I graduated from graduate school in 2017. I was burnt out on academia and pretty sure I didn’t want to pursue a PhD program. While I loved learning and connecting with others in the classroom, I knew I couldn’t take another couple of years of graduate school, and I was pretty restless to get out.
The only problem? I didn’t have many useful skills (or at least I thought.) I had no full-time work experience, and I didn’t even know what I wanted to pursue. I’d seen many people choose the freelance writing path, so I thought I would try it.
Fast-forward to today: I have a career I love, and I’m not worried about the academic career that could have been. Now that I’m on the other side (so to speak), I wanted to share my journey and what helped me along the way.
1. Starting A Lifestyle Blog In College
First, we can’t discuss my current iteration without talking about College Is Love/The Happy Arkansan. All the way back in 2011, I started this blog from my dorm room at the University of Central Arkansas. I don’t look back at that writing and say, “Wow! Amanda’s a great writer!” In fact, I sucked.
My first blogs were on Tumblr, and they were typically a mishmash of whatever I felt like writing that day. Who needs headers? Who even needs paragraphs? I was all over the place. As for grammar and spelling, who needs those?
Over time, though, I got better. I wanted the blog to reach more people, so I had to learn many things through quick Google searches and taking courses. For example, I noticed that Pinterest was driving traffic, so I took a course to capitalize on that. I noticed Google was picking up my content, so I needed to learn what the Google algorithm wanted.
This blog was my first foray into SEO and finding ways to drive traffic to a website. Without the experiments I made on this blog, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable diving into freelance writing after I finished graduate school.
2. Creating A Portfolio With A Freelance Career
After I finished graduate school, I was ready for a new challenge. I loved learning, but I was afraid I was staying because I was afraid of the skills I didn’t have. I knew two things when I graduated with my Master’s: I needed to learn what kind of career I wanted, and I loved writing.
From 2017-2020, I was trying to run a semi-successful freelance career.
I started on Upwork. At first, I just tried out anything that looked interesting. I wrote about college, jewelry, digital marketing, and more.
During that time, I found one niche to be far superior. It wasn’t because the pay was great; my first job in the space had pretty awful pay ($35 an article), but the niche had potential. I knew that some companies would pay more, and I’d be writing about something that seemed to interest me.
Human resources technology proved to be an industry I adored writing for. So, I dived deeper and ended up writing for various clients on and off Upwork.
3. Transitioning From Freelance To Full-Time With A Client x2
Then, the pandemic hit.
Many of my clients went in-house with their content to save money because they weren’t sure where the next few months and years would take them. I found myself pouring everything into the few clients that still needed my services, which led me to my first full-time job in HR tech as a marketing coordinator.
I learned a lot from my first job as I continued to manage their blog, but I also got to do other marketing activities, like writing an eBook, sending marketing emails, and producing case studies.
Read More: My Experience Finding A New Job During Social Distancing
At the end of 2021, I decided to transition away from that job and take another stab at full-time freelancing. The pandemic wasn’t over, but there was much more optimism in the HR tech market. Many HR tech companies were starting to invest in freelance help again because they realized that companies were still purchasing HR software (especially the kind that helped with remote and hybrid workforces.)
In 2022, I worked full-time as a freelancer for about eight months. For the most part, I was doing well. I was making more per month than my full-time job had afforded me, but I was also working ALL. THE. TIME. I would regularly work when my parents were at work and then return after 9 p.m. to work some more. Entrepreneurship is really a full-time job, and I was paying over $300 a month for insurance.
That came to a halt when I received a kind LinkedIn message from a client I would work with occasionally. His company was looking for a full-time content marketing manager, and he wanted to see if I’d be interested in the job. After a few meetings and the realization that I was working way too much, I decided to go in-house yet again. I was also really excited to be working with a rewards and recognition company.
I worked for that company as a content marketing manager for two years. I’ve grown a lot. I grew our blog tremendously in terms of content pieces, demos, pipeline, and revenue.
I recently transitioned into a new Content Research And Insights Manager role. In that role, I’ve been putting a lot of energy into our content research program. With the help of my manager and our VP of People, I put together monthly surveys for full-time employees. Then, I analyze that data and create useful articles. So far, I’ve written a few on leadership engagement and replaceable managers. One of my reports even got coverage on HR Brew.
I am looking forward to diving deeper into this role in 2025.
Work will always be stressful, but I’m continually impressed with the company I work for and how much we’ve grown since I joined in August 2022. It’s been a wild, impressive ride. ✨
I don’t know what the next few years of my career will look like, but I’m excited to see what they bring. I’m sure I’ll look back on this blog and be amazed at how much has changed since I wrote it.
Conclusion: The Transition Is Possible
All of this is to say that whatever career transition you seek is possible. It likely won’t happen overnight, but if I can go from academia to freelancing to in-house content marketing manager, you can make your transition happen, too. I hope this gave you some insight into the transitions I’ve been experiencing since graduate school.
What is your most interesting career transition story?
