Meeting Title: Brainforge Project Management Interview Date: 2025-08-14 Meeting participants: Emily Ward, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:01:27.670 ⇒ 00:01:28.700 Amber Lin: Hi!
2 00:01:28.700 ⇒ 00:01:30.779 Emily Ward: Hello, how are you?
3 00:01:30.780 ⇒ 00:01:33.569 Amber Lin: I’m good, it’s just, it is quite early.
4 00:01:33.570 ⇒ 00:01:38.210 Emily Ward: Oh, yeah, oh, are you in the, West Coast? It’s, like, 8.30 there.
5 00:01:38.210 ⇒ 00:01:49.879 Amber Lin: Usually it’s even earlier when my day starts, but it’s funny how it started later today, but I’m more tired, because I got to sleep in, I usually don’t get.
6 00:01:50.590 ⇒ 00:01:54.160 Emily Ward: Yeah, I know exactly how that is. It’s, like, too much sleep.
7 00:01:54.880 ⇒ 00:01:57.200 Emily Ward: The same effect is not getting enough, so…
8 00:01:57.950 ⇒ 00:02:05.060 Emily Ward: But yeah, I’m comfortably on the East Coast, where it is 11.30am, so…
9 00:02:06.170 ⇒ 00:02:09.880 Emily Ward: I appreciate you meeting with me this early in your day.
10 00:02:09.880 ⇒ 00:02:24.520 Amber Lin: No, all good. I wanted to meet with you even earlier, because I really wanted to talk to you. Uzum had really good words about, about you, and he shortly briefed me on your call with him, and I think,
11 00:02:24.590 ⇒ 00:02:32.639 Amber Lin: the main point of conversation is about your goals and what you would like to do. …
12 00:02:32.990 ⇒ 00:02:39.180 Amber Lin: And also, how you think you would fit into the company.
13 00:02:39.300 ⇒ 00:02:42.170 Emily Ward: Sure, yeah, so, …
14 00:02:42.420 ⇒ 00:02:52.420 Emily Ward: kind of where I am now, and my company. We also started as a startup, you know, a couple years ago, but we’ve just recently been acquired.
15 00:02:52.690 ⇒ 00:03:05.140 Emily Ward: One of my goals in joining this company was to get a little bit more project management experience. So, you know, having more access to, like, the different levels of the company, kind of seeing how things…
16 00:03:05.220 ⇒ 00:03:19.460 Emily Ward: worked, you know, across a wider range of levels than I would get at a larger organization, and I’ve gotten a little bit of that, at least in terms of the access to kind of see how things are being done, but
17 00:03:19.970 ⇒ 00:03:36.190 Emily Ward: … it’s a very top-heavy organization, so even someone at my level, it’s like, I am never gonna have the chance to do, like, real project management work, just because they have so many people that are at that higher level that, you know.
18 00:03:36.610 ⇒ 00:03:37.590 Emily Ward: Fit that.
19 00:03:38.960 ⇒ 00:03:52.819 Emily Ward: job title a little bit better when it comes to just client work and staffing it. You know, they don’t have as many people to do the actual, like, work work that needs to be… needs to be done. So, one of the…
20 00:03:53.800 ⇒ 00:04:02.399 Emily Ward: that was kind of the main interest that I have in Brainforge, which is, you know, it sounds like you need more project managers, you know, like, you…
21 00:04:02.430 ⇒ 00:04:12.619 Emily Ward: have kind of the opposite problem as my current place of work, where it’s like, you have the people to do the work, and you just do not have enough project managers to, like, you know.
22 00:04:12.620 ⇒ 00:04:25.980 Emily Ward: comfortably, you know, maintain all those accounts. It sounds like, you know, you and, the rest of your, kind of, leadership are kind of killing themselves a little bit with all the accounts that you’re having to balance, so….
23 00:04:26.050 ⇒ 00:04:27.070 Amber Lin: ….
24 00:04:27.530 ⇒ 00:04:33.869 Emily Ward: the… thing I want to hear more about is, like, from your experience.
25 00:04:33.920 ⇒ 00:04:36.690 Amber Lin: You know, I want to hear, you know, what….
26 00:04:36.690 ⇒ 00:04:47.190 Emily Ward: like, you know, how many accounts you’re working, like, what your typical day looks like. I know you said you’re up earlier than that. I imagine that’s just a lot of, like, East Coast to West Coast business hours.
27 00:04:47.300 ⇒ 00:04:52.519 Emily Ward: But I just kind of want to hear more about, you know, what…
28 00:04:53.220 ⇒ 00:04:56.869 Emily Ward: This experience has been looking like for you so far?
29 00:04:57.560 ⇒ 00:05:02.480 Amber Lin: Yeah. So right now, I think we have about…
30 00:05:02.950 ⇒ 00:05:12.650 Amber Lin: 7 clients or so, so it’s a variety of sizes, I think our…
31 00:05:12.650 ⇒ 00:05:31.750 Amber Lin: managing our biggest client, which I think is about 5K per month. So each… each of those sizes require different
32 00:05:31.930 ⇒ 00:05:45.339 Amber Lin: time commitments and efforts from people, and so I think that’s… that can give you a portfolio overview of what we are managing. And in terms of my experience, I joined about…
33 00:05:45.480 ⇒ 00:06:05.089 Amber Lin: 4 months ago? Oh, 5 months. 4 or 5 months ago. I joined in March, and I was a consultant, a data analyst before, but I knew that Brainforge didn’t have any project management personnel, so…
34 00:06:05.090 ⇒ 00:06:24.910 Amber Lin: Utam and Robert, who’s also the CEO, had to manage the projects. And essentially, the past 4 months is taking that responsibility off their plate, building a PMO so that someone else can manage delivery and client service.
