An update from the working world

My last post was about losing your dream job, and this post will be about re-entering the workforce!

To get you up to speed, I ended up getting a job offer after 3 weeks of job hunting. I didn’t want to humblebrag at the time, so I’ll do it now – to me this was a huge accomplishment.

I came into my job search with a realistic mindset: now that I’m based in Hong Kong, and although English is spoken here, most jobs require that you know both Cantonese and English. For the jobs that pay decently in the marketing field, you should be fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin/Putonghua, and English.

I only know one of those languages. Gulp.

Every day, I would find potentially good job matches, but after skimming the job description I’d see the dreaded language requirement and end up passing it over.

Needless to say, trying to find jobs that only required English was really difficult.

But as they always say, “When it rains, it mothafuckin’ pours.”

I found a handful of jobs requesting native English speakers, and ended up getting 3(!) interviews: one for a site that sold digital cameras, one for an internet service, and one for a logistics company.

Turns out, the logistics company was quite aggressive and gave me an offer in about 2 weeks. And I accepted!

I’m happy to say I am now the Content Marketer for Easyship, a platform that helps eCommerce sellers ship worldwide in minutes.

The past 4 months have been a whirlwind, but I’m enjoying it and I know I made the right choice. I love that the company is young (it’s been around for about 3 years, and a good portion of my colleagues are in their late 20’s.) I also love how it’s a 15 minute walk from my apartment, along with the flexible work environment (I take 1.5 hour lunches every day, in which I go home and spend time with my son.)

If you remember from my last post, one of my suggestions when you lose your dream job is to consider jobs that allow you to apply your best skills but has a learning curve. I’m happy to say that I’ve followed through on this one! Now that I’m in content marketing, I’m also learning some important new skills: SEO, inbound marketing (Hubspot is my new best friend!), and backlink strategies, to name a few.

I truly believe that if you worked hard in your last job and had meaningful results to back it up, it’s possible to find another job even if it appears the odds are against you. All it takes is tenacity, and of course, a little bit of luck.