13th February, 2023

Is community building the right career for you?

When trying to make a career pivot into community management, the first thing you need to answer is - whether community building is the right career choice for you. The best way to know this is to actually try and build a community. But that takes time.

Second best way is to do the internal work of answering what brings you joy. Community building is about connecting with people and forming relationships. So, if you are someone who gets energised by connecting with people, community building might be a great career for you.

Derrick Chiu was able to answer this questions by picking up the breadcrumbs from when he was younger. With the help of coaches, he was able to identify what he really enjoys.

“Going back to my childhood, I realised that I was always building relationships, diving into people's stories, connecting people to opportunity and helping them grow and learn.”

If you’re able to point at characteristics from your childhood that point to an innate desire to build communities, you can be more confident in your ability to be a good community professional.

Here are 3 instances that Derrick was able to point at:

1. Having a smile on his face

“Growing up, I was always someone who always had a smile on their face almost to a weird extent where people are like, “Why is he always so smiley? Why is he always so positive?””

2. Floating between different groups

“In high school, I was always the person that had friends in every type of group. I was someone who hung out with the sports people, the artistic people and the math people. I was always kind of floating between all these different groups and had friends in all these different groups.”

3. Not afraid to join a party of strangers

“If you drop me into any new social situation, I'll find my way to navigate it and thrive in them. My friends always tell me that they never worry about bringing me to like a party with brand new people.”

This being said, I realise that people change a lot from their childhood to adulthood. So, not having this history doesn’t mean you can’t build a good community today. But having it can be a strong indicator of future success.

You can listen to Derrick’s full story of transitioning into the Community industry after 11 YEARS in the Sales industry. He talks about how he got his 1st community gig, used C School projects to land job interviews and how he’s thinking about levelling up in this career by adding points to the scoreboard.