Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep93: I hate my degree! Finding career options.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello and welcome to the Grow Your Career online and offline podcast. So you are at the right place if you're a corporate professional working in your 9-5 and you want to grow your career.

Starting point is 00:00:39 So today I have a very interesting topic to talk about and it was from a couple of questions that i got over the weekend of similar nature and it is about this right is it okay to work in a career or i mean pursue a career or work in a job that is a quote unquote not related to your university or college degree so is it okay if you, you know, right after you graduate or maybe a couple of years after you graduate, you came to a realization that, huh, I don't really want to do what I have studied and what I've qualified for,

Starting point is 00:01:17 but maybe I want to do something else, right? Maybe I have passions and interests in a quote-unquote different area as compared to my studies, education, qualification and licenses. So is it actually possible to transition? So fair question and based on a couple of clients and LinkedIn connections who raised this exact question to me last weekend, they felt that it was impossible because they were talking to other people who told them that, hey, since you already spent so much money, right, studying for that particular course or that particular degree, master's, PhD or whatever, to pursue a career in

Starting point is 00:01:59 a certain area, it would be a waste and it just doesn't make sense. It's such a ridiculous idea to pursue something else. So if you are feeling the same way where you truly believe that you want to pursue a slightly different career, maybe in a different industry, a different role, a different function, whatever that is, and you have been hearing from other people saying that nope it's impossible yada yada yada then make sure that you listen to the end of this episode so personally for me i have transitioned across different areas in my career so i initially started clearly as an auditor and accountant then later on I sort of realized that I kind of don't like numbers. So what I did then was I gradually moved into a slightly different area, which is kind of still related to what I studied, which was accountancy. So I kind of moved into

Starting point is 00:02:59 internal controls and doing a little bit of risk assessment and so forth. But later on, I found that the more I transitioned away to a slightly newer area that maybe had some transferable skills, right, somewhat related to what I studied, then gradually along my career, along my decade-long career in the corporate world, I eventually got to move to the front line right the front office really involved in business management so that is probably a role that if i were to just refer to my university degree or like my college degree probably that is not something that is very i guess comes that naturally because people, normally for certain roles and careers, right,

Starting point is 00:03:48 there is some sort of like stereotype in a way. So because of that, right, sometimes with my qualification, I have consistently heard over the years that, you know, people telling me that, oh, Mei Ping, why are you pursuing this like random job or this random career that is actually not really related to what you have studied or what you were supposedly good at but I really wanted to give certain things a try like for example when you know me having that accountancy degree when I started applying for companies such as like Visa which is obviously a huge global payments company

Starting point is 00:04:22 a lot of people also told me like why are you trying to get into a technology company? You're not even skilled or you're an expert in the tech space, right? And when I also tried to move into compliance, which is financial crime compliance, anti-money laundering, sanctions. For those of you in banking, you completely understand what I'm saying now. A lot of people also told me, Mei-Ping, are you crazy? Why would you go and do something like that it's totally unrelated and you will need a different qualification and you'll need a different you know license or whatever that is so interestingly

Starting point is 00:04:55 throughout my entire career aside from that accountancy um qualification and license that I've gotten, I've never actually taken another piece of course, or I have also never took another license, which is kind of interesting given that I've transitioned across multiple areas throughout my career. Like for example, like I said, I started in accounting and audit, then I moved on to internal controls, internal audit. Then after that, I moved on to risk management, financial crime compliance, anti-money laundering specifically, and gradually really moved on to business portfolio management, working with a lot of relationship managers, a lot of salespeople in the front office and the front line.