35 00:06:25.360 ⇒ 00:06:30.550 Amber Lin: And then building up those processes, and… And right now, we’re…
36 00:06:30.790 ⇒ 00:06:44.540 Amber Lin: we have two coordinators that are supporting on smaller tasks. So, recently, what I’m doing is also… so before hiring for those coordinators, and then right now is, okay, can I build…
37 00:06:44.940 ⇒ 00:06:57.809 Amber Lin: say, checklists or SOPs and processes so that it’s easier for them, and then we can help maintain the service standards and make processes easier so that someone more junior can also follow.
38 00:07:00.400 ⇒ 00:07:00.990 Emily Ward: Yep.
39 00:07:02.250 ⇒ 00:07:05.099 Emily Ward: That makes sense, …
40 00:07:05.810 ⇒ 00:07:18.130 Emily Ward: building a PMO from, like, kind of the ground up, it sounds like. So, how has that… like, I guess, how has your day-to-day changed since hiring those project coordinators that you have?
41 00:07:19.500 ⇒ 00:07:20.320 Amber Lin: …
42 00:07:20.510 ⇒ 00:07:34.549 Amber Lin: I think my day-to-day still… I was just thinking about this yesterday, I still think it needs to change. I still don’t think my time is leveraged highly enough, just because there’s a lot of tasks on…
43 00:07:34.550 ⇒ 00:07:41.039 Amber Lin: projects I’m managing that’s very, repetitive and manual, and eventually I would need
44 00:07:41.180 ⇒ 00:07:56.770 Amber Lin: them to also help me on those, but right now, we’re giving them, because they’re very new, giving them two smaller clients, one each, to just see how our processes go. Haven’t been able to get their help on my projects, which is…
45 00:07:56.960 ⇒ 00:08:07.379 Amber Lin: Which is a shame. So we’re kind of going in parallel, so our day-to-day has not really changed, except for, I think we have better checkpoints and processes to see
46 00:08:07.380 ⇒ 00:08:21.060 Amber Lin: overall to standardize things. So before, it was mostly, oh, I want to do this, I want to do that. It was just me, so it’s whatever I wanted to do, and whatever Utam said I should do, but now it’s a lot more systematic, I would say.
47 00:08:21.280 ⇒ 00:08:35.529 Emily Ward: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so maybe sometime in the future, as, like, they get more comfortable, because it’s, you know, you’re still fairly new to the company, and they’re even newer, so I guess it makes sense, you know, having kind of, like, a…
48 00:08:35.700 ⇒ 00:08:43.630 Emily Ward: A transition period to get them adjusted before throwing them straight into the deep end.
49 00:08:43.870 ⇒ 00:08:44.810 Emily Ward: ….
50 00:08:44.810 ⇒ 00:09:04.240 Amber Lin: I know you said you wanted project management experience. I recall Utsam said you were helping your previous company sort of also build up a department, so do you mean you just want to manage projects, or do you mean you want to manage
51 00:09:04.280 ⇒ 00:09:11.030 Amber Lin: The project management org? What is it… what are you actually looking for?
52 00:09:11.640 ⇒ 00:09:19.009 Emily Ward: Yeah, so, at the company that I was at previously to my current one, I…
53 00:09:19.320 ⇒ 00:09:26.029 Emily Ward: Basically, it was just, you know, First-year business data analyst. …
54 00:09:26.540 ⇒ 00:09:36.389 Emily Ward: fresh out of grad school, and my first client project that I got put onto, the… I was…
55 00:09:36.900 ⇒ 00:09:55.520 Emily Ward: brought onto that project kind of to be, like, a right hand to the actual, like, project manager, that was heading that project, and it became, clear very quickly that he was not up to the task, and…
56 00:09:55.580 ⇒ 00:10:01.009 Emily Ward: Within… just a couple of months. …
57 00:10:01.500 ⇒ 00:10:11.300 Emily Ward: I had kind of effectively, like, stepped in as, like, doing all of his work as the project manager, and the client, …
58 00:10:11.450 ⇒ 00:10:17.100 Emily Ward: eventually requested that I officially replace him and that he be taken off, and so…
59 00:10:17.380 ⇒ 00:10:28.230 Emily Ward: I was managing a team of 13 business analysts and junior and senior developers to do this project, and I really, …
60 00:10:28.390 ⇒ 00:10:35.079 Emily Ward: enjoyed and was very good at, you know, kind of doing that coordination and, you know, …
61 00:10:36.130 ⇒ 00:10:46.060 Emily Ward: Tracking the work, you know, understanding what needed to get done, when it needed to get done, as things came up, …
62 00:10:46.480 ⇒ 00:11:00.800 Emily Ward: whether it was just, like, something that we needed to add to the scope, or kind of change about the scope, or if it was, you know, the client was unhappy with the way that things were getting done, I was very good at managing that conflict.
63 00:11:00.800 ⇒ 00:11:14.210 Emily Ward: You know, bringing things kind of back down to, you know, where they needed to be, making sure that everyone was happy and had a clear understanding of what we were doing, why we were doing it, how we needed to be doing it.
64 00:11:14.590 ⇒ 00:11:23.079 Emily Ward: And I… Was able to get, like, a very good idea pretty quickly of, like, what my different,
65 00:11:23.080 ⇒ 00:11:38.979 Emily Ward: team members’ strengths and weaknesses were, and I was very effective at kind of moving people around to different, like, work areas to leverage that in the best way possible, and so that’s kind of what I’m looking to
66 00:11:38.980 ⇒ 00:11:47.190 Emily Ward: Return to, is actually doing, like, managing the projects, like, managing the project teams, … you know.
67 00:11:47.310 ⇒ 00:12:02.500 Emily Ward: Managing that scope of work and the client relations, and just kind of making sure that everyone on my team has the resources that they need, to do their job, and, you know, understand what their job should be, and, you know.
68 00:12:02.750 ⇒ 00:12:08.660 Emily Ward: Adhere to, like, the timeline, just, like, the basic, like, hands-on project management stuff.
