Finding the right job in an unexpected place

Career Goals

When I graduated, I wanted to either be a consultant or work with strategic marketing. I knew that I wanted to work in an international environment in a small or medium sized company, where I could see the result of my work having an impact.

A challenging job search process

Honestly, it was quite difficult finding a job after graduating. I had heard from other international students that landing your first job could be a challenge, but I underestimated just how hard it was.

For me, the difficulty lay in being prepared for the rejections I received from companies I had applied with. Psychologically, it can be very hard not getting any response at all from companies or receiving any feedback on your application, even though you feel like you are doing everything right. It was also difficult for me to accept the fact that, while I might write the best application and apply to positions that I found interesting, I might still be rejected. At some point, I found myself in a loop: I would receive good feedback from career counsellors or friends on my CV, then apply for a job, and then get no response from the company, which led me to start wondering what I did wrong. That way of thinking can be quite demotivating.

My job

My first job after graduation was with a start-up named Affenium. They posted a job opening on Jobindex that I applied for and was very happy to get. Today, I work at Contractbook as a Customer Success Manager. I got my current job in a slightly different manner. I found the position on Statum and sent my application through their portal. After a couple of days, a consultant reached out to me to clarify some questions and afterwards I received a phone call from the hiring person from Contractbook. After the call, I was invited to a meeting and a couple days later I was offered the position.

A typical day at work

Because I am part of a tech start-up, everything happens at a fast pace and there are constant changes and iterations to my job, so my work days are quite different here. For example, one day I would come into the office and take some time to follow up on emails or on tasks that were not finished the day before. Then I would have a couple of scheduled demos or onboarding calls, where I would show the customer how they benefit most from the platform. After the calls, I would follow up on email with a summary of the call and send some additional materials. During the day, customers may call with technical difficulties or questions and I would help them with that. Along with my daily tasks, which are closely connected to our customers, I would also have a long-term project that I work on, such as process optimisation.

Future plans

I would very much like to excel within Customer Success. It is a completely new field for me and I enjoy it very much. The Customer Success Specialist is an emerging job. More and more companies acknowledge that Customer Success Managers are instrumental in cultivating and managing customer relationships, especially in the Software and IT industry. So my future plans are to excel in this discipline and perhaps become a leader in this field of expertise.

Advice for job seekers

My advice to job seekers is to be open to different opportunities. It is great if you already know exactly what you want to do and what career path you want to go down. However, if you are like me and are a little uncertain about which direction to go in, I would try to apply to different kinds of positions. Being curious and exploring what else is on the market is a great learning experience. For example, I never thought I would work in Customer Success and work as close with customers, as I do today, but I gave it a try and it turned out great for me.

Also, if you find a profession interesting and would like to learn more, then reach out to people. I have found out that people are willing to share their experiences. Ask them on LinkedIn to meet and share some of their insights. If they do not have time for a meeting they will almost always reply to you questions.

What have I learned from Cphbusiness

It is difficult to point out specific skills or competencies that I have gained from my time at Cphbusiness. I rather fell that I have gained a “package” of sorts, with a combination of working methodologically, which I apply if I need to research a topic or make a report, and working in a team in an international environment, which we did a lot at Cphbusiness.

How do you use the Alumni network?

While I was searching for a job, I participated in the career conferences organised by Cphbusiness Alumni to get some inspiration and advice on how to approach my job search. When I found a job, I participated in the networking and speaking event instead. My priorities changed after I found a job, so I would say that you can use the Alumni network at different stages of your career.