Fabiana Andreani: our social auntie’s guide to our first job

Hi dears! Today we had the chance to get to know Fabiana Andreani, you all know her on socials as @fabianamanager. Fabiana is a management consultant, executive coach, and speaker who has helped countless individuals and companies to achieve their goals and reach their full potential. Her approach has earned her a reputation as a trusted advisor and thought leader in the world of business and leadership. Get ready to be inspired and motivated by Fabiana’s insights and expertise!

Let’s start with something to break the ice, tell us about your academic and working background. Did you start immediately on social media and do people treat you differently because of it?

Fabiana: I didn’t start right away with social media, as you can see I’m not super young. I’m 41 years old, but at this age your life doesn’t end, you simply enter another phase of your life with a new kind of consciousness. My past is pretty articulated in terms of academic education. I have obtained a bachelor’s degree in International Communication, a Master’s degree in International Relations and a PhD in Japanese linguistics. During my studies I fell in love with the Japanese language and culture, I wanted to delve into it, so I went to Japan, where I’ve done the PhD. After that I was convinced to devolve my life to academic research but that didn’t go as planned, because I figured out that it wasn’t really my path. I liked being part of a group, of a well-established reality, like a company so I decided to move to Milan, where I started working for schools dedicated to postgraduate education. There I handled the development and the administration of complex training projects such as postgraduate master degrees and orientation activities. I really enjoyed this job because of the interactions with people, especially newly-graduates, to bring them from zero to a well-built job profile. I really liked having this sort of privileged observatory between recent graduates and the world of work. As the pandemic struck, I started creating content on TikTok for fun and to clear the idea that it was a social media dedicated only to silly dances and nonsense. I started talking about my job, sharing tips and tricks on the CV and job interviews, while still respecting the easy “grammar” of this app. I have to admit that from that moment on everything escalated, allowing me to open my Instagram page and to start collaborating to some interesting projects, to which I could put my own twist.

The following step I took was to go from working in a company to become the main character of my own story. Being part of a company might feel reassuring, but the downside of it is that everything you do brings the signature of someone else and must be done according to the rules “imposed” by the boss, meaning that you’re not completely free to do what you desire. With this I don’t mean that someone blocked me in any way, but I wished to create a way of communicating that could bring value to the people that followed me on social media.

Do people judge me because I create content on social networks? At the beginning they did. Those that are closer to you want to protect you and to warn you about what they are not familiar with. Nowadays posting videos on TikTok is not as dramatic as it was in 2020, when it was conceived as something that could have weakened my reputation in terms of professionalism. That wasn’t the case for me, it rather acted as a springboard that allowed me to find new ways to express myself and create a job that’s currently about creating content online, as well as being a communication consultant for companies. I help companies by creating content whose aim is to reach new generations by transmitting new opportunities.

It’s a common belief, even though it shouldn’t, that choices are definitive, that by the age of thirty you should somehow be a fully grown adult, but being an adult doesn’t mean that you’re immobile or crystallized. Rather it means that’s time for you to take your own responsibilities, like I did by leaving the security of a permanent job for a freelance profession. Actually, if you really think about it, you don’t have that much security when you’re the employee of a company because it means that you’re putting your existence in the hands of that company that may not train you or expose you to improvement. Overall if the company fails, you find yourself unemployed, so let’s understand that security is not real, but it’s just a palliative.

H-INSIDER: Passion shines through your story! But when we talk to our peers, we often hear that many choose a specific faculty at university considering more future prospects rather than the passions that they may have. What do you think about this? Do you have any advice for young students who are torn between duty and passion?

Fabiana: Can I share an unpopular opinion? Passions are a bit overrated, in the sense that all of us can have a passion. As I was saying before, I am passionate about Japanese language and culture but don’t forget two things: passion, which is something we enjoy, may not correspond to our future employment because it may not be our priority. In addition passions change, my passion for the Japanese language hasn’t diminished, but it’s definitely not as central as it was before. It’s mostly a matter of priorities: understand what’s more important to you at that precise moment. I saw it on my own skin, you change and your priorities change too. The choice of having a permanent contract with a company had become something that didn’t fit me anymore, so I changed.

In all of this, I don’t feel like I’ve failed, it’s not like I studied Japanese for 15 years and then I did nothing with it. This passion led me to discover other talents and skills of mine that led me to be who I am today.

Cultivating your passion can help you, as it was for me with social media. In the beginning it was just a hobby, but then it helped me bring other competencies to light, I discovered communication skills that I didn’t know I had. It’s all about seeing ourselves in an evolutionary perspective, making choices that can still be redefined because we change and eventually get to know ourselves even better.

H-INSIDER: Let’s focus on the period of transition we live between the end of university and our first job. It often scares us, the first perplexities arise and doubts start to storm our minds. Do you remember this period of your life?

