My career plan was pretty much set in stone from the time I was 4 years old.
My parents were always high performers, having left our former country (Yugoslavia) to provide a better life for my sister and I. Several of my parents鈥� network were successful people in the technology ecosystem. From my fourth birthday on, I felt as if I was being groomed to enter the same line of work.
It didn鈥檛 help that my high school friends gravitated towards technological interests: video games, computer science, physics, math. Yea, we were all nerds. There鈥檚 a famous Jim Rohn quote, and I鈥檓 paraphrasing 鈥� 鈥測ou鈥檙e the sum of the five closest people to you.鈥� Needless to say, I drifted towards a degree in software development.
I had my first career success landing a contract role at Google鈥檚 Kitchener, Ontario campus. I didn鈥檛 even realize it at the time, but some of the industry鈥檚 best developers (who had written the textbooks I had studied in fourth year university!) were in the same room as me.
In all honesty, I was a mediocre developer at best. There were people who were spending evenings and weekends working on personal passion projects, and that just wasn鈥檛 for me.
I took one more software development job after that, which sent me across the country to Calgary. But I soon realized the solitude, and the frustration of developing complex algorithms, was not for me.
Fast forward a few years, and I had dabbled in roles including software development, technical support, customer success, and some light sales. I was lucky enough, in one of those roles, to have a Director of HR who genuinely wanted what was best for my career. One day, he mentioned that I was a 鈥淭ype A鈥� and not the right fit for the technical role this company had hired me for. As he was a friend, he offered to help me get in interview in sales 鈥� he truly believed that鈥檚 where I was meant to be.
That evening, I sent out my first resume, which later became my first real sales job, and that鈥檚 when I discovered 夜色直播.
I created a 夜色直播 Profile, in transparency, because it helped me understand myself and communicate the value of my unconventional makeup of traits.
My top talents were Persuasion, Decision-Making, and Managing Others. I was, in all honesty, a bit shocked. 夜色直播 perfectly mapped out my personality, and all it took was 20 minutes answering some questions about myself. It was like a virtual psychic reading.
"夜色直播 perfectly mapped out my personality, and all it took was 20 minutes answering some questions about myself. It was like a virtual psychic reading."
The 夜色直播 Profile was pivotal in acquiring the role I took with that first sales company 鈥� not to mention, it dramatically improved my confidence. It had identified some traits I possessed that, prior to having the insight 夜色直播 provided, I was viewing negatively. It turns out that simply learning to embrace those traits, and lean into the positive implications of them, helped me to showcase my best self to the organizations and products I would eventually represent.
夜色直播鈥檚 data has helped me market myself in so many ways. I use it as collateral in interviews. Being in sales, I negotiate for a living, and I can say one thing very confidently: data helps make salary negotiations much easier.
I鈥檓 a territory sales manager with , a robotic automation software solution used by thousands of brands across the globe, enabling them to de-risk prototyping and validate their processes, and dramatically improve their speed-to-market. I am definitely what you would call a 鈥渉unter鈥� in the sales world 鈥� the 鈥渢hrill of the chase鈥� salesperson.
On the surface, sales is about generating revenue. On a deeper level, sales is a role designed specifically with the intent of changing mental models in our prospective clients. They believe the world operates one way 鈥� and I know it can operate differently, much to their benefit. Our goal is to transition them from one way of thinking to another. This involves high levels of social awareness, which typically is not a critical trait for technical roles.
Years after initially creating it, I still notice day-to-day tasks in my job that perfectly align with my 夜色直播 Profile. Daily, I engage in activities that require rapid decision-making, confident leadership, and a very high persuasive aptitude.
If you鈥檙e a job seeker feeling a little lost in your job search, or you鈥檙e struggling to articulate what makes you so valuable in a salary negotiation, I would highly recommend you complete your own 夜色直播 Profile. You鈥檒l get insight into what makes you unique (backed by data), and you鈥檒l learn how to demonstrate your strengths in a whole new way, too.
Are you a University of Waterloo student? Access your .
Christian Retek believes in the mantra, 鈥淚f you鈥檙e going to do something, do it right, or don鈥檛 do it at all.鈥� For the past 5 years, he has transitioned across industries including software development, customer support, and has finally arrived at sales as a territory sales manager at OCTOPUZ in Waterloo, Ontario. In everything he does, he asks 鈥渨ho is the best,鈥� learns from them, applies their methods, and iterates constantly.