69 00:12:08.660 ⇒ 00:12:26.769 Amber Lin: Okay, so I know, because for our company, there was just a lot of… there’s a lot of opportunities to go in different ways, and so… because we’re a startup, so mostly I just wanted to know, okay, where do you want to fit in, and where do you want to focus on? Because recently.
70 00:12:27.040 ⇒ 00:12:37.880 Amber Lin: So… for example, my good friend Hannah, she also works at this company. She’s a designer, but because we’re short on staff, we also asked her to help with partnerships.
71 00:12:38.220 ⇒ 00:12:46.610 Amber Lin: And also to lead the management stuff, but that’s not something she wants to do. She’s… she wants to do design, so I think…
72 00:12:46.820 ⇒ 00:12:53.989 Amber Lin: I just want to confirm that you want to do just project management, and not really to, …
73 00:12:54.180 ⇒ 00:13:08.439 Amber Lin: say, set standards for, so managing other project managers, managing the org, or owning other areas of the company. I just want to see where your interest lies exactly, and,
74 00:13:08.590 ⇒ 00:13:13.640 Amber Lin: So… You want to go from project management, and then…
75 00:13:13.890 ⇒ 00:13:19.689 Amber Lin: What do you see as a next step for you, and, like, where do you want to focus on?
76 00:13:20.460 ⇒ 00:13:36.279 Emily Ward: Yeah, so I think definitely, you know, short-term, just returning to that, you know, basic project management role, like overseeing, you know, a project, and the teams that are part of that project, and the client relations and everything.
77 00:13:36.690 ⇒ 00:13:50.410 Emily Ward: Definitely a next step from there would be to move up to more, like, an engagement leader sort of position, so more towards, like, you know, managing other project managers. But…
78 00:13:50.890 ⇒ 00:14:08.419 Emily Ward: I think that’s more of a longer-term goal, like, you know, maybe, like, in a couple years after I get, you know, reacquainted with the project management world, because it’s been a couple years since I really had, kind of, that full control over a project. Like, I still, you know, am
79 00:14:09.210 ⇒ 00:14:20.800 Emily Ward: a little bit sneaky about how I influence projects where I am now, but I don’t have that, like, you know, the title or, like, that full control that I, had before, so I’m not really in charge of.
80 00:14:20.800 ⇒ 00:14:21.250 Amber Lin: Huh.
81 00:14:21.250 ⇒ 00:14:26.240 Emily Ward: … running things, currently, so I would want to….
82 00:14:26.240 ⇒ 00:14:33.350 Amber Lin: Do you just… are you hired a consultant at, Intellect, and also Lawrence Harvey?
83 00:14:34.460 ⇒ 00:14:35.200 Emily Ward: Pardon.
84 00:14:35.520 ⇒ 00:14:42.360 Amber Lin: I… am I looking at the right… I think I’m looking at the right LinkedIn.
85 00:14:42.560 ⇒ 00:14:45.339 Amber Lin: So right now, are you working at Intellect?
86 00:14:45.340 ⇒ 00:14:48.300 Emily Ward: No, I’m working at, Excel Healthcare Advisors.
87 00:14:48.300 ⇒ 00:14:52.639 Amber Lin: That is so funny. They gave me the wrong LinkedIn profile.
88 00:14:52.640 ⇒ 00:14:53.660 Emily Ward: Love that.
89 00:14:53.660 ⇒ 00:14:55.310 Amber Lin: Oh, okay.
90 00:14:55.870 ⇒ 00:14:58.560 Amber Lin: Oh, that’s so funny.
91 00:14:59.700 ⇒ 00:15:02.419 Emily Ward: I would love to send you the right one, but….
92 00:15:02.420 ⇒ 00:15:03.240 Amber Lin: self healthcare.
93 00:15:03.240 ⇒ 00:15:05.289 Emily Ward: I don’t know my password right now.
94 00:15:06.730 ⇒ 00:15:10.490 Amber Lin: You mean Excel healthcare advisors?
95 00:15:10.490 ⇒ 00:15:16.200 Emily Ward: Yeah, so my LinkedIn… my name on LinkedIn is Emily Hoffman Ward.
96 00:15:16.200 ⇒ 00:15:17.130 Amber Lin: Oh!
97 00:15:17.130 ⇒ 00:15:23.309 Emily Ward: name in there. Hoffman is spelled with… Hoffman is spelled H-O-F-F-M-A-N-N.
98 00:15:23.910 ⇒ 00:15:24.720 Amber Lin: There’s 10.
99 00:15:24.720 ⇒ 00:15:25.330 Emily Ward: there.
100 00:15:26.080 ⇒ 00:15:30.140 Emily Ward: I chose my married last name because it was easier to spell.
101 00:15:31.150 ⇒ 00:15:34.349 Emily Ward: Several email addresses get spelled incorrectly.
102 00:15:34.350 ⇒ 00:15:35.510 Amber Lin: Oh, I see.
103 00:15:36.210 ⇒ 00:15:37.399 Amber Lin: That makes a lot of sense.
104 00:15:37.400 ⇒ 00:15:41.729 Emily Ward: Yeah. Ward is four letters, people tend to get that one right.
105 00:15:41.730 ⇒ 00:15:51.090 Amber Lin: Okay. So you were hired as a consultant, and were you… did you ever have, official project management training?
106 00:15:51.420 ⇒ 00:16:02.049 Emily Ward: Not beyond my master’s classes. I took a project management class in my MBA program, and…
107 00:16:02.140 ⇒ 00:16:17.650 Emily Ward: I mean, certainly I’d had, kind of, unofficial project management experience before, because I was that kid on every, like, group project team in, like, you know, high school and undergrad and graduate school, you know.
