On My Own Terms: Career Switch for Millennials in Singapore
John Lim has had an unconventional career by Singapore / Asian standards - with several career switches. He started his career in banking before co-founding a laser tag events company. After building the business from ground-up, growing the team to 20+ and running Singapore's largest indoor laser tag center, he joined an early-stage IoT (Internet of Things) tech startup to lead business development across Southeast Asia. In 2019, he took a leap of faith to join the e-commerce industry, a seemingly unknown sector, until a few months later when Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees. While John finds himself lucky to have 'survived' the career switches relatively unscathed, he has never forgotten how it feels like to be at the crossroads of your career and life. Now, he has started this podcast - to provide the resources and perspectives he wished he had - to help you make the most of your career to live your best life. Join him as he speaks with unconventional career changers and risk-takers, taps into their experiences and perspectives and discusses all things career. Together, they will provide you nuggets of wisdom, inspiration and actionable insights to start living life on your own terms. Subscribe to the newsletter to receive bonus content from podcast episodes, on career switch and growth in your inbox here: https://bit.ly/3VU2e47
Episodes
25 episodes
24. Joining AI industry, Anxiety and Why Laid Off Folks Are More Likely to Get Laid Off Again (Part 3)
This is Part 3 (and final part) of special conversation episode between John Lim and Aaron Wong, guest from Ep 1. At time of recording, John has been actively job hunting for several months. Some topics covered include:- You n...
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20:41
23. Life after Layoff, Building Skills and Network and Career Coaches (Part 2)
This is Part 2 of 3 of special conversation episode between John Lim and Aaron Wong, guest from Ep 1. At time of recording, John has been actively job hunting for several months. Some topics covered include:- Dealing with news...
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30:33
22. Special Episode, Getting Laid Off in May 2023 and Post Layoff Reaction (Part 1)
This is Part 1 of 3 of special conversation episode between John Lim and Aaron Wong, guest from Ep 1. At time of recording, John has been actively job hunting for several months. Some topics covered include:- Getting laid off<...
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23:16
21. Why You Don't Have to Look the Part with Winnie Wong
Winnie Wong (her LinkedIn) is the author of Amazon #1 New Release - You Don't Have to Look the Part: How East Asian Women Thrive as Entrepreneurs (...
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55:20
20. Moving From Finance to Fashion, Test Driving Your Next Dream Job and Investing in Yourself with Career Change Coach Jennifer Ong
In this episode, we have a special guest - a career change coach who has helped numerous individuals successfully navigate their career transitions. If you're a millennial in Singapore looking to make a career switch, this episode is for you.&n...
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1:23:40
19. Switching from Service Industry to Corporate, Working with Chatri Sityodtong at One Championship to Starting New Career in E-commerce and Showing Hunger at Interviews with Jasper Lim
During a career switch, it is common to assume that one needs to take a pay cut when joining a completely different industry to "start from scratch". Or in job hunting, the candidate with the most relevant job experience should be the mos...
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1:24:39
18. Three Lessons I learnt at Lazada
In this solo episode, I share the 3 lessons I learnt during my time at Lazada Nov 2019 - Jan 2022. I had front row seat watching the world rushing to pivot to e-commerce when Covid19 brought the world to its knees in early 2020.La...
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11:38
17. Building No Harm Done, Uprooting his life and Management Consultant career in Europe to Yishun in Singapore and Reducing Social Isolation with Simon Lieberum
It is one thing to have a career change. It is another to do it while you're uprooting your life to move to another country with no social network. It is one thing to start a business. It is another to start a social enterprise where you're cha...
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42:25
16. Starting Side Hustles, Building Activewear Fashion brand Whakamana, Early Employee at Fave, Property Investing in early 20s and Why You Don't Need a Degree with Bethia Wee
Not everyone can easily and/or necessarily need to make drastic career changes immediately to get more fulfilment. You can start a side hustle or passion project while keeping your day job. This episode is about side hustles ...
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1:00:28
15. Interviewing at Shopify and 4 Career Takeaways in Sharing with SMU students (I regret not doing #4)
Hi everyone, this is another special solo episode. This is a recording for a presentation I did for Singapore Management University (SMU) students in Jan 2022. It consists of three main parts:Brief summary of my career journey so fa...
