From a Fresh Graduate with a Salary of 15,000 to 100,000 in 5 Years: The Growth Journey of an Ordinary Person Not in the Tech Field

If I go back many years ago, I was just a kid who liked to "make my own money" rather than asking for money from home.

I started working for the first time in grade 9 as a part-time chef, and since then, working has become a part of my life. I enjoyed learning, having fun with trial and error, and felt proud of creating everything by myself.

While studying, I worked part-time continuously alongside my studies, graduating with an average grade of 3.90 in high school and 3.97 in university.

During university, I had the opportunity to intern at a 5-star hotel in Taiwan with a salary of about 25,000 baht, which was the first time I experienced true international work standards in terms of service, discipline, and attention to detail.

After graduating, I started a full-time job at a 5-star hotel in Bangkok in the Marketing department with a base salary of 15,000 baht. Although there was an additional service charge of about 15,000–20,000 baht per month, after about 8 months, I started to feel that the job was too stagnant and I was losing my motivation.

I decided to resign and used all my savings to open my own café.

It was a time that was both exhausting and fun because I had to do everything myself, from managing the shop, taking care of customers, to solving daily problems. But while I was running the café, a recruiter contacted me via LinkedIn offering a Customer Service job at an OTA company from Spain, with a salary of about 30,000 baht, and it was a full-time work-from-home job during COVID.

In the end, I decided to close the café and re-enter the workforce.

About a year later, I started to feel that I wanted to grow more, so I looked for a new job again and moved to work at a FinTech company from Singapore as a Customer Experience Manager with a salary of about 40,000 baht, along with the opportunity to manage a team and develop work systems seriously.

That period was one of the fastest growth phases for me, both in terms of work, people management, and solving business problems.

But life is not always linear. After working for about 2 years, the company decided to shut down, and I was one of the last employees to be laid off.

Fortunately, at the same time, I was starting a new business, the first dog and cat hotel in Ratchaburi province.

I started building this business from scratch, including concept development, marketing, customer service, and pet care systems. But while I was doing business again, a recruiter contacted me via LinkedIn once more with a new job offer in Expert Network Services (ENS), which is similar to recruitment and consulting work.

I decided to return to a full-time job again with a salary of about 50,000 baht at a startup company from Japan, and that became a significant turning point in my career.

After that, I continued to grow within the same company, receiving salary adjustments twice a year, averaging about 15–20% per year, until I reached a six-figure income as an Associate Manager.

Many people may see this path as "lucky" because I was contacted for jobs through LinkedIn all the time, but in reality, I believe there are 3 important things that have allowed me to grow to where I am today.

The first is the service mindset of Exceeding Expectations.

No matter what role I have, I always try to do "more than expected." If the goal is 100, I will try to achieve 120 because I believe that those who create a greater impact are always seen.

This mindset has made me a top performer in almost every job I have done.

The second is continuous self-development.

I never viewed learning as something that ends after graduating from university. Whether it's soft skills, hard skills, communication, people management, content creation, or even finding ways to work faster and more efficiently, I strive to learn everything because the work world changes rapidly, and those who stop developing are often left behind.

And the last point is making "yourself discoverable."

For me, that channel is LinkedIn and social media.

I started building my online presence by sharing real experiences, sharing what I learned from life and work, until gradually people began to recognize me, recruiters contacted me, and new opportunities came in continuously.

Today marks the 5th year that I have been creating content about work, growth, and self-development to pass on experiences to new graduates and first-jobbers to see that "we do not need to be in tech or have high life costs to grow in our careers."

I am still in the process of learning and believe that this path still has a long way to go.

Finally, if my content helps someone have hope, be brave to try, or dare to grow more, that is the reason I still want to continue doing this.

Let's grow together!