108 00:16:17.900 ⇒ 00:16:20.880 Emily Ward: So… but…
109 00:16:20.970 ⇒ 00:16:35.189 Emily Ward: Beyond that note, I mean, I’m familiar with all the different project management terms. If I’d had the experience to back it up, the project management class that I took in grad school,
110 00:16:35.270 ⇒ 00:16:49.310 Emily Ward: was the same course that you would take to get your PMP certification. I just don’t have… I didn’t have the 7 years of experience to, you know, apply for… for that certification at the time. …
111 00:16:50.100 ⇒ 00:16:51.940 Emily Ward: So, I mean…
112 00:16:53.190 ⇒ 00:17:01.990 Emily Ward: formally, like, I’ve definitely applied some of the things that I learned in those classes, but I don’t have any, you know, official certification.
113 00:17:01.990 ⇒ 00:17:07.490 Amber Lin: Totally. I don’t think it really matters. I’m just checking in because it’s part of our standard questions that we.
114 00:17:07.490 ⇒ 00:17:09.059 Emily Ward: Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
115 00:17:09.060 ⇒ 00:17:23.420 Amber Lin: Yeah, so I think my next question, because I know your goals and where you want to fit in, I want to ask a question about delivery, of how you think about, because you also work at a consulting firm.
116 00:17:23.420 ⇒ 00:17:37.229 Amber Lin: Which means you’ve probably thought about this before, as a individual contributor, also as a project manager, how do you think about delivery, for projects, and how do you think about delivery overall for the company?
117 00:17:37.980 ⇒ 00:17:57.050 Emily Ward: Yeah, so, I mean, certainly at the company level, there’s that level of quality, that you want. There are the types of projects that you want to be known for and do more of. You know, I think most consulting firms, at least the smaller startup ones, want to do more, like.
118 00:17:57.050 ⇒ 00:18:12.999 Emily Ward: actual delivery of, like, projects and programs and stuff like that, rather than, you know, just simply being staff augmentation, which I think is more common along the… among the bigger firms that are just like, it’s, you know, it’s billable work, so we’re gonna keep selling it.
119 00:18:13.100 ⇒ 00:18:20.499 Emily Ward: And then, you know, there’s kind of the client side of things, where it’s like, what does the client actually need? …
120 00:18:20.680 ⇒ 00:18:30.409 Emily Ward: And… or… and within that, it’s like, what does the client think they need? What do they actually need? And, you know, balancing those two things.
121 00:18:30.530 ⇒ 00:18:34.550 Emily Ward: And… You know, having to kind of…
122 00:18:34.690 ⇒ 00:18:44.329 Emily Ward: inception them into thinking that what they actually need is what they think they need to, you know, like, kind of getting them to come around to that.
123 00:18:44.970 ⇒ 00:18:54.189 Emily Ward: On their own, as it were. So, I mean, certainly… You know, they’re…
124 00:18:55.700 ⇒ 00:19:07.199 Emily Ward: if I could have my perfect project, you know, I would have the level of quality of work and the type of work that, you know, I would want to be doing, and, like, the company would want to be doing.
125 00:19:07.510 ⇒ 00:19:11.450 Emily Ward: And the client would be fully aligned with that.
126 00:19:12.930 ⇒ 00:19:17.019 Emily Ward: But in the real world, when it comes to, you know.
127 00:19:17.440 ⇒ 00:19:37.179 Emily Ward: what the client thinks they want, what they think they need. That’s definitely kind of where I start. Because it’s very hard to convince an unhappy client that you’re doing what’s best for them, and it’s, you know, a lot easier to give them exactly what they asked for to begin with, and then letting them kind of
128 00:19:37.370 ⇒ 00:19:45.290 Emily Ward: you know, figure it out, like, with some subtle guidance along the way. It’s like, oh, like, maybe we need this other… this other thing.
129 00:19:45.290 ⇒ 00:19:46.050 Amber Lin: I see.
130 00:19:46.050 ⇒ 00:19:56.550 Emily Ward: So… It’s a lot of manipulation tactics, but it’s focused primarily on making sure that the client
131 00:19:57.310 ⇒ 00:20:03.790 Emily Ward: is happy and getting what they expect to get. You know, as much as I…
132 00:20:03.940 ⇒ 00:20:23.669 Emily Ward: would love to kind of delight and surprise clients with everything that, you know, I know that my team would be capable of doing. Like, I know that they are not big fans of surprises, even if it’s, like, not… even if it’s in their best interest. So, it’s kind of like that…
133 00:20:24.160 ⇒ 00:20:42.510 Emily Ward: dance between, like, you know, I need you to be happy, and I also need to do what I know will actually make you happy in the long run, because this is, you know, we’re not here to just do a staff augmentation, like, put a band-aid on a bullet hole, you know, we need to… like, I want to deliver…
134 00:20:42.850 ⇒ 00:20:45.750 Emily Ward: actual solutions, …
135 00:20:46.140 ⇒ 00:21:05.560 Emily Ward: I think something that the bigger firms fall victim to is doing those staff aug projects where it’s like, oh, well, if we just keep helping them, and they always need this, like, these extra sets of hands around, and that’ll keep us billable for longer, you know, we don’t want to actually solve any problems, because then we’ll get
136 00:21:05.700 ⇒ 00:21:13.149 Emily Ward: you know, we’ll run out of work. But my philosophy is always, like, let’s actually solve their problem.
137 00:21:13.150 ⇒ 00:21:31.160 Emily Ward: And then, inevitably, they will have another one, and they will look for the people, you know, who solved their first problem to solve their next one. Because no company will ever run perfectly or smoothly under any circumstances, so there will always be something else to do.
138 00:21:31.160 ⇒ 00:21:32.240 Amber Lin: Oh, dear.
139 00:21:32.260 ⇒ 00:21:32.910 Emily Ward: So.
140 00:21:32.910 ⇒ 00:21:37.369 Amber Lin: Yeah, that’s solely how we approach the projects as well.
141 00:21:37.370 ⇒ 00:21:37.810 Emily Ward: Yeah.
142 00:21:37.850 ⇒ 00:21:44.309 Amber Lin: I think the problem we’re facing now is that we are, very focused on
143 00:21:44.410 ⇒ 00:21:57.830 Amber Lin: delivering good work and solving problems for clients, and we’re just at the point where you need to start to look at our margins and how our costs are, because, solving the problem perfectly
144 00:21:58.130 ⇒ 00:22:01.840 Amber Lin: Doesn’t take the shortest amount of time as possible, so….
