Wisdom is one of those priceless and elusive assets, which, unfortunately, most of us learn the hard way – through personal experience and failure. With the decline of experience opportunities for America’s youth, it is important that Millenials absorb experiences, failures and lessons from the sage themselves.
Since Freelanship’s goal is to provide individuals with important, business-related experiences, we are posting tips from the successful – ranging from high-level executives to interns at the most competitive companies.
First on our list is Jeong Kim, Vice President of online marketing and special products at MusicSkins, leading producer of music and music-related, premium, vinyl skin products for phones, laptops, etc.
Although MusicSkins is based in Brooklyn, Mr. Kim resides in L.A., affirming that today’s technology presents a wider array of job opportunities across the nation without relocation. Prior to MusicSkins, Mr. Kim spent five years at the Hollywood Reporter, where he conducted analysis of sales and recorded trends as a business analyst. These positions lead one to assume Mr. Kim graduated with some sort of business degree. Surprisingly, he studied English in college.
On Thursday, Mr. Kim provided Freelanship with experienced advice.
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Mr. Kim: How an English degree benefited his work life
I think one of the biggest problems for any website in an online market place, where people have so many divergent interests and honestly very limited time, is communicating – clearly, to the point and in an easily digestible manner – what you do, what you can offer and basically, the vitality of what you do online. Whether that is a service or anything like that – communicating is the key. To be honest with you, I think my English degree really prepared me to communicate.
Mr. Kim: Important lessons learned
I had a very hard time taking criticism because I was a perfectionist. I always thought I did the best job I could. It took me a little while to become mature about it and realize they’re not out there to exploit you or make you feel bad about yourself. They’re doing it to help you get to the next level.
Mr. Kim: Answering to multiple, different superiors
Everyone is profoundly different, and it is difficult, working with different personalities.
At the Hollywood Reporter, I worked with three, different publishers. Each publisher had a very different management style. One was very friendly and outgoing. Another one was kind of sealed off, in his own office. Another was like this constant professional because she had done this for such a long time. It was a challenge, but I have to admit I always learned something new, and I always took it away as a very, valuable piece of information, which helped me mature professionally.
Mr. Kim: Advice for job seekers:
Any job, as long it’s even remotely related to what you’re doing, go for it because you never know what type of opportunities are going to open up and if you’re there for a year and the opportunity isn’t there then you look for another job. But when you’re looking for a job – in a recession or in prosperity – when any job pops up that there is a small opportunity for you to learn something, to work hard, to expand and to mature.
Mr. Kim: The story behind the advice:
I have a good friend, who graduated from Berkley with a very marketable degree. He was offered a job with the Indian Consulate, but they could only pay my friend in India currency. After the conversion, my friend would have only been making around a $25,000 per year so he walked away from the job offer. In retrospect, after he became a little bit older, he realized the job he passed up on was a valuable position.
It wasn’t two years after he walked away, when India experienced this great expansion in economic power, and my friend had the opportunity to be there at the beginning when India completely expanded their economic power between the South, the U.S. and other, Western countries. He realized that he made a terrible mistake.
Mr. Kim: Never give up
Do not worry about failing.” I failed so many times in my life that if it wasn’t for these failures, I would have never learned the lessons… Failing, to me, is the cornerstone of life…And I think the cornerstone of all that is perseverance, determination, to believe in yourself, and never, never give up. It also always helps to have a nice friend or someone to tell you “Hey, it will be okay. You’ll move forward, and don’t let this hold you back.”
Just never give up, and I think that is the secret to business – the people who succeed are the ones who try.
