How to increase your income quickly is a primary concern for working people, especially for young people who are still feeling their way on their career path. If you haven’t found the right “path” yet, let’s meet the 2 women below to hear their secrets for multiplying their salaries since they first graduated from school.
She had worked various jobs before earning an income of over VND 70 million/month
Like many other young people, Hoang Lan (born in 1998, Binh Dinh) also had times of confusion in her career or disappointment in her personal abilities. However, at the age of 26, she found the field that she wanted to stick with for the long term, and she also felt less uncertain about her career path.
In 2020, Hoang Lan graduated from the Foreign Trade University (Hanoi) and passed the Management Trainee (MT) program of a large confectionery group, with a starting salary of VND 17 million/month.
Although she had an enviable income for a newly graduated student, she quickly quit this job after only 2 months. The reason she left this position was because she felt that she was not good enough to stay, that her endurance was poor and that she lacked perseverance, even though her mentors rated her quite highly.
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At the end of 2020, she became an employee of the international payment department of a branch of a Japanese bank with a salary of VND 13 million/month. At the end of 2021, at the age of 23, Hoang Lan decided to quit her job at the bank and return to her hometown in Binh Dinh to live.
In early 2022, because her life in her hometown had settled down, Hoang Lan applied for a customer service position at an import-export company near her home, with a salary of VND 6 million/month. At this time, she was experiencing a crisis in her work, as well as disappointment about her abilities and her future path. As a result, Hoang Lan continued to resign from this position after only 2 months of probation.
Soon after, the 24-year-old woman entered a new field, switching to content creation. At first, Hoang Loan only worked on translating news articles, with a salary of VND 6 million and a workload of nearly 400 articles/month. Although her income was not high, Hoang Lan felt happier in her work. This was because she had found the field that she wanted to stick with in the long term and saw a clear path for advancement.
Reflecting on her first content job, even though the team has now disbanded, she is still grateful because through it, she has a clearer vision of the field she wants to pursue in the future. Furthermore, in addition to writing skills, this job also gave Hoang Lan a lot of knowledge about analysis, market research, etc.
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Also in 2022, although the team she worked with had disbanded, she managed to get a job as a content creator for 2 Vietnamese companies at the same time (a technology-integrated talent agency and a startup), increasing her income to over VND 30 million/month.
At present, Hoang Lan is a Social Media Manager for 3 companies at the same time (1 company in Vietnam and 2 companies abroad) with a total income of VND 70 million/month.
“My current job is all thanks to relationships with my former colleagues. At the same time, I also proactively looked for a new job and constantly studied to improve myself”, she added.
Working 2-3 jobs at the same time and still having time for business
Thu Hang (29 years old, HCMC) is an employee in the media industry. Hang recalls that in the early days of her work as a student, her salary was meager, so there were months when she only earned VND 1-2 million.
At one point, she accepted an unpaid internship with the sole purpose of beefing up her CV. Afterwards, each time she changed jobs, Hang’s salary also increased gradually, some places paying her a few hundred thousand more but some places paying her more than a few million dong. By the time she had just graduated, Hang had found an office job with a salary of VND 10-15 million/month.
Currently, in addition to her office job, Hang also works as a media manager for private organizations and collaborates with friends to provide full-house marketing packages. Her total monthly income is between VND 60-70 million, with the highest monthly income being VND 85 million. In addition, Hang and her husband also contributed capital to invest in a gym and have earned a small profit.
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Tips for quickly increasing your income early in life
Hoang Lan said that she had gone through quite a long way to get a stable income as she does now, so she understands the feelings of young people in the early years of their careers. At that time, most of them only received low salaries and worked with a feeling of uncertainty because they did not have a clear promotion path.
However, Hoang Lan believes that in the early stages of a career, salary is also important, but a factor that needs to be given more attention is the opportunity to build up character. Because then, you will be able to seize promotion opportunities and dare to put yourself in new challenges.
She shared: “I once had a fairly decent starting salary after graduating from the MT position in a large corporation. At that time, my salary was higher than the average level and the opportunity for promotion was wide open, but I didn’t seize the opportunity. That’s because my character and my ability to withstand pressure were still too weak at the time. Therefore, a high salary and a good path at the beginning are not necessarily good for young people.”
As for Thu Hang, she thinks that new graduates should start working as soon as possible to accumulate professional knowledge and soft skills. This accumulation, when it happens at the right time, will explode income many times over compared to before.
“Of course, it would be great if you work part-time in a field that you plan to stick with for the long term during your student days. However, if you haven’t found a suitable job, you can try some ‘manual’ jobs such as selling online, serving in a coffee shop, etc.
I myself have worked through these jobs and feel that they have trained me in many skills such as speaking, dealing with colleagues, problem-solving skills, etc. I think the reason for my current salary is 50% from my abilities and 50% from my ability to expand my relationships and find opportunities myself. And you can train those later skills by experiencing a variety of jobs early on”, Hang said.
