Excitement! Excitement!

I am starting work soon! Really excited about the opportunity to learn about the long term healthcare industry in a sales capacity. I can imagine the huge learning curve involved BUT I like it that way. Looking forward to this new chapter of my career.

Lost Identity from Unemployment

So, I have been unemployed for the last 4 months. Never in my life have I been "purposeless" for this long. I know, what a great sin to say that. Of course I have purpose!

Well, the toughest month for me was between June to July. I had finished all the beautiful parts about graduation --returning from my grad trip and attending convocation. I was no longer able to escape the reality that I had not secured a career for myself.

I was angry at myself for not being like 'everyone' else. Hating that everyone but me seemed to have found their calling. I had friends mentioning that they were making $40-50k while I was eating into my savings. (My God, I had worked every summer and part-time since first year but still didn't have much money left!). I saw Linkedin and Facebook updates about how everyone was enjoying their first real job. Everyone seemed to be doing great but me! To add salt to my wounds, I was also supposed to have started a job that month but the opportunity fell through before I could even see my office cubicle...It was hard to not take it personally.

I don't know about you but I remedy myself by talking to people and/or writing. I talked to everyone that was willing to listen, telling them what jobs I applied to and who I interviewed with blah blah blah. But my boyfriend, he had to listen to me talk about being unemployed, A LOT. I cannot imagine how helpless he must have felt  when I was so beat-up emotionally.


For the last two and a half years my identity had been defined as Shin, the awesome workaholic. I always said something to do, something to look forward to. I was addicted to being busy and accomplishing things. I loved adding great experiences to my resume! Who cares if I was skipping meals to do so, it's just another day in the high achievers life!

But I no longer had that.  In hindsight all that frustration was not about my employment status, I was afraid of losing my identity. I guess the first few months of being unemployed for a workaholic feels like withdrawal. You are more easily agitated and you do ANYTHING to get that feeling back. I knew to some extent what was going on but I just couldn't stop it.

It sucks that I am unemployed, it really does. But I have to own it. Recruiters look away from what I have to say next as I am talking about my mistakes. (Just kidding!)

• I should not have taken for granted that I would get a job just because I felt I had great experiences on my resume
• I should have prioritized extracurriculars, school, and job hunting in equal amounts
• I should have worked harder to secure 'more relevant' internships during my summer in 2nd and 3rd year
• I should have taken the internship option after 3rd year
• I should have built  a time-machine!

After writing down the list above, I notice that I cannot change what has been done. I can only move forward and focus on what I can do for the future. This is one of the toughest life lessons for me, but hopefully I will get through it.

~Shin

Ideally...

I call myself a pessimist, but something I am surprisingly optimistic about my ability to grow the organization I am with. Do I sound like the stereotypical GEN Y that believes they can change the world?

This post stems from a conversation I had with a recruiter. They asked me, "What would your first job look like*?" And I told them what it was, I said I would like to be in a role where I can consult different internal and external clients then come-up with a solution that I can implement. "Herm, that sounds like a dream job but probably wouldn't be in the scope of your first job. There is a lot of learning that you have to do.*"

Well, they are right. What do I know about managing a billion dollar business? I even have to pause and figure-out how many zeroes are in a billion! In other words, I am naive in thinking I have decision-making capabilities.

Maybe, what I should have said was " My first job is a role where I can see how my work is impacting the organization". That is a big career value of mine and probably a lot more realistic!

Back to the point of naivety. I think it is both a strength and a weakness. It is strength when it is not hardened by the pessimism of 'this is how things are done'. But it is a weakness when one does not realize the full impact of their decisions. Surely, there must be a balance we can strike between the strength of weakness of being naive.

This is where mentors and supportive supervisors come to play. Allow your GEN Y to dream and believe in change but CHECK to make sure they are realistic and implementable.

I cannot imagine any employer intentionally stifling the enthusiasm of their subordinates, but does your GEN Y hire feel it is safe to voice out their opinions? Are you giving them adequate explanations when you shut down their ideas? Have you taught them how to solicit support when they are proposing a change?

It is not that we are stubborn and want to have it all our way, but we just need to know Y.

*Some paraphrasing involved.

You Don't Look The Part.....

Once, a certain supervisor told me:

"Shin, you are small-sized, Asian, and female. You need to work harder at making people take you seriously."

The statement did not offend me, for I understood there must be some truth in it. Besides, they themselves were from a minority background. They probably experienced something similar and were just trying to give me a heads-up for the future. Nonetheless, I did fall silent--no one had ever spoken to me like that.

I knew I was not the typical image of a business person, but never once did it occur to me that my size, skin colour and gender was working that hard against me. These were physical aspects of myself that I could not change. Would this really be the reason in which I had to work harder than everyone else?

Well, regardless of the factors for or against myself, I know I WANT to work hard and see how far I can go. Besides, I believe the world is changing and becoming more accepting of differences.

Will this pint-sized Asian chic become a c-suite executive one day? I don't know. But it never hurts to try!

PS: Napolean complex?

Being Perfect

I have wanted to set-up this blog for a while. A blog written by a career newbie talking about the darker moments in our professional lives. The low moments when we feel there is no point in working hard. The low moment where you wondered "Am I ever going to get a job?". Well, it so happens that I am unemployed so I have found the time to write again!

This blog is meant to be confessional. I want the people that have had internal struggles about their careers to realize someone else feels the same way they feel. We all have had moments of depressing weakness. And it is about time we were honest about it!

Something that I have never understood about the business world is this shame about admitting you have weaknesses. Unfortunately, I subject myself to that shame all the time; I just feel such a strong pressure to be a know-it-all, strong, perfect, happy-happy!  Which sucks for a person that strives to be authentic.

I am the Type A closet pessimist -- has a strong desire to be great but is always fearful that I will never be good enough. I constantly try to hide my worries and doubts behind this 'perfect' image of who I think I should be. Anyone heard of impostor syndrome? My favourite and most powerful TEDTalk by Lisa Cuddy talks about it during the second half of her video. Impostor syndrome is the feeling that no matter what you accomplish, you are still a loser and you do not deserve any of your success. It is a horribly mean way of treating yourself and I do not like it. Hopefully, I can learn to grow out of this.

By the way, I decided to blog instead of keep a journal because I no longer want to hide. I want to admit and accept that I will never be perfect. And just because I am not perfect, does not mean I am less worthy of happiness and success.

Thank you so much for reading this with me, it means a lot. Maybe you can share your moments of weakness with me too, would love to hear from you.