After completing undergraduate studies, many people find it challenging to enter the job market and get started on a career of their choosing. Even after landing their dream jobs, most struggle to advance their careers. Career progression involves advancing in your profession through continuous learning, skill development, and seeking higher responsibilities and promotions, leading to greater job satisfaction and increased earning potential. Joining us at Sharp Daily to share insights on the matter is Ashley Njoroge, a Creative Project Manager at RingCentral.
What did you study during your undergraduate?
In my undergrad, I studied Procurement at JKUAT University, Nairobi. After completing my high school, I really didn’t know what to study. Like most people, my choice was largely influenced by my family and friends who had a background in business, and that’s how I ended up choosing Procurement. Despite my lack of interest in the course, I still pushed on and eventually graduated with a First Class Honors.
How did you go about joining the job market after your graduation?
Having made up my mind on not practising procurement, the graduation put me right back where I started; figuring out my calling. The pressure to keep up with my peers was real, and my first step was to join the “Big Four”. Try as I did, I was not successful, mainly due to a lack of professional papers (i.e. CPAs), also the rejection emails hurt. From that experience, I knew exactly what to do. To improve my odds, I enrolled for CPA classes, even though I had no passion for accounting.
Meanwhile, I kept applying for jobs, including Procurement jobs (which I had no intention of practising after my graduation). In the process, I got two offers. One was for a full-time role at a big-name regional bank with a monthly salary of USD 600 and a housing allowance. The other offer was for a 3-month internship at an investment start-up with a monthly stipend of USD 200, with no surety of being retained after the program. I was at crossroads with the choice to make, but I ended up taking the internship at Cytonn Investments, which was arguably the best career decision at the time. My advice to young people starting out in their careers is that; it is better to work for a company that will give you the flexibility to do more things.
What was the experience at the internship, and how did you progress?
I started out as a Business Development Intern, then got confirmed into Real Estate. A year later, my interest piqued in Project Management, prompting me to undertake a 3-month internship and eventually work as a project management analyst for a year, which proved to be my most rewarding experience at the company. The internship program was great. It was during my time at Cytonn that I got Edwin as my mentor.
In 2017, I resigned from my investments-centric role to pursue a media-related career (a field I knew nothing about). My mentor was there to encourage me. When I excitedly went to pitch these brilliant, pushing-the-envelope ideas to him, he simply responded with, “Just start.” When you’re young, you can take on a lot of risks. I did resign, not really knowing where I was going.
At that point, it dawned on me that I needed to get into the media industry. I tried to reach out to people at big media houses, and I consistently got the same response – to go back to undergrad to study. I got my first job in media after about 8 months of hustling started out as a TV producer at Ebru Africa TV in 2018, then progressed to Switch TV, where I worked the same role until August 2019, when I transitioned to the US and enrolled at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
During your time at UC Berkeley, what are some of the challenges you encountered?
When I came to Berkley, it felt like I had a black piece of paper and had to make it work. However, with time I came to view racial difference as an added advantage, leveraging the different experiences to add more value to the people around me.
Moving to California was a moment of pure joy but also pure confusion as well. I had to adjust to the different climate, the culture and lifestyle. And in particular, it was quite expensive to live in California, so I had to do part-time jobs and freelance work as I went on with my studies.
How did you land your first job after completing your post-graduate studies?
As I mentioned earlier, I had to work through school to survive California’s expensive lifestyle. In my job search, I used Handshake Portal, an online recruitment portal and supplemented with goodwill and assistance from my connections with the university alumni and my professors.
Take us through your work. What does Ashley do at work on a day-to-day basis?
At my workplace, we provide cloud communication solutions for businesses such as desk phone services and virtual communication solutions. So my day involves working with the campaign team to design our go-to-market strategies. Also, working closely with the product team to understand the product features and to collect feedback from users on how to enhance the products.
Looking back at your journey from undergrad at JKUAT to working at Silicon Valley, what was your biggest challenge, and how did you navigate through it?
Finding a career that I am passionate about. The process was challenging and involved trying out different jobs and going through various experiences. All this while, what kept me going was the will to find a job I am passionate about instead of settling for a boring job. It took a while to figure this out, and the journey to finding my area of expertise was not easy, but in the end, it bore fruits.
Tied to finding a job that I enjoy doing is the question of how to level up. As it happens a good number of people will land their dream job but get stuck at that and settle. To progress in your career, you need to find access to people who will challenge you and lift you up to the next level.
Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
Well, I can’t say for sure what I will be doing in the next five years given that there are a lot of changes that are happening every now and then and a medium term goal set today may not be the most viable goal five years from now. In addition, focusing on single goals might lead one to miss out on emerging trends. However, in the near future, I plan to venture into the artificial intelligence (AI) marketplace working with small and medium-sized enterprises. I also want to work on mentorship with young and ambitious girls.
Should one quit their job only when they find the next step in life?
Edwin: The choice depends entirely on the situation, so it requires one to be pragmatic in approach. In a case where you have savings that can sustain you for a few months, then you can afford to leave your current employment and figure out the next step within the buffer period. To address the question raised on whether to prepare for your next step in advance or concentrate on your current work or studies (crossing the bridge when you get there), it’s better to be prepared for the opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared. If you have a clear vision of where you want to be in the near future, you can start preparing by aligning your current activities with your goal.
From your journey, you seemed to hop from one job to another; isn’t that detrimental to your career?
No, it’s not detrimental at all. On the contrary, transitioning from one job to another is the fastest way to grow your financial compensation out of employment. In addition, switching from one job to another allowed me to explore several options, which led me to identify what I am passionate about. Furthermore, the movement represents incremental growth, building upon past experiences to add more value to the current job. Looking back, I am grateful for the journey I have gone through to get to where I am today and would want it any other way.
As we close the discussion, what are your parting shots?
Ashley: As my closing remarks, I urge us to be current on the emerging trends. Cultivate a sense of awareness of your surroundings and be on the lookout for opportunities.
Edwin: Work hard, work smart. Put your head down and work your tail off.
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