Mr. Drake Kutz, IBMBA Alumni (Class of 2016)

Drake is currently working as a Technical Project Manager for FunPodium, a technology company. Managing a team of 20 developers with 70% being Taiwanese, he himself experiences this cultural difference on a daily basis. Drake also revealed how much he enjoys working at FunPodium. He actually did a number of interviews with different Taiwanese companies, however, FunPodium “gave [him] something that no others did - the freedom to do what [he] wants”. When Drake first started working there, their team had 40 people, then a hundred and soon to be 130.

Being asked to give out advice for fresh graduates, Drake thoughtfully made suggestions based on two different scenarios.

If you are coming in with a lack of experience, you should be open minded, not expect too much and be eager to learn. “You can’t learn how to do a thing until you really get to do it. What you got from classes - case studies, models, etc., work don’t always go the same way in real life. Things change”. During the first few years at work, you may not be able to get everything that you want. You might start off getting coffee, making slides and taking notes; and it is important that you pay attention to what is going on around you. You will learn a lot! Drake took his own example to illustrate his points. When he was small, his dad taught him how to swim by kicking him into the pool, saying “Swim if you want to live!”. Going to work also works the same way. There are numerous SMEs in Taiwan and to Drake, this is a huge opportunity for fresh graduates. At these SMEs, because of the lack of human resources, there will hardly be anyone willing to teach you step by step. Because of this, you are forced to learn yourself, you might even feel like you’re “getting yourself into trouble” but in the end, everything will be all worth it. 

For the second scenario, if you come with experience, make sure you give it some time. “It took me about 3 to 4 months and around 15 interviews before I could find 3 jobs that I was really thinking about” Drake said. While there are good companies that are very open to change and willing to accept new ideas, there can be some that are just OK. Speaking from his own experience, Drake emphasizes the importance of doing as many interviews as possible. He used the web “104” to search for jobs in Taiwan and job descriptions from both OK and good companies showed no difference. He was not able to define them until actually getting into the interview.