I started at Language Link as an admin intern in 2013. Six years later I came back to run a product line. It was a hands-on job, and I was not ready for it. Then it went nowhere, so I left.
Vu Quynh Anh - Admin intern, 2013 · Product Marketing Supervisor, 10/19 - 2/20 · Language Link Vietnam
Two times, one company
- 2013. Admin intern, for about a year and a half. I worked at GET, a small company inside the Language Link group, on the study-abroad side. Seven women in one small office.
- Then I left. For six years I worked somewhere else.
- Oct19 to Feb20. Product Marketing Supervisor. I came back with a team, a product line and a revenue target.
What I was hired to do
| Area | What | How it went |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Campaigns on Google, social and affiliate, judged against company revenue | Ran them |
| Events | Events at secondary and high schools, to collect MQLs | Ran them |
| Centre event | A birthday event at two centres, with ads, SMS and a landing page | My event, start to finish |
| Brand | The rebrand for my own product line, Jan20 | Took part |
| Team | Managing the product marketing team | Learning as I went |
| Skills | Doing all of the above well | Not enough |
The last row is why this post exists.
The intern in a small office
In 2013 I was an admin intern. I had not graduated yet.
The office was small. Seven women, doing the admin behind study abroad. Every file was a family’s plan for their child.
I was not responsible for any task. I did not decide anything. But I sat next to the people who talked to those families every day.
I did not know then that I would spend most of my career in education. That office was the start.
Coming back six years later
In Oct 19 I came back. A different job in a different part of the group. English for children, programs sold to parents in Hà Nội.
This time I had a title, a team and a target. On paper that is a big step from intern. In practice it meant one thing. Now when it went wrong, it was mine.
The birthday event
The campaign I remember best is a birthday event. Language Link Academic was having a birthday, and we turned it into a party for children.
- The theme was green. Sinh nhật xanh, sống trong lành. Science experiments, planting seeds, making things from old materials, a quiz about the environment.
- Two centres. 62 Yên Phụ and 34T Hoàng Đạo Thúy, on one Saturday at the end of Nov 2019.
- Children from 5 to 15, and free to join.
- The ads were there for mothers. Google display ads and Facebook ads, aimed at women living near each centre.
- Around the ads: a landing page, SMS, Facebook posts, and gifts to make people come.
It was my event. The plan, the ads for each centre, the landing page, the reports.
I am keeping the budget and the results out of this post. They belong to Language Link Vietnam.
Who actually buys
The rebrand in January 2020 asked a simple question first. Who was the customer?
For my product line the answer was two people. The child who learns. And the parent who decides. Most of those parents were mothers. They wanted results. Good marks at school, a place at a good high school, a test certificate.
So the child had to enjoy it. But the mother had to believe in it. Every ad, every event, every flyer had to work for both.
I had seen the same thing in 2013, in that study-abroad office. In 2019 I had to market to it.
I did not have enough skills!
This is the honest part.
It was a hands-on job. Plans, ads, events, reports, a team. I did all of it myself, or next to my team.
And I did not have enough skills to do it well.
I could plan things and run them. But I could not yet make them as good as they needed to be. And I was managing a team at the same time, which I was still learning too.
I had the title before I had the skills. I was undercompetent
Why I left
The job was a dead end. I could not see where it went next.
So I made a choice. I moved into IT and SaaS. My next full-time job was at MISA, an HR software company. I wanted to learn how technology works from the inside, so I could build better workflows and get better results. Not only run campaigns by hand.
Most of what I do now, SEO and data, came after that move. It started with leaving a job that had stopped teaching me.
What I left behind
- A product line after its rebrand. I helped start the new brand. I was not there to see it grow.
- A team I had only just learned to manage. Five months is not long enough to get good at it.
What I’d tell myself in 2019
- A title is not a skill. Being hired as a supervisor did not make me ready to be one. Learn the skills you are missing on purpose. Do not wait for the job to teach you.
- Write the result in the sheet. “Rewrite ads” is a good note. “Why it failed” is a better one.
- Always ask who decides. In education, the person who learns is almost never the person who pays.
- Leave a dead end early. If you cannot see the next step, the job is not going to show you. You just have to find more opportunities to keep on learning.