145 00:22:01.840 ⇒ 00:22:02.270 Emily Ward: Right.
146 00:22:02.270 ⇒ 00:22:05.869 Amber Lin: That’s an issue that we’re dealing with internally as well.
147 00:22:06.860 ⇒ 00:22:17.730 Emily Ward: Yeah, so, tell me more about, like, that process and, like, what are your margins looking like right now? Like, what is your goal? How have you been, like, pricing things?
148 00:22:19.130 ⇒ 00:22:29.490 Amber Lin: On the pricing side, sales handles that. So, Robert, who is the CEO who handles sales, he approximately,
149 00:22:29.770 ⇒ 00:22:37.980 Amber Lin: estimates the number, and then gives that to the client. We usually start pretty small, and then, as we work with them.
150 00:22:37.980 ⇒ 00:22:58.309 Amber Lin: we sort of… we provide… we identify the issues, and we provide a plan of, hey, these are the issues I see, here are the… here are how we plan to solve it, here are the benefits it will bring, this is how much we’re asking. So we usually have a upsell process that gets us from 5K to, say, 10K and 20K.
151 00:22:58.860 ⇒ 00:23:04.530 Amber Lin: So that’s the process. Our margins, recently, we’ve been starting to look at it. We have a…
152 00:23:04.740 ⇒ 00:23:09.189 Amber Lin: Most of our developers are offshore. I think our….
153 00:23:09.190 ⇒ 00:23:10.230 Emily Ward: Yeah, yeah.
154 00:23:10.780 ⇒ 00:23:12.799 Emily Ward: Tom mentioned that, I think. Yeah.
155 00:23:12.800 ⇒ 00:23:22.580 Amber Lin: Yeah, our U.S. people are me and a data analyst, and then Utam and Robert, who’s based in the US. All the other people are based offshore.
156 00:23:22.960 ⇒ 00:23:28.259 Amber Lin: And… Right now, I would say margins…
157 00:23:28.970 ⇒ 00:23:33.039 Amber Lin: Remember last time we talked gross margins were hovering around…
158 00:23:33.530 ⇒ 00:23:49.210 Amber Lin: 40, however, net margins are not as good, because there’s internal costs, there’s tooling costs, there’s the marketing team, and then there’s the AI team, which we’re doing for internally.
159 00:23:49.210 ⇒ 00:23:57.630 Amber Lin: what’s your… what’s your approach on that? So, what are some qualitative metrics that you look at Wow.
160 00:23:57.850 ⇒ 00:24:04.590 Amber Lin: for… for the projects, or for the… for this department, what would you prioritize looking at?
161 00:24:05.780 ⇒ 00:24:07.250 Emily Ward: So…
162 00:24:09.300 ⇒ 00:24:29.109 Emily Ward: It’s difficult to say, because the, you know, the company where you are and, like, the team that you’re describing, it’s a pretty, like, compact team in terms of, like, who’s doing sales and the delivery of the, you know, the projects, at least from, you know, the… from a project management and, like, leadership perspective. …
163 00:24:30.470 ⇒ 00:24:33.610 Emily Ward: you know, I definitely think…
164 00:24:34.880 ⇒ 00:24:54.369 Emily Ward: I… one thing I like about, the structure that you’ll have over there, that, you know, I think Utam touched on it when we spoke, and you kind of just touched on it now, is that you don’t have just, like, a bunch of, like, general salespeople, making your sales for you. You have people, you know.
165 00:24:54.420 ⇒ 00:25:06.490 Emily Ward: the top, who have, like, worked on those projects before, and who will be working on those projects, kind of making those sales, you know, they’re gonna have a better understanding of, like, what the project actually looks like. …
166 00:25:06.920 ⇒ 00:25:19.970 Emily Ward: So there’s certainly, like, that’s a good strategy, there. I think… where… some…
167 00:25:21.190 ⇒ 00:25:34.099 Emily Ward: I think where I might start to explore, you know, I’m not as familiar, you know, intimately with, like, the structure that you have as you are, and, like, as Utam and Robert are, but, …
168 00:25:35.410 ⇒ 00:25:38.640 Emily Ward: you know, Certainly, I would…
169 00:25:38.640 ⇒ 00:25:58.609 Emily Ward: look at options for, you know, as the company grows, as we’re adding more project coordinators, project managers, as we’re building that PMO, together, and we have more than just the CEO of the company doing sales, you know, we can kind of create a structure where
170 00:25:58.640 ⇒ 00:26:04.830 Emily Ward: You know, if you… Sell a project as long as it’s making, you know.
171 00:26:05.430 ⇒ 00:26:12.320 Emily Ward: 20% margins, or something, or, you know, 25%, or whatever you want it to be. You can…
172 00:26:12.900 ⇒ 00:26:32.680 Emily Ward: kind of set that, or you could say, like, if you need to make, like, 40% margins, and if you sell a project that’s that, then the project manager or the person, whoever sold it, whoever sold that work, or the people who wrote up that SOW and sold it and got it signed, would make, like.
173 00:26:32.810 ⇒ 00:26:38.149 Emily Ward: a 5% commission, or, like, a 10% commission, like, on the project.
174 00:26:38.710 ⇒ 00:26:41.190 Emily Ward: Because I think if you are…
175 00:26:42.040 ⇒ 00:26:50.449 Emily Ward: Focusing solely on making the sales without having the margins in mind prior to…
176 00:26:50.730 ⇒ 00:27:08.960 Emily Ward: anything else, then, you know, it gets your foot in the door, and that’s certainly fine, but if you want to continue selling and continue, like, having that work be billable, setting a competitive but still, like, very profitable price at the beginning,
177 00:27:10.350 ⇒ 00:27:24.729 Emily Ward: kind of sets the expectation on the client’s end of what they can expect to be paying moving forward. And it’s not to say that you can’t, like, price things a little bit more competitively on the first one. You can say, like, alright, your first project with us is, like.
