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How Singaporean content creator Jeraldine Phneah wants to help fellow youth live their best lives
What’s more admirable than achieving success? It’s having the heart to help others achieve success too. Jeraldine Phneah is a millennial content creator who’s known for her insightful personal finance and career advice to uplift fellow youth and help them reach their aspirations.
At her day job in the software as a service (SaaS) sector, Phneah helps expand her company in Asia by winning new customers. The content creator began her career in market research, and after realizing the rapid growth of data, she pivoted to a data analytics software company.
Outside of her day job, Phneah shares her observations of career issues through insightful articles on the ever-changing job market, the Singapore economy, displacement due to technology, slow salary growth, and even issues surrounding discrimination.
A staunch believer of flexible work hours, improving income inequality, and mandatory eldercare leave, Phneah has created a blueprint for a meaningful professional life.
Starting Young
Like most professionals, Phneah started her career right after college. What she did differently was her mindset on how she wanted to tackle her career. For one, she had a plan.
Most people in their 20s are just trying to get their foot in the door and start their career rolling, but even before she started job hunting, Phneah first identified three goals for her career. First, her jobs would help her future proof; second, they would offer financial stability; and third, they would offer work-life balance. The underlying rationale was so that she could spend time with her family, look after her health, and give back to society.
Keeping those considerations in mind, Phneah set her priorities and spent her time at work building her skills and career. After determining her goals, the next step was to figure out an action plan.
“As with most things in my life, I always ask myself: ‘How can I achieve my objectives with the least resistance?’” she shared. “This mindset is influenced by one of the core principles in Taoism which is 無為 (wu wei). This means to ride the wave of change, move with it and not against it and make use of its tremendous power.”
After much reflection, she felt that she had to align herself with a high-growth company and industry where demand is high and labour is scarce, and ASEAN’s goals as the region is a high growth market attracting lots of new investors.
Landing the Dream Job
With her goals and strategies in mind, Phneah applied them to land her dream job at her dream company, Salesforce. But it was no walk in the park.
“Between 2017 and 2018, I applied five times to Salesforce but did not receive any response even with a referral. Back then, it was super competitive to get a field sales position. Salesforce hired merely 4.5 per cent of its more than 100,000 applicants,” shared Phneah.
So she started thinking of different ways to apply for her dream job. She reached out to recruiters online directly and got a callback for an interview. Her resourcefulness paid off, proving that if you want something, you have to go for it.
She eventually landed the job, but Phneah knew that this wasn’t the end of the line—landing the dream job is only the beginning. “Working for them for two to three years would significantly increase my market value and attractiveness to recruiters; equip me with best practices and expand my network,” shared Phneah.
It was here that she discovered three guiding pieces of life advice that helped her overcome failures and setbacks.
“Be open to experience and what life has to bring you, don’t stay overly fixated on one option. Stay optimistic that the future can be better. Sometimes when one door closes, it could be because life is directing you to better things.”
“Do your best at every opportunity and even if you may not get the one that you want, your good attitude and goodwill lead you to others.”
“Always focus on learning. Otherwise, you would just make the same bad decision when the situation occurs again. Albert Einstein once stated the definition of insanity: doing the same over and over again and expecting different results.”
Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Mindset
As many of us may realize, the dream job and the dream career require effort to maintain. A few years on the job can lead to procrastination or burnout without the right healthy work habits to help you get through the day. With her career secure, Phneah set to work cultivating a healthy work-life balance that centres around an element that we take for granted: managing our energy and time.
“The technique I use is time-blocking which is to dedicate specific time blocks for certain tasks. While a standard to-do list tells you what you need to do, time blocking tells you when you’re going to do it,” said Phneah, who prefers Google Calendar as her choice of app.
She also shared her calendar with co-workers and co-collaborators to increase the ease of communication and collaboration.
“For energy management, I use a Garmin watch: This is to help me track my sleep and ensure I am getting adequate exercise, including cycling, swimming, and going to the gym weekly,” she added.
With time blocking and a Garmin watch helping her maintain her time management at work and in her personal life, Phneah employs one last strategy to focus on the “balance” aspect of work-life balance: gratitude journaling.
“One of the core values I hold dear is gratitude. I keep track of the things I am grateful for each week. I also extend this to those around me and regularly make it a point to express appreciation and validation for the people I hold dear,” said Phneah.
Paying It Forward
At this point, this content creator gained a new and improved definition for success.
“I believe that it is important for every one of us to be not only ambitious for ourselves but also be ambitious for our society,” she said. “To me, it is not enough that I succeed. Others must achieve their dreams too.”
While some might define success in terms of the number of awards or promotions, Phneah thinks it’s more of the journey of getting to success.
“What are you doing to add value? What are you doing to add meaning?
“I care about how I can add value to my current organization through improving processes and helping others get more done with less time and effort,” shared Phneah.
While it’s important to separate work life from home life, she also understands the importance of knowing your colleagues and team on a personal level. Only then can we “create a caring and meaningful work experience together.”
Phneah’s empathy in the workplace stems from her father, who set the best example for the content creator in her youth.
“He can balance both his career and family life well,” shared Phneah. “Another outstanding aspect of my dad is that he is also empathetic and values relationships in his life. Through him, I learned the importance of loyalty to the people we love and how it is important to be generous and care for those who support me at work.”
With all of her insightful and practical advice on the best career moves, it’s no wonder Phneah is a sought out career content creator. For more advice from Phneah, visit her website here. For more career stories from JobStreet, visit our Career Resources page here.
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