Kate Collinson (2004)
Monday, 28 September 2020

For the past 7 years, Kate Collinson (2004) has been back home living in Melbourne after spending 4 years in the United States.  

As a student at Lauriston, Kate had aspirations of being a journalist and news anchor – she still does, especially when she sees news presenter Tamara Oudyn on the ABC. But when she arrived at university, she surprisingly found journalism didn’t suit her and felt the pull of TV production instead.

At Melbourne University, Kate adored her Arts degree but found it far less structured than her Law degree in terms of the course and career guidance, so next thing she found herself taking on a few seasonal clerkships with law firms and landing a graduate position at Blake Dawson.

Recognising the opportunity, she thought she’d ‘have a go’ at be a lawyer for a year or so, but deep down she knew that her heart wasn’t in it. She had been volunteering at RMITV on a live studio show called Studio A (featuring a few up-and-coming comedians like Dave Thornton and Tommy Little) which fed her hunger to really pursue a career in TV production. So in 2010, with 6 months between her degree finishing and the law role starting, Kate followed a few friends from an exchange to Boston College and moved to New York City to ostensibly “dog walk” for six months. In reality, it was a guise to pursue a career in TV. 

However after the third unpaid internship at various documentary and reality TV houses, Kate soon realised that her dream of landing a cadetship at NBC or in The Colbert Report was probably a bit of a stretch. She fell into digital marketing through a family friend, and eventually landed a job at a social media agency. A year later, she started a job in business development for a digital marketing agency called Big Spaceship, based in Brooklyn, working with exciting clients including Spotify, West Elm and the launches of Anchorman 2.

After 4 years in New York, Kate felt the pull of ‘home’. On arriving back home, she realised having the words “New York” on her resume opened a lot of doors, and back home in Melbourne, she joined an agency called IE to work with clients like Sportsgirl, Nike and MECCA. After a year and a half, she wanted to explore working within a business, and joined wine startup Vinomofo. Barely 7 months in, they went through a round of redundancies. Whilst it didn't feel like it at the time, looking back Kate realised she was handed a huge opportunity - the confidence and financial freedom to start freelancing and eventually build her own consulting business. 

Since 2016, Kate has been consulting in digital marketing and eCommerce strategy for some of Australia’s fastest growing eCommerce brands including Nimble Activewear, The Daily Edited and The Memo.

Kate is probably most surprised by how many mini ‘careers’ she has had before she found the right fit. She had to ‘trial and error’ a bunch of different careers - law, journalism, TV to eventually find her niche in digital marketing, and her career is still evolving. She feels very privileged to have always had the safety net of her family and their support. “Our parents’ generation never had this approach," Kat says, "They found one career (or even one company) and stuck to it. I’ve worked at about 20 or more different workplaces, and I think it’s really benefited my ability to choose a career that I enjoy.”

Kate loves her job “most of the time”, but she has experienced times where she has doubted herself. “I don’t believe in the ‘do what you love’ ethos - I think a career is something you should enjoy, challenge yourself and grow in. It enables you to do the things you love outside of work. For me, that’s spending time with family & friends, a little healthy retail therapy and travel. I can’t say I wake up every Monday morning jumping out of bed. I think that’s an unrealistic, ‘Instagram’ driven view of work, but equally work shouldn’t bring you down. Work is a wonderful opportunity to make lifelong friends and it gives you a sense of purpose.”

Kate explains that digital marketing and eCommerce is an exciting, fast-growing area to work in - there are plenty of areas to specialise based on your inherent skills. “Whether you’re more on the creative side or more data-driven and analytical (or both!), you can find a fit in this industry. I think the key is to remain open minded, because it’s such a fast-evolving space that the job you have now may not be the job you have in 5-10 years. It’s not like other industries - you have to roll with the changes. I love that part.”

Kate is proud of the fact that she took a risk and became self-employed. “Starting my own business was pretty scary at first and I concede it’s certainly not for everyone," she says, "I have plenty of friends who love being able to mentally sign off and leave the office on the dot at 5 pm. I probably work longer hours than some and I’m never quite ‘switched off’, but I find it exhilarating to direct my own career and earn my own money. I work with a growing eCommerce platform out of Canada called Shopify and have a wonderful network of peers in that community. My job is never dull and if it becomes so, I simply change things up."

Kate suggests that if someone wants to get into eCommerce, they should start doing it now -launch an online store, get your hands dirty, learn Facebook ads, learn a bit of HTML and Google Analytics. “Almost everything I know has been largely self-taught online," she says, "You can learn just about anything online and if you go to the effort of taking a few online courses, starting a store or two, even if they fail, you’ll be infinitely more employable because you can demonstrate resourcefulness and real skills. Talking about what you’d do (strategy) is only valuable when it’s based on context and experience”.

In eCommerce, roles evolve quickly, and Kate admits it is difficult to determine where she might be in five years.  She tries to remain flexible, build her network and stay at the forefront of new platforms and features, and expects that her business may look entirely different in 5 years’ time.

In hindsight, Kate wishes she'd stressed a bit less about her career. “I’ve placed a lot of pressure on myself in school days, to perform academically, and in my career to be successful, whatever that means," she says, "At the end of the day, life is long and transient - it’s full of ups and downs. Everything tends to work itself out eventually, so in my 30s I’ve learned to lighten up a bit more, trust in myself and enjoy life.”