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11:48
14. Building Product at StashAway, Building Transferable Skills, Being a “Cockroach”, Career Optionalities, Frameworks for Career Switch and Hiring with Yaohong Ch’ng
Yaohong Ch’ng is the Head of Data and Engineering at January Capital, a venture capital (VC) firm based in Singapore. He is responsible for building data-driven solutions that will compleme...
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1:16:38
13. Building UglyFood, sustainability food startup after 12 years at Shell and MBA with Sean Goh
Sean Goh is the co-founder of UglyFood, Singapore-based food startup whose mission is to eliminate food waste and revamp the food ecosystem. UglyF...
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32:06
12. My Career Journey So Far - 3 Transition Chapters (the last one was painful 😔 )
Hi everyone, this is a solo episode where I will share my career journey thus far. I will tell you why and focus on the 3 career transition chapters:From banking 🏦 to laser tag 🔫From employer to startup employeeFro...
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22:06
11. Quick Review of 2022 and What to Expect in 2023 - We have a newsletter!
Hi everyone, this is a special episode (more of such to come) - to give everyone a quick review for 2022 and let everyone know what to expect in 2023. We launched an email newsletter - clic...
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5:03
10. Co-hosting Business Over Drinks podcast, having co founders when starting businesses and growing up as a minority in Sri Lanka with Terng (Part 3)
Our guest speaker, Terng Shing Chen, more commonly known as Terng, is the CEO and founder of SYNC PR, a technology company that provides public relations and...
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27:51
9. Rethinking value of Public Relations (PR), entrepreneurs taking everything personally and starting Business Over Drinks podcast with Terng (Part 2)
Our guest speaker, Terng Shing Chen, more commonly known as Terng, is the CEO and founder of SYNC PR, a technology company that provides public relations and...
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22:35
8. Public Relations (PR) vs Marketing, career in PR agency vs in-house and the REAL reason behind joining the PR industry with Terng (Part 1)
Our guest speaker, Terng Shing Chen, more commonly known as Terng, is the CEO and founder of SYNC PR, a technology company that provides public relations an...
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31:43
7. [Full Conversation] Taking A Leap of Faith, Finding Purpose, Quitting Singapore Airlines in Los Angeles for Social Work and Redefining Success with Dennis Teo
Imagine this: you’re at the peak of your career. You have a great job, maybe even a great boss, and you’re making good money. You’ve made it.Most people would say that this is where life gets easier—you’re already successful, now all you...
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1:37:42
6. [Highlights] Taking A Leap of Faith, Finding Purpose, Quitting Singapore Airlines in Los Angeles for Social Work and Redefining Success with Dennis Teo
Imagine this: you’re at the peak of your career. You have a great job, maybe even a great boss, and you’re making good money. You’ve made it.Most people would say that this is where life gets easier—you’re already successful, now all you...
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12:32
5. [Full Conversation] Joval Gan on why he left his $500K high life career, differences between Singapore and Hong Kong, how he co-founded cloud CRM platform Advocado and how to do well at sales
“Imagine you are now dead, what would people say about how you lived your life?”If you think career change is only for those in their early careers or with unfortunate circumstances, you need to listen to Joval’s inspirational story....
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1:40:51
4. [Highlights] Joval Gan on mastering sales despite zero experience, why he left his $500K career and high life on his own terms and the ONE question we should ask ourselves more often
If you think career change is only for those in their early careers or with unfortunate circumstances, you need to listen to Joval’s inspirational story.Joval Gan is currently...
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22:45
3. Best Jittida Haputpong on why you should not rush to find a job straight out of university, business vs tech roles at IBM, selecting mentors, startup compensation package and leaving banking to join early-stage startup Igloohome in 2016
Best Jittida Haputpong is Vice President of Business Development at Igloohome (at time of recording), a tech startup from singapore which produces smart...
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1:04:20
2. Matthew Low on stumbling into entrepreneurship, finding the right business partner, co-founding a chatbot tech startup with no technical background and advice on joining startups and making career moves
If you are curious about joining the tech startup scene 🧑💻, aspiring to be an entrepreneur or thinking about making a big career change 💼, do not miss this episode. Matthew Lo...
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1:24:48
1. Aaron Wong on turning tofu waste to alcohol, joining a very early stage food tech startup, value of startup experience in corporate world and starting his YouTube channel
Aaron Wong graduated from Singapore Management University with a summa cum laude in corporate communications. His first job out of university was at
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Episode 1
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