I guess you could say I’m now in full job-hunting mode again. After my recent discouragement and stoppage, I’m ready to return to work. But this time, with a renewed focus on what I’m really after. Over the recent weekend, I had some time to really think about what my vision of a long-term career would look like. Simultaneously, I realized that I’ve been trying to avoid certain realities of my unique circumstances. One of those realities is that I’m officially in the category of what Human Resources considers, “Expensive Hires”. This came to my knowledge after a few head hunters and recruiters told me as a feedback that they will put my resume/profile under the “virtual” pile, labeled “Potentially Expensive Hires”. (After a number of feedbacks like that, I suppose I got a little discouraged. Maybe I shouldn’t be feeling discouraged, but I did. I wasn’t sure why.)
In case any of you is wondering, this wasn’t always the case for me. Did you know that I spent the majority of my 17-year professional life being really underpaid? To be more precise, it was roughly 10 years before I decided to quit my job at that time in order to pursue my passion for UX. I suspect that if I hadn’t made the decision to follow my passion, I would’ve remained underpaid for God knows how long.
“Being Underpaid” Doesn’t Mean You Have No Potential Value
Even though I did discover my passion and natural talent for UX way back in 2006, I had no clue what my true value would be for a very long time. For most of my professional life, I had allowed the market, bad hiring practices, and societal norms to dictate who I should be, what I should do, and how much I was worth. To be fair, I was really good at something that wasn’t in great demand yet. In fact, no one else was talking about “UX” until 2013. Nobody believed in the need for better UX because smartphones, mobile apps, and mobile browsers haven’t existed yet. But as someone that has a guilty pleasure of getting the latest tech gadgets (this was back in 2006), I was already trying to browse certain websites on my Nokia phone which also had a colored screen and WAP capability. For the benefit of you millennials who don’t know what WAP is, it’s called “Wide Area Protocol”. It’s the very early days of our 4G networks today.
But I’ve always wondered, do the societal norms and market trends dictate your true worth/value as a professional? Maybe perhaps you might have some kind of skill and talent that isn’t in huge demand in today’s market, but that should never dictate who you are, and what your worth is. It might take a few years before your talents will become relevant (or in high demand), so don’t give up on developing and improving yourself in this area (whatever that area may be).
For me, it took me nearly a decade to realize that I was undervalued and underpaid by every other company that I got hired in. Well, actually, that isn’t totally true. It was during my last stint at a consultancy MNC that I realized my peers (those that graduated from the same polytechnic and working in the same industry) were making 3X what I was making with the same level of experience. So that made me scratch my head. It was both frustrating and confusing at the same time. I couldn’t make heads or tails about why that’s the case.
Then I realized that for many years, I have allowed companies and the competitive hiring market to dictate what I’m supposed to be paid. Instead of fighting against it, I went with the flow. Now you know why I am so bad at going with the flow. Nothing good ever comes out of me trying to go with the flow.
I had to figure out my true worth.
I knew then that I had to break the cycle. I needed to find out what I’m truly worth. And the only way to do that would be to follow my passion for UX. A couple of months after leaving my job behind in 2014, I landed my very first big breakthrough – UX consulting + App Development for United Nations Environmental Program! Till today, I still brag about this opportunity because it is something that I’m truly proud of.
More than just a bragging right, working with UNEP also made me realize that I could’ve been asking for more in terms of how much I can be paid per hour/day/week/month. It also made me realize that when the right opportunity presented itself, I was able to perform exceptionally well, and on top of producing what was agreed upon, I finished my tasks early and had time to make additional enhancements. In a very practical sense (without thinking too much about it), I was adding value to the project that I was consulting on.
When I finally walked away from this consulting gig, it felt SO AMAZING! It was the most amazing sense of fulfillment and satisfaction I had ever experienced since I began working in 2005. From that very moment forward, I knew that that sense of fulfillment, that sense of purpose is what I’m really after.
I eventually landed my first dream job working for Progress (representing Telerik as a Product Evangelist). Though my time with the company was shorter than I would’ve hoped for, my time with them did help to reinforce my overall value as a professional. Though disappointed by the regional retrenchment, I knew I have to continue my journey. I did struggle for a few years after that because losing that first dream job did affect me in ways I never expected.
My turning Point
Here’s the really funny thing about “turning points” in life, as it turns out, there really isn’t a single moment that I could point to and say that that was my turning point. In fact, I think my “turning point” was more “a series of opportunities, breakthroughs, failures, mistakes, lessons and experiences”. When I try to think about what my turning point in my professional life is, I think of the few years I spent pursuing my passion in UX, as well as the years that I’ve spent trying to discover more about myself (i.e. my strengths and weaknesses). My turning point was in itself, more of a journey.
But if I had to pick one particular moment of this entire journey, I would have to pick October 2016. October 2016 was the first time in my short professional life that I finally received my first-ever recognition. I was, at that time, seen as the youngest ever thought leader in the field of Agile UX for the Asia Pacific region. That, to me, was so out of the blue. It had to take me a few days before the recognition finally sank in.
I have been a certified and recognized thought leader ever since 2016. In the time since my recognition, it has helped me to become a specialist. For the first time in my professional life, I have a very clear direction of what I’m most good at. I also understood that I can’t do everything that I’d like to do. All of us have only 24 hours in a day. So I decided that the wisest thing I can do is to specialize in something and focus all of my attention and efforts on that.
Agile UX Specialist + Huge Market Demand + Low Talent Supply = Expensive Hires
Going back to the very first paragraph of this post, I want to talk about what it’s really like to become one of the “expensive hires” in the industry. On one hand, yes, it’s potentially an amazing thing. With the right career opportunity, I could potentially demand a really steep salary. Hence, being an expensive hire. But on the flip side, becoming an expensive hire also means, it takes longer to land the right career opportunity.
As challenging as the recent times have been, I am taking comfort in knowing that at least now, I know what I am potentially worth. I also know that I want to be able to add value depending on where I land career-wise. I also take comfort in knowing that when I finally find the right opportunity, I’ll be able to put my talents and skills to meaningful use.
Final thoughts? I think that the situation now (i.e. marketing trends and hiring practices and so on) speaks to me. It has reminded me that what was once seen as an irrelevant skill/talent is in today’s context, a highly sought-after skill/talent. Perhaps thanks to the lack of UX leadership around the world, this situation has helped to increase my potential value as a professional. As expensive as it might be to hire someone like me, I also believe that whichever company decides to invest in me will eventually be able to reap what I can provide in both the short-, mid-, and long-term.
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