Fabiana: I remember it extremely well, university is a crescendo of commitments and expectations to the point that you graduate, and then it seems that you did nothing and indeed the people around you say: “Well, you still haven’t decided yet? What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Remember what I told you before, we have to live our lives considering that they evolve. The obsolete idea that you have to choose a job at 24 years old and keep it for your whole life, is far behind us because it doesn’t correspond to reality. Reality is made up of evolving jobs and skills that you acquire as you go along the way, so we haven’t finished studying because we’ve graduated, it’s more about understanding your dreams. I always say that you must go through your dreams and exclude the ones that don’t correspond to your values and competencies, considering in that moment which sacrifices you’re able to do. Some might tell you to start a master as soon as you finish university, but maybe in that moment it’s an economic sacrifice you’re not able to sustain. If that’s the case, you may find alternatives as doing part-time courses or embarking yourself in an experience abroad if you’ve never had the chance to. Don’t live the end of bachelor’s degree as the idea of having to take a final choice, but rather how much to start trying.

Generally in the age range that goes from 24 up to 30 years old we’re very free to try and have high probabilities to be forgiven by the labour market for these career changes. In reality we’re forgiven also later on because, spoiler, we’re our lives’ storytellers. That is, I can tell my life as that of a loser who changes jobs every ten years, actually in my mind my life is that of a person who listens to herself and therefore doesn’t blindly go on like a mule, but tries to improve her existence gradually with what she has available at that specific moment. On this advice, reason on where you are in the moment, what dreams you have, what sacrifices you’re up to undertake and exclude what you can’t do. From there you start.

In your generation I repeatedly perceive the fear of missing out on opportunities and actually losing them by trying to run after the most you can. This is something positive, but it still takes some time to try multiple things out. So, even dedicating six months of our lives to an experience and not having the certainty that it will work out is not necessarily a bad thing, because that experience gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves, which allows us to acquire new values, or even the possibility of accessing other opportunities.

Don’t start making conclusions for the next ten years, but focus more on the present.

H-INSIDER: How about a more practical question? After the bachelor’s degree would you recommend focusing on doing a master’s degree perhaps including experiences abroad and how is this viewed in the work field?

Fabiana: It definitely depends a lot on where you want to work. Based on my experience, I’m quite sure that a second-level degree is not currently essential for professions that are mainly focused on business functions such as marketing, communication, human resources, sales, and all the digital-related employment. These are all fields in which a three-year degree is sufficient to provide you with the cognitive framework needed to interpret reality. As concerns the practical tools, you can either learn by doing the job, or in a master’s degree program.

On the other hand, a second-level degree is essential for technical fields such as the engineering, scientific or medical ones and highly regulated fields such as strategic business consulting and finance. These are the fields in which a master’s degree adds value.

That being said, the decision is up to us because a master’s degree is a very fast paced program that introduces us to the working environment and is extremely practical. It’s a one-way path, it takes away the opportunity to choose how to enrich our path in parallel as you would with a second-level degree. Let me explain better: with a second-level degree, you still have the opportunity to participate in university associations, take part in Erasmus programs, participate in exchanges, while masters tend to be a rigid path in which every day you have lectures, assignments with a precise deadline and you end up in a company. Typically, with a master’s degree, you enter the business world immediately and once you have experienced what it means to have an economic return on your activities, it’s difficult to go back and be willing to do a second-level degree, so it depends on us.

I’ve seen very valuable master’s programs, especially in private universities concerning the business sector.

H-INSIDER: Time to share another piece of advice! Often in CVs, technical skills such as Excel or the Microsoft Office package are required. How essential and important are they? Are there other important platforms that are not as known?

Fabiana: Nowadays, education has become so fluid that by simply searching online you can have access to hundreds of free courses, from Coursera to edX. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know closely platforms such as Go Generali, Fastweb Digital Academy, SMAU Academy, HubSpot Academy, which give you the chance to take free courses, mainly regarding the digital world and get a certificate. Are these courses valid? Well, they can generally provide you with a basic understanding or foundation, but there are also Google Certificates, which are actual certifications that introduce you to skills that include live mixing and all aspects of programming and R&D.

H-INSIDER: Before leaving you let me ask you the last question, we often see that it’s essential to know programs like Excel or PowerPoint, but there are also other programs that may not be particularly well-known yet, for example, Canva for slide presentations. Are they relevant to insert in our CV?

Fabiana: Well, it depends on the type of profession you have. Canva is useful when you don’t have a graphic background. So, it’s clear that if you work in an advertising agency, you might not use Canva, but you might use more professional tools. However, it can be useful for small business owners or freelancers who want to create online content. For example, there are tools like Miro for data visualization and the creation of infographics or graphs. There’s also Power BI, which is used for analysis and acts as a slightly more advanced version of Excel.

Even social media platforms are definitely tools that one should include in a CV, especially for marketing and communication because they are tools that you cannot avoid, especially if you work in a company that targets a wide audience.

H-INSIDER: That’s a wrap guys! I truly hope this interview shed some light in what is often perceived as a sketchy and deceitful world. The transition between university and work life can be rough but just take the leap and trust in yourself. I hope that these tips will help you master your CV!

Thanks Fabiana for your time, see you soon!