Around this time 4 years ago, I decided to quit my copywriting job, with no back-up plans.
The year was 2020. I had been writing comfortably, too comfortably, for close to 2 years in hospitality and tourism, churning out content like a broken record. Then news of Covid-19 broke and redefined the world as we knew it. It was not just insensitive, but borderline inhumane, to continue pushing for an aggressive sales strategy in the face of this looming global crisis. I made the decision to jump ship, my only lifeboat being just enough savings to sustain myself for a year. Vietnam went into lockdown 2 months later.
The year that followed was meant to be a period of rest and recuperation, to regain balance within myself and with the world. I made a pact to not force myself into work and not even think about working, and to fully dedicate this coming year to figuring out my values, goals, and possible next steps. I kept freelancing work sparse, filling the rest of my days with books and languages and watercolor paintings.
When it came close to the 6-month mark, an opportunity landed on my desk just as I was going into my mid-year unemployment review. A previous manager had secured a rebranding project for Vietnam’s top household brand, and wanted me on board. The 3-month Technical Writing contract was then extended for another 3 months, and another 3 months, as we went from one successful project and one successful deliverable to another. Aside from industry and domain knowledge, I discovered my affinity for structure, frameworks, and iterative delivery.
It was now mid-2021. As the project came to a close, I found myself more or less ready for my re-entry into the job market. I was waiting on an offer letter after 5 rounds of interview and testing for a Communications role at an international corporation, while also finalizing my application to several VCs in the start-up scene in Saigon, when the phone rang. An ex-colleague who was now working at Techcombank said they had been looking for a UX Writer, and the only person she could trust for the job was me. At the time, I didn’t even know what UX Writing entailed, or that such a role even existed. It had all seemed like too much effort to start anew.
Out of sheer serendipity, this talk from Jess Lee came to me through the magical power of the Youtube auto-play mechanism. I remember dropping everything I was doing to tune into this section in particular:
When you have that choice between something that feels like once in a lifetime, you should grab that, because oftentimes the other path will still be available to you.
I think this was the first time in my life where I decided to go all in with the unknown.
The interview was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon the following week. I spent the entire weekend cramming every resource I could find on UX and UX Writing — books, articles, sped-up crash courses, everything. The morning before the interview, my ex-and-future-colleague put me in touch with the Hiring Manager via email. The introduction was brief; he said he’d read a book review on my blog, and liked my writing style.
We spent most of the interview chatting about our shared love for dystopian novels. There was no CV talk or skill assessment. The interview, if it could be called an interview at all, was largely me shooting questions about the post and the Manager giving clarification and reassurance. I found out at the end of the session that the job was already mine from the get-go, if I wanted it.
My colleague later told me that since she didn’t have my portfolio, she decided to just send him a link to my blog, which I didn’t realize she was still following from time to time. This blog of silly random things and mostly book reviews I’d been writing in my free time, which was most of the time, in my year of rest. There it is, my bizarre career story: I was hired thanks to a book review that I frankly, honestly, didn’t expect anyone to read.
3 years down the line, I’ve reached a point in my career where I get to look for and build up my own people. My best hire so far was also someone not from a UX background. Whenever someone comes to me for career advice, I still send them Jess Lee’s talk. Carpe diem.
What I’ve gathered along the journey:
- When you’re standing at a crossroad, pick the more challenging path.
- Reserve yourself a moment (could be days, weeks, months, years) of rest if you need it, but do it intentionally and reflect often.
- Life can take you down different routes, but at the end of the day, you’ll find that they’re all connected if you can extract the right insights.
- If there’s something you enjoy, keep doing it. Even if it’s for no one but yourself. The right things will come to the right people, in the right place, at the right time.
Zoe Tran 