“The greatest accomplishment in life is to be the person you were meant to be, even in a world that’s trying to make you something else.”
The Future Women Leaders Forum (FWLF) 2022 was held on the 26th of February with a panel that covered topics from career advice for fresh graduates, to work-life balance and how to disconnect and recharge from work, and how to make career transitions.
Invited speakers from left to right: Jeraldine Phneah, Millennial Content Creator, LinkedIn Top Voices 2020; Rachel Lim, Co-founder, Love, Bonito; A-Young Kim, Head of Learning & Development at Grab
Our invited speakers spoke about how they took bold moves to be the person they were meant to be, in the search for success. Here are the key takeaways:
1. To fresh graduates finding a job, Jeraldine had this piece of advice: Companies are like clubs - there’s the public queue, and there’s a guest list where if you know someone inside the club, you have a much higher chance of getting in. So find someone you know inside the company and ask for a referral, or find out who the hiring manager is and write in (politely) to introduce yourself.
2. To those wanting to change careers, A-Young’s advice is to focus on transferable skills, which include soft skills like communication and presentation skills, and hard skills like project management. Adaptability is another key factor to demonstrate. As the world is changing very fast, it is important to show how quickly you can learn from your mistakes, deal with disappointment and rebound to try again.
3. On having the importance of self-reflection, Rachel realised that self-reflection is highly crucial to make important career choices. When she invested the time to tune into her inner voice to check-in with herself and understand why she was unhappy over a situation, she learnt to understand her emotional needs and triggers. This helped her embrace who she was and who she wasn’t, giving her the courage to make bold decisions.
4. Work-life balance is not just a matter of time management, but also energy management. Use the parts of the day where you have the most energy to focus on creative work, or hard tasks that need uninterrupted time to get done. Structure your day around this by blocking out this period of time to focus on getting this done.
5. Disconnect from work by not allowing work apps to intrude upon your leisure time. For example, Jeraldine shared that she intentionally does not download Slack onto her phone, ensuring that no notifications interrupt her when she is off from work.
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Organising Committee: Member Recruitment
Author: Tay Mingfang Speakers: Jeraldine Phneah, Rachel Lim, A-Young Kim Partners: Grab
Editors: Rachel Leow, Ratna Juita, Joey Ong
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