Starting point is 00:05:40 So that is kind of an interesting transition to a lot of people because they didn't really understand how I made that career transition happen. But let me tell you the secret right now. The secret is to identify transferable skills. So these are skills that are highly valuable in that next role that you want, right? Let's ignore whether your degree is related or not related is one thing, but let's just look at what are the actual skills required to do a job well done

Starting point is 00:06:11 in this new role or this new industry that you're actually targeting, right? So the moment you can identify those transferable skills and you feel that, hmm, I think I have some confidence or I think I have the skills and expertise to really give it a try and obviously continue to learn along the way, that is already a very good start to allow you to take that next step, to make that next move and give it a try. Because I think a lot of things that paralyzes people is that there is this whole thing around analysis paralysis whereby when I talk to a lot of corporate professionals, they think and they think and they think. They are thinking a thousand times, but they don't make a decision to give anything

Starting point is 00:06:57 a try because they are looking for that best job. They are looking for the perfect job, which, guys, sorry, doesn't exist, right guys sorry doesn't exist right if you don't try you don't know and when you're trying to look for something that is the best without having even done any of the role having even you know applied or done any internship in that industry or that area then honestly these things are just theory because it's all happening in your mind. You know, for lack of a better word, that is you are visualizing something, but you don't actually know what's happening in the industry or you don't really understand what is maybe happening in the market

Starting point is 00:07:38 or a certain job title. What do they actually do? It's just like having that idea of a role that you're interested in so it doesn't work like that so like i said you want to identify those transferable skills and the moment you feel like okay fine maybe 60 60 70 percent right these looks like you know these the day-to-day job responsibilities is either i think i have transferable skills or I am keen to learn, then that is honestly, that is good enough. That is good enough to take the next step, to take the next step. If you're waiting to be 100% ready, 200% ready,

Starting point is 00:08:13 that is not going to happen because growth is ongoing. You are learning something new every single day. So if you're trying to wait for that like 200 confidence i can actually tell you right now it's very unlikely you will reach 200 of confidence because things are changing all the time businesses are changing markets are changing you know even the day-to-day job is evolving as well so you just want to make sure that you don't get fixated into this like best job and like perfect job and it doesn't necessarily have to be something that is like really really related to your degree because i think one other thing that a lot of people don't recognize is that in order to do a job well done aside from the industry knowledge right which is very specific

Starting point is 00:09:01 to i don't know different industries and so, in order to do a job well done. The foundation of corporate success, this foundation of corporate skill set, is actually the same thing. Communication, emotional intelligence, aligning expectations with your boss, networking, building strong stakeholder relationship, clear and critical thinking, right? Self-organization, adaptability, creativity, making decisions, right? Time management. All these things are actually the exact same thing, regardless of whichever company that you join, whichever industry that you join.

Starting point is 00:09:38 And I think these are the more important transferable skills that a lot of people don't pay attention to. A lot of people actually pay attention to the more technical, hard courses, degrees, and all these other things. So focus on the soft skills, focus on the transferable skills that you can rebrand and repackage your value and take that next step and give it a try. That was how I managed to move from one

Starting point is 00:10:05 industry to the other because if you ask me honestly do i have any of these like fancy certifications uh no i don't have but there were many points in my career particularly when i became a manager a director senior director basically management and leadership positions i have managed people who were more highly qualified than me. But their problem was, or potentially, maybe they didn't really think about their career planning as much, or they were maybe a little bit more unclear on how they could rebrand and reposition their value in a way that, you know, a new company or a new hiring manager can actually understand. So I think that this is really my best tip for you, for those of you who feel hesitant on,

Starting point is 00:10:51 hmm, can I do something that is kind of different from my degree? And, you know, will I succeed? What if I fail? Yada, yada, yada. At the end of the day, it's about what are you willing to give a try? Because you could take a job that is 100% related to your degree, but you hate that job every single day because you hate that degree, you don't see a future. That sounds like a pretty miserable career and a pretty miserable life to me. So I don't wish that for you. So what you can do is to really identify what are some of the interesting options, right? Interesting careers that you might want to give it a try.

Starting point is 00:11:28 Then really deep dive into your transferable skills, right? And see if there is a match. And if there is, then take the leap if you really want it. If you don't take the first step, then you will never get anywhere. You're going to stay stuck. So with that, I hope that today's episode inspires you to re-look at your entire skill set and really think about what does career planning look like for you and take the next step, whatever that next step will be. But

Starting point is 00:11:58 taking that next step is really the most important thing because analysis paralysis the more you think and let this whole thing swirl around in your head you're basically not going to get anywhere so with that i hope this episode inspires you to move forward don't just look forward but actually choose to move forward and with that i'll see you in the next episode bye

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep93: I hate my degree! Finding career options.

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