I got my dream job

My testimony really is quite simple but spans over a long period of time.

I had been working at an advertising agency for a year in Dec 2015. I was due my annual review / appraisal that month and was hopeful my efforts at the agency, including doing jobs I was not employed to do, would come through in the review. Not just in words, but in terms of salary too. Now, this was not because I felt like I was due it but because I took the job knowing it was woefully underpaying me.

To get the role, I knowingly took a pay cut coming from a job with a luxury clothing brand to enter advertising because, you know, it’s such a creative industry, and wasn’t I lucky to be working on some of the greatest thinkers and creative minds, producing the most creative ads…blah blah blah. You can tell from my nonchalance that by year one’s end, I was no longer buying it. I wanted to be paid.

Review came and much to my horror, no pay rise was given. Just to add some context, these are turbulent times for the advertising industry, specifically traditional ones. The glory days of the 80s were long gone and small companies in particular were feeling the pinch as clients became more demanding, required clearer ROIs and nit-picked at even the smallest of agency travel expenses. In that climate and after a glowing but disappointing review, I knew it was no longer for me. So the search started officially in January after Christmas. I knew I deserved better and could do better. I knew I didn’t want to be at another agency but I longed for a role as a digital marketer. It fit well with my skillset, along with my passion, and it was the direction the industry is going in. I looked long and hard for roles that fit the criteria but I was coming up short. I hadn’t developed as much as I would have liked to in my role as I was spending time doing jobs I wasn’t designed to be doing.

As an active member of my church, I prayed about it on our weekly prayer nights and took it to God. I knew He would come through. I spoke about it to one of the leaders in my church and he brought me to our scripture for the year: Isaiah 60 - ‘Rise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you’.  His personal word to me was “this is your year. Whatever you’re looking for, go for the one above. Don’t settle for less, even if you think you’re worth less”.

I suffered from a very defeatist attitude as a result of my job search - I’d go for roles and really shine in interviews, but my low pay would be a stumbling block for prospective employers. They just couldn’t understand why I was paid so little. Some employers would use that as a reason to reduce the wage they advertised, but I remembered what the church leader told me - not to settle for less. So I had the courage to turn them down.

To cut the long story short, after about 8 months of looking, I found a role that not only offered me what was advertised but increased it by 5k, including benefits! I have almost doubled my earnings in a field that is suited to my career progression in digital marketing, in a job I was by no means supposed to get experience-wise. That’s how I know it was God. He uses the foolish things to confound the wise.  I start next week!