My students come from various professions (account, creative, planning, business development, marketer, business owner). Each has a different reason for enrolling, but there's one reason that always makes me feel immense pressure when teaching: they want to switch to a Planner role.
Although I always make it clear to my students that I have no right or obligation to be responsible for their employment outcomes.
Last year, J., a Senior Account Executive, was persuaded by another student to enroll in my course with the goal of transitioning to a planner role. The reason was that J. enjoyed planning and felt there were many gaps in their planning knowledge at the time but didn't know how to fix them. Partly because they lacked the knowledge & experience, and partly because they weren't listened to because they "weren't a planner."
Throughout the course, J. showed excellent strategic thinking and made very fast progress; you could say they were at the top of the class. Six months after graduation, J. resigned from their current job to send out CVs applying for Planner positions. I was quite confident J. would be hired soon because I knew their capability.
Another six months passed since J. quit, and they still hadn't been hired by any agency. J. interviewed with no less than 10 agencies. The common reason for not receiving an offer was their Account background—they didn't have an official 'Planner' title. I understand the hiring managers' concerns, and I also understand the difficulty J. had to accept and the trade-off they made for this career change.
On July 10, 2024, J. messaged me: *"Khanh, I just passed my probation at [...] yesterday. I'm finally officially a strategic planner 🥹 I wanted to tell you right when I got the trial offer, but the probation period was so shaky that I was afraid of speaking too soon. Now that I've passed, I dare to share the good news. It's exactly one year since I studied with you; back then, I only liked the idea, but I didn't think I had the endurance or the ability to switch to a planner role."*
I felt a huge wave of emotion when I read that.
So, what did J. do to successfully switch careers after 1 year?
- Prepared a meticulous CV and Portfolio: Honestly, looking at J.'s portfolio, I was embarrassed by my own =)). J. wrote concisely and briefly about the solution approach for each plan they participated in, as well as the mock plans they created on their own. (I was also very happy that they mentioned my course in the Education Background section, haha, but I doubt that had much effect on the recruiter).
- Was persistent, resilient, and didn't refuse opportunities: J. didn't turn down any opportunity, big or small, for those 6 months. They weren't afraid of big or small agencies, local or network agencies, and finally got accepted at a reputable agency.
That long speech boils down to those two main points.
*P/s: I'll tell you the story of a person who spent 7 years as a Creative and switched to Planner when I have time.*