178 00:27:24.750 ⇒ 00:27:35.409 Emily Ward: you know, 25% off, but, like, just understand that projects going forward won’t be priced, like, quite as… as nicely to begin with. But I think that that…
179 00:27:36.220 ⇒ 00:27:37.880 Emily Ward: strategy of…
180 00:27:38.170 ⇒ 00:27:47.759 Emily Ward: setting it so that the margins are kind of, like, top of the list of considerations before you even begin, like, writing up the SOW and all of that.
181 00:27:47.760 ⇒ 00:27:58.579 Emily Ward: Not only incentivizes people to sell more because they want to earn, like, a commission on whatever work they’re selling, but it makes sure that every project that you sell
182 00:27:58.600 ⇒ 00:28:16.409 Emily Ward: meets whatever goals you have in terms of what your margins should look like, or what they need to look like in order for the company to… to grow, and to be able to hire more, staff onto, like, a full-blown PMO.
183 00:28:17.140 ⇒ 00:28:21.319 Amber Lin: Yeah, I hear you. I’m just writing that down.
184 00:28:21.320 ⇒ 00:28:25.219 Emily Ward: Yeah, yeah, take it.
185 00:28:25.250 ⇒ 00:28:26.580 Amber Lin: …
186 00:28:26.790 ⇒ 00:28:46.370 Amber Lin: I think, because we’re almost at time, I think I have one or two last questions that I want to make sure that you get a chance to ask about, say, what the next steps should look like, what working in the company looks like, what the culture is like, etc. I think I want to know a bit about
187 00:28:46.370 ⇒ 00:28:55.800 Amber Lin: Your strengths and weaknesses, from your understanding of what’s… what do you do best, what are you not?
188 00:28:55.870 ⇒ 00:29:01.909 Amber Lin: as good at, or not as interested in. I just want to see your understanding of yourself.
189 00:29:02.690 ⇒ 00:29:10.700 Emily Ward: Yeah, so… I would say definitely one of my strengths is working with people. I’ve…
190 00:29:11.090 ⇒ 00:29:30.629 Emily Ward: almost, like, all of my jobs that I’ve ever had, you know, from, you know, even high school up to now, have been very, like, customer service, sort of oriented jobs, so I am very good at, anticipating conflict, staying calm during conflict, smoothing things over when it happens.
191 00:29:30.630 ⇒ 00:29:44.770 Emily Ward: Because it is inevitable, even if you do everything right, someone is going to wake up in a bad mood one day for reasons that are totally unrelated, and they’re gonna take it out on you. So, you know, like, one thing that I’m really good at is
192 00:29:44.830 ⇒ 00:30:02.130 Emily Ward: not taking, criticism or any sort of negative feedback personally. I’m very good at, making people feel heard and understood so that we can problem-solve together and move forward, which is,
193 00:30:02.660 ⇒ 00:30:11.940 Emily Ward: You know, one of my major strengths when it comes to working with clients and making sure that they are happy and kind of satisfied with the work
194 00:30:12.220 ⇒ 00:30:29.869 Emily Ward: that’s being done on a project. I’m also very good at assessing other people’s strengths and weaknesses, so, I alluded to this earlier, but in my, you know, at my previous company, on that first project management job that I was on, I had a group of 13
195 00:30:30.010 ⇒ 00:30:40.780 Emily Ward: BAs and developers of different levels, and they had originally been kind of blocked out into different, like, pods, for working on things, and
196 00:30:41.360 ⇒ 00:30:53.309 Emily Ward: just through my observations of how people were working together, the things that they were good at, you know, I was very good at talking to people, finding out what they were interested in, what they were passionate about.
197 00:30:53.320 ⇒ 00:31:11.200 Emily Ward: I was able to make some changes and shuffle things around as the project went on, and I gained more confidence, both just with the client and also just internally at my own company, because I, like I said, I came in as a first-year analyst, and then very unexpectedly, kind of took over an entire project.
198 00:31:11.250 ⇒ 00:31:12.880 Emily Ward: Right off the bat.
199 00:31:13.460 ⇒ 00:31:20.940 Emily Ward: But… I was able to make some changes that really, … improved…
200 00:31:21.200 ⇒ 00:31:30.270 Emily Ward: not just, like, how the work was delivered and the quality, but also just how, like, the team meshed together in general. You know.
201 00:31:30.950 ⇒ 00:31:35.640 Emily Ward: making sure people get along, I would say that that’s probably my main strength.
202 00:31:35.850 ⇒ 00:31:36.980 Emily Ward: … Okay.
203 00:31:37.600 ⇒ 00:31:43.979 Emily Ward: … my… I would say, like, a weakness I have is definitely, like, I’m…
204 00:31:44.410 ⇒ 00:31:48.590 Emily Ward: very much a perfectionist. So, you know.
205 00:31:49.070 ⇒ 00:31:57.370 Emily Ward: in my group projects in school, like, I always wanted everything, you know, I was gonna make sure that my group got nailed on no matter what.
206 00:31:57.470 ⇒ 00:32:10.040 Emily Ward: So, one of the things that I, you know, started learning early on, when I really started working in the project management space was, like, how to relinquish
207 00:32:10.040 ⇒ 00:32:24.359 Emily Ward: like, full control over everything. Because when you’re managing a project, you can’t possibly, no matter how much I desperately want to, all the time, be, like, directly involved in the work. Like, it just simply…
208 00:32:24.360 ⇒ 00:32:27.759 Emily Ward: there’s not enough time in the day, like, I… there’s not enough…
209 00:32:27.770 ⇒ 00:32:32.420 Emily Ward: you know, if I had the ability to pause time, I could do it, but even then, it’s like.
