No matter what industry you’re in, I’ve learnt a willingness to try, assimilate and improve is key, even if you think you don’t have enough experience.
I’m currently in my final year of my digital and social media degree, and work in marketing for a startup out of iAccelerate.
While my resume might try and use some fun buzzwords to describe my skills like “provided technical support” (answered the phone), “skilled in cash management” (counted the register) or “provided top quality customer care” (said ‘hey how are you going today’ and was always down for a chat), really my most important skill I learnt is a willingness to try, ask questions and improve.
Back when I was 15 I first started working in retail (and would end up staying at that store for 6 years…). While I wasn’t experienced in talking to “adults” I had to pretend I was, because I knew no middle aged woman would take my refund refusal seriously if I acted as though I was scared to talk to her.
Then when I was 19 I was asked to become a duty manager, which meant learning a few more “behind the scenes” things but mainly I just got to carry around a set of keys which was cool. While I didn’t feel like a manager and often felt a little scared when I was left alone to manage the store, I knew that all I could do was ask lots of questions, act confident in my decisions and back up my team.
Currently I work in marketing (or as a marketing executive as my email signature says) which initially just started off as an unpaid internship last year. What’s interesting is that I’ve never actually taken a marketing class…
In my current work I’ll do everything from making chat bots, do user testing, research statistics, scrape contacts, set up automations, create social media posts and EDMs. Even though this is my first time doing all these things, my boss knows she can “leave it with me”.
And besides, who needs technical skills when there is a YouTube tutorial for it…
Bees and Bells 