eJournal - GBC Alumni Dorcas

In the first week, we have Dorcas Solomon, GBC Digital Media Marketing alumni, to share her experience and insight. She started her career in project management in various industries where she built marketing skills, photo editing and technical skills. She also founded a digital magazine “The One Eight” which introduces and share the concept of intentional living and inspires reader. During pandemic, Dorcas started Digital Media Marketing post-graduate program in GBC and worked in Flipp as intern which is her first marketing job. She has shared 6 takeaways that she learnt from her internship and I found 4 of them are useful and inspiring. 

1. Big Picture

“Don't get buried in your day-to-day tasks that you forget to look at how you can also play a part in the big picture”

“How can YOU contribute to the team”

Working as an intern, we may be busy for learning, asking questions and doing our own tasks. We may focus a lot on our own part of work, yet, no one can totally work or success independently. Working in an organization, every member has to work with different stakeholders. Some may think intern is a role that mainly receiving help from others. We may think that we don’t have time, ability or opportunity to help others. However, everyone in the team has different background, insight and feeling towards the same thing. Any idea or comment are valuable to the team and that can be a contribution to the whole project. Sometimes opinions from outsiders can bring a unique insight to the team. So, never think that intern has limited opportunity or capability. It all depends how leverage the opportunity and our own ability. 

2. Agile

“Been agile and adaptable”

Dorcas described Flipp is a platform company where generates values by enabling interactions between people, groups and users and leveraging network effects. The working style is more dynamic and less linear where the team is more collaborative and cross-functional. This style of working can increase the efficiency and solve the problem quickly. In fact, business agility is not a new thing, companies have started shifting their business style from the traditional “waterfall” to Agile several years ago. People are expected to be more adaptable, self-organizing. A team includes different professionals and has the ability to figure out how they’re going to approach things on their own. More flexible and efficient. In order to prepare ourselves to be a good team player, we have to equip with professional skills but also enhance our adaptability and communication skills to work in a group that may involve people with different background. 

3. Implementation

“Critically thinking about how to implement and apply knowledge”

Dorcas mentioned that internship (or working after graduation) is a place to apply what we learnt from GBC to actual workplace and situation. She pointed out one thing that is “Everything is different in different” and we have to be flexible. Even that we may think that GBC courses have equipped us with numerous knowledge and the coursework has given us great exposure of the actual work. However, every company is unique, their working culture, system they use, characteristics, structure, etc. Every time we get into a new place, we have to learn and adapt to their style and adjust how to implement what we have learnt from school. This is what school may not be able to teach and it requires our own effort to observe and learn. And from every unique experience, we will learn something new and that’s what we can gain other than money and bring to the next workplace 

4. Not in Linear Path

“Where you start your career doesn't determine your entire career trajectory” 

It is the point that I agree the most. As I am totally new to marketing and my major in university was tourism management and I worked in Human Resource for 5 years already. When I decided to change my career path to marketing, I’m so worry that whether I can do it, whether it will be a better option for me and a lot of disbelief. Up to now, I still don’t have the answer but at least I know what I start doesn’t determine my way and how I go through the path. Sometimes, I feel that I’m in the loop, I returned to the starting point (to a totally new area) when I was already growing in my original career. Yet, experience does matter, even the experience is not in the same area but it’s still my own life experience. It helps just depends on how I interpret and learn from it. Life is never a linear path and we can’t connect all the dots until we complete it. 

Dorcas has advised several job search tips. The first thing is to be open-minded. As a fresher in marketing industry and there’s different role and dimensions in this industry, Dorcas suggested us to be open to try and learn new thing. I will start exploring more and different opportunities in this industry and try to see which I fit most and I find it’s interesting to me. The next thing is to build own Portfolio. In order to outstand in market, it is important to showcase what I have done before related to marketing and tell my own story. As I am new and don’t have much experience, it's essential for me to start creating my own portfolio and catch the opportunity to participate in different project. The last thing is to find a company based on value. In my job searching process, I seldom consider the company’s value. However, Dorcas mentioned that we have to choose a company that fit what I want, even small thing is important. Something we may think that small thing doesn’t matter however, it implies a lot and reflects the company’s value which implies their future action. To look further, company’s value somehow shows my future in this organization, whether I will fit the company and vice versa. 

Dorcas mentioned several tips for networking as well which I found it’s similar for job searching. We have to understand ourselves and know what we are looking for. Which industry or what professional do we want to connect with? Moreover, we can expand our network actively by exploring more in terms of interest. We can start the networking according to our interest, passions or social network. We can develop our own interest and through this interest we may know some new people in other areas. Also, instead of sending connect request to people who we totally don’t know on LinkedIn, we can develop a conversation about the mutual interest or passion with them in advance.