Cheers to a New Job (and a New Path!)

Recently, I started a new job. After doing investor relations advisory for three years, I transitioned into being a product manager. I was so thrilled, I ordered my favorite Diptyque candles and asked the shop to send them to me as a gift, personalized with a card that writes: “Happy New Year and congrats on your new job!” I put that card on my fridge.

As some of my friends may know, I was feeling stuck for many years before this. For a long time, I was in a job that I knew wasn’t for me, and I was trying everything to pivot into a new field. A few months ago, I received an exciting job offer, and I finally felt that I was on the right track for the first time. It’s so refreshing to be on the other end of the tunnel, after all these frustrations and struggles.

In college, I was one of the bright-eyed students who dreamed about working in investment banking. I’ve always been interested in business, and it’s so cool to have a chance to learn how a business is built. However, despite hundreds of applications and networking chats, I didn’t get any offer. I enrolled in a masters program and tried again at recruiting.

This time, an offer came around, taking me to New York to do investor relations advisory. While it wasn’t a dream job, it was what I had at that time, and I had a plan for transitioning into something that seemed more interesting, which was equity research. For a while, I thought I was doing well.

Then Covid hit, and so did my quarter-life crisis. Suddenly, the finance industry didn’t sound interesting to me anymore. I began to struggle finding value in my job, and what I did day-to-day became increasingly unfulfilling. I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I was extremely lost. I dreaded going to work every morning, and was constantly feeling like I was wasting my time, letting my youth slip away.

It was a time of deep reflection, and I explored numerous ways to find an answer. However, I had no luck for many months.

First, I tried to connect the dots as I reflected my life journey. I realized that, growing up, the things I always had the most fun with were all creative. I wrote short stories as a kid, and I was a student journalist as a teenager. However, working in creatives required me to start over, and I was scared by this big commitment. Was that really my calling? Was I talented enough? I wanted to find something that intersects between business and creativity, so that my current work experiences were not going to waste.

As an art enthusiast, I thought about brand management and fashion. Perhaps data analytics in the retail industry? Fashion merchandising? Still, neither sounded right to me.  

Looking around what my peers were doing, I thought about tech. I signed up for a product manager bootcamp, but I was intimidated by all the technical jargons. My first try in product was a failure.

Looks like I was not going to find an answer for a while, I thought. The pandemic seemed to be getting better, but I was still where I was. Eventually, my mind came back to my current role, and I thought about new possibilities in my firm. What was the one thing I wanted to do the most, if I was going to stay? I asked myself. That was when I got started on building a VBA excel template to automate workflows for my team.

Something sparked in my second try in product, and I was hooked. I was thinking about my project day in and day out, and I was constantly dreaming up new ideas to improve my design. Coding no longer looked intimidating, as it was now a tool to solve problems. By googling and asking around for help, I overcame all the technical difficulties. I ended up building something that cut workload by 90%, and I was beyond ecstatic. Finally, I discovered the fun in building a product.

And just like that, my journey in product management began. My template launched successfully last April, and it was another 8 months before I found a new job and officially started as a product manager. Now I am a month in, I’ve been enjoying every minute of it. For the first time in the last few years, I felt that I was finally unstuck.

Most people will get stuck some time in their life, and it takes a lot of work to pull themselves out of the trap. For me, the most painful period was figuring out what I wanted to do for my career. I wanted to find an answer as soon as possible, and I was anxious I was wasting time. Looking back, I realized that as long as I was proactive in self-discovery and trying out new things, no time was lost. By taking on new projects, I discovered new interests. By signing up for new classes, I learned about my strengths and shortcomings. Even in the job I knew wasn’t for me, I made a significant amount of progress without realizing, strengthening soft skills that are important for working in product.

Today, I am thankful that, throughout my years of feeling stuck, I was never actually stagnant, and I never gave up finding a way out. After a few years of trying, I finally pulled myself out.

Readers - have you experienced feeling stuck? How have you forged your own path?

Cheers to a new beginning!

*Picture from Mad Men.