5 powerful career lessons 3 years after graduating with my marketing degree

At the start of 2020, I continued to be reminded by professors of how amazing the job market was. Things seemed promising, but in the fall, I was in my final semester, and that exciting job market flipped.

I was no stranger to getting thrown a curveball as I was also in the final push of one of the hardest times of my life adapting to my recent vision loss and keeping up as a competitive student in college.

In light of these challenges, I graduated with my degree in marketing, a minor in Spanish, with a 3.77 GPA, and received the Dean’s Award for the marketing department. I was also fortunate to find a job during my last semester and even got engaged.

Since then, I have done paid work for 10 different companies, been laid off from company downsizing twice, created multiple roles for myself, worked as a contractor, pivoted my career path twice, have done multiple “dream jobs” and learned many lessons along the way that I want to share.

So here are some lessons I’ve learned through my experience, failures and journey so far that you may find helpful if you are in college, early in your career, or navigating any challenge in your career.

1. Be Curious

This is one of the most underrated character traits. I think it is also one of the most powerful. You may think Elon Musk is successful just because of his hard work or intellect, but he has shared that his “philosophy of curiosity” drives him in all that he does.

Curiosity is at the root of learning, and you sure do have to learn a ton in your career. It’s not just about finding something you’re passionate about, but if you can find something you are curious about, it’s a major unlock.

Especially if you work in marketing, you must be curious about the customer, the problem your product solves, the latest marketing tactics, channels, and trends, and more.

Networking could be its own point, but curiosity is fundamental to your success in networking. You must first be curious about people to want to learn something or understand how different sides of the business fit together. Please find at least one mentor that you can learn from, they will help you avoid mistakes, learn faster and push you.?

You will only learn so much from your degree. I have learned many things by being curious like performance marketing, digital accessibility, product marketing, content creation, product development, and more. Many things that I did not learn at all in school but chose to figure out. You don’t need permission to do new things in your career, you have to be curious enough to want it.

And guess what, if you’re curious, I like to think that everything is figureoutable.

2. Be Adaptable

Being let go twice is not a fun process, even if it’s not performance-related. We underestimate our ability to adapt, but it’s one of our biggest tools when facing a curveball or building momentum in your career.

I started in software sales, then did digital marketing for a mountain bike gear company, then contract accessibility work, then growth marketing for a startup serving the blind community, then contract marketing/accessibility/AI work. I’ve leveraged adaptability to drive my success in quite different roles and career pivots.

There will be many external factors you can’t control, but you can always control how you respond. For example, It was not fun getting into paid advertising when the iOS changes impacted retargeting. Not a fun time to be learning and adjusting to factors that decreased performance. One of the hardest things to adapt to was reflecting on what I love and am great at, like and am good at, don’t like and am good at and don’t like and am not good at. Although I did a lot of performance marketing, I had to realize I don’t like it and I’m not that great at it, so I chose to adapt and do something different.

Also, marketing is a field that has fundamental concepts of human behavior, but the tactics and channels are very dynamic and fast-changing. If you want to be good at marketing, you have to be adaptable.

To be adaptable, you've got to embrace failure. In the words of my blind hockey teammate Kevin Brown, “I’m not afraid to fail, I’m afraid not to try.” This well encapsulates being curious, embracing failure, and adapting.

3. Prioritize Gaining Experience

Going for the most impressive title, making the most money, or doing something flashy is very tempting, but I don’t think it should be the priority early in your career. Your priority should be gaining skills. This will compound towards your future goals.

It’s also tempting to do what you are passionate about. I got to work in the mountain bike industry which was my “passion” and I’ve gotten to work helping serve the blind community which is another “passion”. I’d recommend “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport for more on this, but basically, we are most fulfilled by pursuing skills over passion.

I’ve realized that marketing can be very similar in different places, just different widgets or services. So pursuing and finding meaning in the skills you gain of the passion is so crucial. I do think you should acknowledge passion, but we a lot of the time don’t even have an accurate view of passion.

I would have never thought that my passions would be in technology, content creation, digital accessibility or AI, but I’ve realized I like doing these things and I have skills in these areas and that’s what makes it exciting and fulfilling.

When you pursue gaining skills, this gives you permission to try lots of things. I have done many different things in a short time and it has helped me learn and grow so much faster.

4. Factors of Finding a Career

This isn’t a comprehensive list of factors to help you find jobs that are a good fit, but these are some important ones I wish I knew about. Many people look at just the job title, pay or if the company seems cool, but there’s more.

I think it is important to look at the size of the business (start-up, small business, medium size, international, Fortune 500, etc.), industry, size of the team, growth opportunities, and do you wear a lot of hats in the role. This is much more helpful than asking yourself if it seems fun, interesting, or are you “passionate” about it.

For me, I think startups and small businesses are great to pursue in your career when you can wear a lot of hats, get involved in various teams, experience growth and more.

5. Take Care of Yourself

Hustle can be glorified in college and early in your career. It will give you short-term success, but it is not sustainable and comes with its costs. I was a pro at being up late doing homework, up early to class, working, doing extracurriculars, overcommitting, and living at an unhealthy pace.

Like many points mentioned, this is a topic in its own, but my plea to you is to take care of yourself in this journey. Pursue margin, say no more than you think, have boundaries, eat healthy, be active, spend time with people you love, realize that your identity is not in your work, pursue slow living, and don’t take things too seriously. A couple of books I’d recommend on this are “To Hell with the Hustle,” “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” and “At Your Best”.

As I write this, I realize how much more I could share. It’s a challenging, confusing journey, but can always be simplified to just taking one step forward at a time. And have fun along the way. Feel free to connect and message me if you have any other questions.?