career advice

[sharingon83]

Your a fresh grad with no work experience who just moved to Hong Kong to work. Your english is great, your chinese is mediocore. You get a job at a relatives company in the field you want, marketing.

When you start work you quickly realize this is not how you envisioned working full-time would be. You do simple jobs that dont seem related to your field, you have tons of free time, and can afford to sit at your desk surfing the internet for more than 4 hrs day.

A year passes and you wonder if this is how other people started their working career, if this is the healthy situation to be in, if you should stay at your current job or move on.

You worry that you are not developing the skills it takes to adventually get that dream job you one day hoped to attain.

What would you do??

[jimbo]

Stick with the current job for now and use the free time you do have to study and take some more courses which will be relevant to the career you wish to pursue.

Use the time wisely and don't procrastinate, The longer you stay in that role the harder it will be for you to move on and also some companies won't like the fact you've spent x number of years in an easy job with what appears to be no stress, They'll see it as a lack of ambition.

[MovingIn07]

I agree. Right now is NOT the time to be looking for a new job!

Have you tried seeking out new challenges? Offering to take on this or that project etc? Are your relatives in charge of the company so your workmates are just giving you an easy time to avoid getting on the wrong side of the boss? Or is the whole company sat on it's a$$ waiting for something to happen?

If you've tried the above and failed, then, absolutely, some online courses or just reading up useful materials, learn more Cantonese/Mandarin etc while you wait for the economy to pick up...

[DanielandHayley]

Agree with both the above points. Firstly, you are new to the industry etc so it will take time for you to be handling more complex matters that will take more of your time. Next, employment for periods of less than 1 year, without good genuine reason, will often be frowned upon by future employers and finally, really do make use of your 'free time'. I create such time for me most days by being very efficient (if I may say so myself! : ) ) and use it to 'invest in myself' which at this time is probably the best investment anyone can make...

[jgl]

Marketing in other countries can and often does involve some degree of professional rigor, but 'marketing' in HK is often a euphemism for 'unstructured sales support and brochure writing'.

Staying in your current role sounds like it will just kill your drive and teach you to be a pot plant. If your company can support people taking initiative, try moving roles within that company.

[sharingon83]

thanks for the reply guys, i appreciate the advice

[Crocodile]

You do simple jobs that dont seem related to your field, you have tons of free time, and can afford to sit at your desk surfing the internet for more than 4 hrs day.

Sounds like you need some motivation. If I was you, instead of surfing the net for 4 hours a day, I would be banging on your Managers door looking for more work. Or, finding more work to do in the office/business.

No-one obtains their dream job by sitting on the internet all day. They work hard for it - both working hard and working smart - working towards a goal. Do you have a mentor in the office? Do you have someone you want to aspire to? Maybe you need to be an "apprentice" to them - get them to give you some tasks, no matter how dull or boring. Once you prove you can do them, you will be given more complex tasks.

Maybe you can look around for other jobs - start to network a little. Compare other jobs to yours and analyse what makes them so good. Are they really as good as you think?

Good luck.