A lot of people came to Clipboard Health in a lot of different ways, but I think my story is among the most unusual.
Almost everyone has had an experience with a job that was just wrong for them. Maybe it didnāt take advantage of their skills or maybe it wasnāt the kind of work they enjoyed doing. After I became an adult, that was pretty much every job I ever had. I didnāt have a lot of traditional qualifications and looking in a lot of different jobs trying to find your niche means your resume ends up a mess.
I ended up hating work.
I have a family, so I still worked and worked hard, but it was always something I had to do rather than something I wanted to do. Money isnāt everything, but the kind of jobs I could get were low-paying and that meant I couldnāt take care of my family like I wanted to.
The one skill I did have was writing. Iāve spent my whole life playing around with words, learning to tell stories and to talk about a variety of different subjects in an entertaining way. But itās hard to tell someone āHey, just so you know, Iām a pretty decent writerā in a way they will believe you. Most writing jobs donāt pay well, and those that do usually eliminate you from consideration as soon as they see you donāt have a writing degree from a top-notch university.
But if you write, you sort of have to write; I started a blog, and eventually, I had a small readership. It wasnāt anything impressive, but it got just big enough that Wei Deng (Clipboard Healthās CEO) saw one of the articles and decided to contact me.
Something you might not know about Clipboard Health is that they donāt care about your background. They only care about what you can do.
Now, most companies say that, but most companies also donāt mean it - they will weed you out of the process before ever talking to you based entirely on your resume, just like anyone else. Another thing you might not know about Clipboard is that we think writing is thinking; it not only shows how you think, but good clean writing promotes clean, efficient thinking.
Based on my ability to write and nothing else, I was offered a job here. I know it was nothing but the writing because they didnāt know anything else; all they knew was from things I had written. I could have been anyone, but what mattered was what I could do.
The job is great. I get to focus on what I do well, and Iāve had fun doing it.
Thatās not something I thought I would ever have. And the company is a great place to work - they give people the freedom and autonomy to do big things. Itās not for everyone (you have to want to use that freedom and autonomy) but itās by far the best job Iāve ever had.
I could talk a lot about other aspects of the company, but I think thatās whatās most important to me: Clipboard Health cares about what you can do, and sets you up to be able to leverage that ability to the absolute maximum. Itās a great place to be.