210 00:32:32.760 ⇒ 00:32:35.579 Emily Ward: The quality that would come of it would not be…
211 00:32:35.900 ⇒ 00:32:42.070 Emily Ward: As good as, like, leveraging the resources that are hired to do the work, to, like, do the work to the best of their ability, so…
212 00:32:42.830 ⇒ 00:32:44.159 Emily Ward: But….
213 00:32:45.820 ⇒ 00:32:46.140 Amber Lin: Okay.
214 00:32:46.140 ⇒ 00:32:48.950 Emily Ward: That’s not the… like, I mean, but that just kind of…
215 00:32:50.140 ⇒ 00:33:09.519 Emily Ward: I’m not, … as much as I love people getting along, and I’m really good at kind of smoothing things over, that kind of perfectionism keeps me from, you know, being a pushover, as it were. You know, I’m still going to demand the highest quality, I’m just gonna do it maybe a little bit more…
216 00:33:09.700 ⇒ 00:33:12.020 Emily Ward: Gently, then.
217 00:33:12.420 ⇒ 00:33:13.350 Emily Ward: Other people.
218 00:33:13.350 ⇒ 00:33:36.930 Amber Lin: I see, I see. I had the same experience of knowing that I… I cannot be involved in work, and then knowing that the standards of quality needs to be upheld. So I hear you on that. I think my last question is, why are you leaving your current company, and why do you… I think you don’t want to be an analyst anymore, you want to go into project management.
219 00:33:37.060 ⇒ 00:33:41.580 Amber Lin: So, just want to see why you’re pivoting, why you’re leaving, what was it like?
220 00:33:42.300 ⇒ 00:33:48.569 Emily Ward: Yeah, so I haven’t made the decision to leave my current company yet, but like I said earlier, like, the…
221 00:33:49.000 ⇒ 00:34:07.470 Emily Ward: the reason I had made the switch to join my current company was to get a wider range of experience, and the reality has been that that has not been the case. Because the organization is so top-heavy, you know, we have
222 00:34:07.500 ⇒ 00:34:26.189 Emily Ward: like, I think, like, probably over half of our company is, like, leadership, like, at the SBP or VP or director level. And so, even with myself, like, I came in and was given this title of manager, but I haven’t really been able to manage more than just
223 00:34:26.510 ⇒ 00:34:35.239 Emily Ward: Like, some plus-one, tasks that, frankly, no one asked for, but we didn’t have a marketing team, so, like, you know, like…
224 00:34:35.239 ⇒ 00:34:49.510 Emily Ward: We, you know, so those little things that you just, you know, needed to be done, like putting together a branding guide, and, like, putting marketing out on LinkedIn, and, like, looking for…
225 00:34:49.639 ⇒ 00:35:02.700 Emily Ward: opportunities to kind of, like, establish ourselves with, like, a particular style and, like, advertising, like, what we wanted to do and what we were good at. Like, those things weren’t getting done. So, there was a little bit of management.
226 00:35:02.760 ⇒ 00:35:13.489 Emily Ward: For that, but in terms of actual, like, client-facing work, which is what I’m more interested in managing, those opportunities just…
227 00:35:13.590 ⇒ 00:35:25.089 Emily Ward: have not been available, because they have to reserve those, higher billable positions to the people who are paid more, because they’re, you know, VP status.
228 00:35:25.090 ⇒ 00:35:35.859 Amber Lin: Oh, so you were… the project management… the big team that you were managing was from your… Previous. Oh, I see, and you worked here for a year or so, managing that project?
229 00:35:35.860 ⇒ 00:35:36.910 Emily Ward: Yeah, yeah.
230 00:35:37.150 ⇒ 00:35:48.499 Amber Lin: I see. Okay, that’s very good to know. And then you’re pivoting from… because I know you started as an analyst and a consultant. Why are you pivoting from that?
231 00:35:49.430 ⇒ 00:35:52.100 Emily Ward: So… that was…
232 00:35:52.270 ⇒ 00:35:59.759 Emily Ward: only ever, like, a stepping stone to get to where I wanted to be, which was being kind of more…
233 00:36:00.220 ⇒ 00:36:07.250 Emily Ward: … Doing, like, the organizing and, like, the client relations, that sort of… …
234 00:36:07.690 ⇒ 00:36:18.099 Emily Ward: more leadership-level role. The analyst work was more of a means to an end than ever… it ever was really a passion.
235 00:36:18.100 ⇒ 00:36:18.699 Amber Lin: I hear you.
236 00:36:18.700 ⇒ 00:36:19.680 Emily Ward: I hear you.
237 00:36:19.680 ⇒ 00:36:24.349 Amber Lin: I was a… I was a data analyst and consultant before. Most people point it out, so….
238 00:36:24.350 ⇒ 00:36:26.100 Emily Ward: Yeah, yeah.
239 00:36:28.400 ⇒ 00:36:34.960 Amber Lin: Okay, that wraps up all my questions. I want to see… I want to give you some space to ask me anything you want.
240 00:36:36.040 ⇒ 00:36:44.020 Emily Ward: Yeah, so… I guess, thinking about, you know, your previous roles compared to this one.
241 00:36:44.720 ⇒ 00:36:51.130 Emily Ward: You know, how has the, like, demand changed? How has, like, your, you know, quality of work changed?
242 00:36:51.340 ⇒ 00:36:58.130 Emily Ward: Since you’ve joined… from, like, you joining Brainforge to, you know, where you were previously.
243 00:36:58.640 ⇒ 00:37:16.110 Amber Lin: I think to understand that, I’ll need to tell you a bit about what my work previously was like. So, before, I was in consulting, so I worked at Frost & Sullivan, and then I worked at EY. So, none of them are small teams. Right.
244 00:37:16.810 ⇒ 00:37:22.980 Amber Lin: both large orgs, lots of management structure, so all I had access to was
245 00:37:23.190 ⇒ 00:37:33.510 Amber Lin: my manager, and at most, their manager, who’s most… sometimes the director, or not re… she’s the director of the region. And…
246 00:37:34.000 ⇒ 00:37:38.460 Amber Lin: I think when I worked, I’ve always tried to….
