7 jobs in 14 years: A comms director explains why job hopping isn't always bad

Kai Wen (0:04)

Job Hopping. Is it irresponsible career behaviour?

Sue-Ann (0:07)

All a necessity in today's career landscape.

Kai Wen (0:09)

Hi, my name is Kai Wen.

Sue-Ann (0:10)

And I'm Sue-Ann.

Kai Wen (0:11)

And you're listening to Headstart On Record. Join us as we figure a doubting out so you don't have to do it alone. We have with us Annabel Lim.

Hi, welcome to the show.

Annabel Lim (0:19)

Hi, thank you for having me.

Kai Wen (0:21)

Of course, of course. Annabel is currently a director at the communications firm, We Communications. And I think a fun fact about her is that to get there, she actually cycled through 7 full-time jobs.

Sue-Ann (0:31)

What?

Annabel Lim (0:31)

Yes, I did.

Kai Wen (0:32)

Her LinkedIn page is like a Wikipedia page. I was like, wow, when can I stop scrolling?

Annabel Lim (0:37)

Wow.

Kai Wen (0:39)

So we will actually get into the house and the wise and maybe can share with us more. Would you consider yourself a jobhopper, Annabel?

Annabel Lim (0:46)

I think for me, I would say that I don't think I'm a jobhopper. I think it's been a very intentional way to build my career.

And you have a go in mine. What do I want to be in the future? And how do I get there is through each role. Every time I go to a new role, I make sure that it expands my portfolio. And it gives me an added experience that leads me a step closer to who I want to be, say, in 10, 15 years from now.

Kai Wen (1:11)

So I would say that when I first saw your LinkedIn page, and I saw the number of roles that you cycled through, I also noticed that every role saw some kind of mini-upgrade, or should I say, that it followed a certain direction. And that was what I noticed immediately.

So as much as job-hopping has a, I would say, maybe you can discuss this later, whether it has a negative connotation, but I guess in your case, I feel like it works in your favor, and it's something that people can take a leave out from and study. Yeah. How about you, Sue-Ann? Do you think you are a job-hopper?

Sue-Ann (1:46)

Wow, I think I am the opposite of a job-hopper. So I have been, I guess, SPH for like nine years, which is my whole career.

Kai Wen (1:55)

Long service of work.

Sue-Ann (1:58)

So I have only worked for one company.

But I guess I'm not always in the same role, right? Because I started out as a generalist in Straits Times, and then I moved to TNP, where I did a whole bunch of things, including entertainment. And then after that, I came back to do business there. So I guess it's the same company for nine years, but not exactly the same role for nine years, not the same job scope either for nine years.

Kai Wen (2:19)

So like, I mean, different in a way, also same in a way where you are trying different things, but in the same company and the same industry.

Sue-Ann (2:26)

Yeah. So I guess for Annabel, were you always in the same sector?

Annabel Lim (2:30)

I think for me, it's always been in the kind of the same industry, marketing and communications and PR. I started my career in a PR firm, and that was like 14 years ago where print paper was still a thing.

Kai Wen (2:43)

It is still a thing.

Annabel Lim (2:45)

But back then, it was still just print. But I think now, it has expanded, right? There's print, there's online, there's been a podcast, vidcast now. Times have changed in the last 14 years, and so has the role as a comms consultant. I realized that clients were also asking for different things. They needed more council on, how can I integrate, say, my...

If I buy a paid editorial on Straits Times, how can I match it with a story that we are pitching? And how can I match it with something that I'm doing on the website, things like this?

So like in 15 years down the road, if let's say I want to be a department head, what is the kind of responsibilities a department head would have? So what I did was, I actually would look at... Back then was those job website, right? You look at all the...

Kai Wen (3:30)

Job Street?

Annabel Lim (3:30)

Job Street, yeah.

Kai Wen (3:32)

Wait, this was your first job, right?

Annabel Lim (3:34)

This was my first job right after university.

Kai Wen (3:36)