What parts of your job do you find most challenging?

While I currently work as a Recruiter for a global consulting firm (PwC), which has been the primary focus of my career over the years, I have also worked in various other fields. One thing I found common to all the roles I've held over the last 25 years is that the individual tasks that make up a job are usually not too difficult to achieve. However, it is the speed at which they come at you that can sometimes be overwhelming and that is true for everyone, no matter how junior or senior they may be.

So, a crucial area to focus on in any job is time management. The more structure you create around what you do will allow you to correctly allocate time to achieve certain tasks. The biggest challenge in time management is to stick to the plan. It's easy to get carried away and focus on finishing one task rather than focusing on the amount of time you had allocated to it. If you do exceed your time allotment on any one task then you will find that the knock on effect of exceeding time on one task with negatively affect the time you have to spend on other, equally important, tasks.

You will find there can be exceptions to this rule (i.e. if your Senior Leader / Manager / Director makes a specific request of you, that is likely to be time sensitive) so every now and then you have to restructure your time on the fly.

Over and above almost any other skill, expect perhaps effective and engaging communication, time management is the most important skill you can master as it will apply to every job you have and you can learn the other skills as you go.

Hey Ethan,

The most challenging part for me in my job is adapting my communication to the business unit. I am a liaison between the engineering team, data science team and the business unit and so adapting my language to be less technical has been quite the challenge.

Luckily I have a very patient team that helps me learn and I have improved since my start at Airbnb.

What I find most challenging is getting ahead of others in my field. Living in the Washington, DC area where all the lobbyists are, you have to be aware of many things like sabotage from "like" companies who want the clients you have or are talking to. To help with that, I have to know my field really well and offer clients a real and different perspective of the sector I represent. There is a lot of schmoozing in DC, and I do not believe in that or lying to get a client. Be resourceful, attend all the meetings and events you can, and know who your clients are and what they expect of you.