was going to Taiwan with Charlotte and the recruiting team. After scheduling candidates for a Charlotte’s visit to South Korea, the next step in my internship was to independently source for candidates in Taiwan.
Charlotte gave me the autonomy to source for a few positions with my own judgement. After sourcing and scheduling behind the curtain for weeks, the Peoples Team decided to bring me along on their trip to Taiwan. This was a huge deal for me because I would finally get to meet these candidates, many of whom I’d found myself, and been speaking with them for the longest time.
There were many events to help out in, that I really broke out of my shell. I learned a lot of soft skills while interacting with the candidates who didn’t speak fluent English, or were nervous about their interview. These are all skills that I use now while interacting with others too.
Learning new skills from amazing people
The flexibility at Carousell meant I had chances to work with Terence in marketplace quality, Claire to help out with Carouselland (our biggest event so far), and Bella while learning how to design pictures with advertising copies. I still can’t believe that over hundreds of thousands of people have seen the photos I designed.
I was also able to learn from people like Jordan, Victor, Arun and Drew, across new disciplines like engineering, digital marketing and communications.
It’s such a useful experience to pick up tasks that you’ve never done before. It can be really intimidating in the start, but the feeling at the end — when you accomplish something that you didn’t think you could — is so empowering. It gives me an indescribable rush, and drives me to keep throwing myself in new challenges to learn more.
Feeling changed
After my few months at Carousell I’ve gone from being a timid girl to an outgoing intern that has gotten the opportunity to work at the best startup in Singapore amongst such talented individuals, visit and learn from other impactful companies like LinkedIn and Airbnb, and travel to new countries like Taiwan.
It’s the culture here that changes you. I came into the internship as a completely reserved individual. I wouldn’t even talk around people I knew for years, let alone talking to someone that I had just met. I used to be so shy while scheduling talks with candidates or presenting weekly updates to my team.
But a healthy go-get-it-done attitude coupled with Carousell’s independent culture transformed me. I’m now much more sociable with people and can hold a long, meaningful conversation. I’ve learned how to be clearer in my explanations, assert my opinions, and present my findings to a room of people.
I’m convinced that a fast-paced start-up like Carousell can give you this support in your journey.
I’m so very grateful to Marcus, Charlotte and the team at Carousell for giving me this amazing opportunity and believing in me. I’ve gained so much from these months and you have inspired me in ways I can’t describe. You guys are my mentors for life.
It has been a crazy, busy, intense and scary journey, but I couldn’t have asked for more!
