This essay as stated is based on a conversation with Jennifer Ong33, a former vice president at BlackRock turned career change coach and podcast host. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified her education and employment history.
In high school I had no idea what I wanted to do, and even when I got to college I didn’t know what I wanted to major in.
I knew I had an interest in the arts, but I grew up believing that doing anything related to creative work wouldn’t make me any money.
As graduation approached, I applied for roles at almost every financial institution, from investment banking to asset management. I just accepted the first offer that was made to me.
This was BlackRock.
Struggling with self-doubt and wanting to leave in the first 6 months
Things were really hard when I first started. The truth was that I chose BlackRock because of its brand name and did not evaluate whether it was the right job for me.
I ended up in a position that required coding and had no idea how to code. As part of my job, I had to query data in SQL and perform risk analysis for mortgage-backed securities.
I didn’t like the job. I didn’t have an engineering or computer science degree. I was one of the few hired from a liberal arts background.
This took a huge toll on my confidence. I was less than six months into the role and I was struggling every day. But I chose to persevere and stay.
Part of it was because I liked the company culture and the people I worked with. Part of it was because I still believed that work wasn’t supposed to be fun anyway.
Besides, the money was really good.
And things got better. After two years I changed scope of work and took a sales oriented role which was the best fit for me.
Ong spent seven years at BlackRock and was eventually promoted to vice president. Jennifer Ong
It wasn’t long before the nagging feelings of being inadequate returned.
I remembered meeting friends who didn’t work in the industry. They’d say, “Oh, Jennifer, you’re always complaining about your job. Why don’t you quit?”
I knew I wanted to do something else, but fear held me back. I didn’t know what I wanted to do if I left BlackRock, and I also thought that leaving would make me look like a failure.
I stayed at BlackRock for seven years and was promoted to vice president. I think I left the job more experienced and with a solid network.
Leaving BlackRock for the startup world
I took an 80% pay cut when I quit BlackRock to join Style Theory, a fashion rental startup.
When I got the offer, I was like, “Wow, can I live on this little money?”
The office, in an industrial building, was certainly not as glamorous as those in the central business district.
When I went on business trips for BlackRock, I was put up in nice five-star hotels. But at Style Theory, I found myself staying in budget hotels. The two companies were worlds apart.
That said, I still valued my time at Style Theory. I had the idea of starting my own fashion rental company aimed at travelers, but I had no idea what it was like to start and run a business.
Ong took an 80% pay cut when he left BlackRock for Style Theory. Jennifer Ong
Style theory became my business school. Instead of spending several hundred thousand dollars on an MBA, I realized that I could learn all the things to build a startup.
One thing that Style Theory offered me was a great amount of autonomy as an employee.
I didn’t get to run many projects at BlackRock, even though I had spent seven years there. There were many people who were older than me.
Making another pivot to career coaching
I left Style Theory after three years. I still wanted to be an entrepreneur and felt I had gained the skills I needed from my time there.
I moved to Singapore just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The strict lockdown measures made it difficult for me to meet new people.
I ended up starting a podcast on career pivots. This topic resonated deeply with me because I had struggled to understand what a “perfect for me” career looked like while facing the fear of leaving behind a “perfect on paper” job.
As my podcast started to take off, I started getting messages from people asking for help building their careers. Some even asked if they could pay me for my time.
Soon, my client list began to grow and I became the founder of my own career coaching firm, Ctrl Alt Career.
Looking back, I don’t regret starting at BlackRock. I got a lot of good training and met a lot of interesting people. My time at BlackRock shaped me into the person I am today.
If there’s one thing I could change, it would be to spend more time in my junior years discovering my interests instead of just going for the low-hanging fruit of whatever company was recruiting on campus.
It would save me from the pain and hurt I experienced in the first seven years of my career.
Perhaps I would have been happier if I had allowed myself to dream more instead of weighing the possibilities as to whether they were practical or profitable.