How to change careers from marketing to IT as an immigrant in New Zealand?
Hi, in this blog, I will share about my journey of changing careers as an international student in New Zealand.
In the past 8 years, I went from hospitality to marketing to IT industry. This means I had three career changes as an immigrant women in New Zealand. In this blog, I will share all my secrets and lessons learnt of how I managed to earn a 6 figure income and start a business. Let’s go
Hospitality Career
In 2018, I moved to New Zealand on a student visa. I moved to Queenstown, South Island. Queenstown, is an adventure capital of the world. The industry is built on tourism and hospitality. I found my first job as a casual turndown assistant in a five star luxury hotel in the 3 weeks of arriving into the country. The way I found the role was through a classmate, she shared about the vacancy and encouraged me to apply. I was earning a living wage, which was more than minimum wage. I was excited to have already started earning. I didn’t stay too long with the employer as I got better opportunities. This is a key lesson, to always look for better opportunities and work out what is in the best interest of you as an international student. During my student visa, I held many different hospitality and retail roles which meant the industry doesn’t punish you for being transient and trying new things with new employers. But my most favourite was being a pizza waitress at a local kiwi restaurant. The vibes were just great. I have held many part-time entry level hositality/retail roles which was a great learning curve for me this included; front of house, customer service representative, receptionist, barista etc. These roles had deep influence in my professional career; I learnt how to work as a young person. It helped in my early years of finding my way into a new country, it was easy to meet new people and immerse into the local culture, whilst also earning a steady income to support my cost of living as an international student. But I knew I didn’t come to NZ to work just in entry level roles, I wanted to become a marketing manager.
Marketing Career
While I was hustling in the hospitality/retail industry, I always kept an open eye for marketing opportunities. I quickly learnt that in Queenstown, securing a management position is a bit competitive. Kiwis stay in their same jobs for decades, they have kids, family dependent on those jobs. Queenstown is a small town which meant local connections is quite important, word spreads quite quickly. My competition was not just with kiwis, but Aussies, and also immigrants who were on working holiday visa. I was just a student on part-time visa. This was proving to be a challenge and discouraged employers from interviewing me. This also meant that I was not eligible for certain marketing roles. I quickly learnt how to pivot. I picked up work that there was less competition in such as a casual role for the local business council working as their surveyor. This involved talking to people and collecting data via survey forms. This was my entry to marketing with minimal prior work experience. Then I applied for another role within a hotel and I negotiated that I would help them market. It was a small kiwi-owned family business. I negotiated that they should add a marketing assistant role into the contract. This meant that I was working for less money but had multiple roles/duties to fulfil, this was not a deal breaker at all for me. This allowed me understand how a hotel runs, soon after I was part of event planning, re-doing their menus, organising paid campaigns, capturing content for overseas social media manager. This experience was crucial. I finally used this opportunity and converted it into my portfolio to start working as social media freelancer. I found a really cool gig. The gig paid well meaning I would earn some income and I got service to service added to the contract. Now I was working as a social media specialist for a small team of blog writer and a marketing manager. My marketing manager was fairly new, so it was super collaborative. She taught me how everything about the marketing world in New Zealand.
IT Career
From working in hospitality and now marketing I learnt three crucial things about myself:
I can understand systems very quickly
I am a fast learner
I love being the translator of technical and business teams
This is when I realised that I should look into an IT career. My coach coined the term, this is when I went into deep investigation mode and found out that I could retrain myself and look for a career in IT as a young women professional. I packed bags, moved to Wellington and started looking for any entry level IT role. I was just happy to work in any corporate job which would start from 9 and finish at 5. A stable role. An proper office role. You don’t need a lot of jobs, you just need that one job, that one manager, who will believe in your skills and give you a chance. I was confident in my talent and skills. I knew I would excel and give my best for any opportunity that comes across. I finally secured my first IT role as an Application Support Specialist. I was so grateful because the business was going through a system transformation, they were retiring legacy site and launching the new system. I started on the day when the new system went live. I was thrown into the deep end and that’s where I thrive. I was doing more than a support role, I said yes to everything and learnt on the go. I contined training and learning even when I was not working. I invested my personal time solving business problems so that next day morning when I go into a dev stand up I can understand everything they were saying. That’s how I certified myself as a business analyst. I learnt about software development cycle, what agile vs DevOps meant, I learnt SQL and XML, how to use Azure DevOps, how to run tests. Everything that I know about IT was because of that role, I stayed in the role for 3 years. This is when I dived even deeper and took a very technical role in a tech company. This role pushed me straight out of my comfort zone (again). It was quite challenging in the beginning, my role quickly changed from being an analyst to product owner (haha but with the same pay). I owned my very own portfolio for the first time and managed end-to-end SDLC. When I reached the ceiling again because I was learning so fast and knew that I wanted more out of my role. I applied again and this time I was managing all the corporate applications that the business teams use, my portfolio expanded to supporting 9 applications, all SAS based products. An incredibly rewarding career where I was making a difference and creating real value. What I learned was that I was different from other people. For me service meant going above and beyond, never say no to a question. I never settled for mediocrity, I always chased excellence.
Business Owner
Today, I am a proud business owner and run my own agency. I am solving problems of international students everyday. This comes from a really personal place. When I wanted to move to NZ there was no consultant who was guiding me. I was burning out googling all the information myself trying to make the best decision with the limited knowledge and expertise. I made some mistakes which costed me my time and money. I don’t want another Jinny to suffer out there because a consultant doesn’t exist. This is how Tech Med Pathway started. I want to support women from all across the world who believe in the power of higher education and are willing to take ownership of their careers. Women who want a partner in this migration journey and want to walk it shoulder to shoulder with me. Women who striving for excellence everyday and do not want to settle.
If you found my story inspiring, reach out to me. Let’s talk, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.