247 00:37:39.260 ⇒ 00:37:41.740 Emily Ward: Crawl my way up and get….
248 00:37:41.740 ⇒ 00:37:43.260 Amber Lin: tasks, so…
249 00:37:43.590 ⇒ 00:37:49.020 Amber Lin: I think at one of my jobs, I asked for more interns so I can manage it, and…
250 00:37:49.760 ⇒ 00:37:56.620 Amber Lin: quite frankly, reduced the cost of the project, so I knew that always… I was already thinking about
251 00:37:56.900 ⇒ 00:38:11.100 Amber Lin: at the project level, and not just my… my analysis work, my research work. Because those were not as appealing to me. I can do it, but I would rather someone else do it. I can do the synthesis.
252 00:38:11.100 ⇒ 00:38:18.989 Amber Lin: and do the communications. And I think I had a similar situation as you, where my… the senior consultant
253 00:38:19.600 ⇒ 00:38:27.880 Amber Lin: didn’t do as great of a job, the client was not happy, and the director had to step in, and then I worked directly with the director.
254 00:38:28.040 ⇒ 00:38:31.439 Amber Lin: to turn the project around. …
255 00:38:31.930 ⇒ 00:38:34.360 Amber Lin: But… so that’s in terms of…
256 00:38:34.510 ⇒ 00:38:50.489 Amber Lin: how the work is a bit different. So before, it was a lot of individual contributor work. While I got a taste of managing or looking at the project at a higher level, it was still a lot of market research, data analysts, making decks.
257 00:38:50.490 ⇒ 00:38:53.650 Emily Ward: Typical consulting work. And then….
258 00:38:53.760 ⇒ 00:38:57.689 Amber Lin: I was looking around for data analyst jobs, but…
259 00:38:58.110 ⇒ 00:39:10.300 Amber Lin: As you said… as I said earlier, I talked to them, I realized they don’t have anyone, project management. And I think the more I work, I realize the more I don’t want to be an individual contributor, I need to be…
260 00:39:10.490 ⇒ 00:39:14.350 Amber Lin: Or I should… I want to be managing people, I’m managing…
261 00:39:14.450 ⇒ 00:39:32.839 Amber Lin: an organization of people, and have a coherent goal for that organization and push that forward. So I think Brainforce is a place that I can do it. It’s not possible in a place at EY. It would take me 5 years, 10 years more to get to a director or a VB level.
262 00:39:32.940 ⇒ 00:39:38.540 Amber Lin: And I would have to endure 5-10 years of 60-hour work weeks.
263 00:39:38.540 ⇒ 00:39:39.210 Emily Ward: Right.
264 00:39:39.210 ⇒ 00:39:48.860 Amber Lin: not a fan of. So… I would say the greatest change is the… … Is the level of…
265 00:39:50.020 ⇒ 00:39:54.299 Amber Lin: I guess there’s a whole level of the company that’s available, because there’s not really a….
266 00:39:54.420 ⇒ 00:39:58.619 Emily Ward: much of a level in Bring Forge, because we’re so small. Yeah.
267 00:39:58.620 ⇒ 00:40:07.089 Amber Lin: So, in that, I see the whole operations, … I see the different teams That’s getting billed up.
268 00:40:07.240 ⇒ 00:40:13.059 Amber Lin: We’re just starting to have different… AORs, and then…
269 00:40:13.730 ⇒ 00:40:26.759 Amber Lin: OKRs for different teams to be managed, and seeing that is something that I want to do, because I… I want to lead a department, I want to do more than just,
270 00:40:27.160 ⇒ 00:40:38.140 Amber Lin: consulting work, so that’s for me of how I wanted to pivot and why I wanted to work at Brainforge. I think I prefer a startup environment, I prefer a…
271 00:40:38.330 ⇒ 00:40:39.250 Amber Lin: …
272 00:40:39.710 ⇒ 00:40:51.620 Amber Lin: place with less hierarchy. I prefer when things are still chaotic, and making it non-chaotic. I think that’s the same thing of why you like organizing, like.
273 00:40:52.260 ⇒ 00:40:55.910 Amber Lin: Training projects and… and taking them out of…
274 00:40:56.490 ⇒ 00:41:01.150 Amber Lin: … the chaos state. I think that’s what I like, but once it’s…
275 00:41:01.350 ⇒ 00:41:05.640 Amber Lin: like, pretty and organized, I get bored, and then I want to move on.
276 00:41:05.850 ⇒ 00:41:07.020 Emily Ward: Yeah, that’s….
277 00:41:07.020 ⇒ 00:41:09.210 Amber Lin: That’s how I approach things.
278 00:41:09.920 ⇒ 00:41:12.729 Emily Ward: Yeah, no, I can definitely relate to…
279 00:41:12.940 ⇒ 00:41:18.039 Emily Ward: All of what you just said, like, from, you know, the bigger consulting firm to the…
280 00:41:18.690 ⇒ 00:41:28.330 Emily Ward: to seeing things organized, to, you know, it’s like, alright, well, I don’t want to do the same things over and over again, because I will get bored immediately. That’s actually, one of the things that…
281 00:41:28.580 ⇒ 00:41:37.850 Emily Ward: drew me to consulting, in the first place was, you know, I do get bored, so having, kind of, project-based work where
282 00:41:37.850 ⇒ 00:41:49.350 Emily Ward: you know, I know it’s not going to last forever, like, that’s a really big, allure of the industry for me, is, you know, like, I could never be an accountant, like.
283 00:41:50.370 ⇒ 00:41:55.280 Emily Ward: One, because I would get bored with it, and then two, just because, like, I… that’s…
284 00:41:55.790 ⇒ 00:42:01.949 Emily Ward: Feels like a lot of math. More math than I would like to do on a day-to-day basis.
285 00:42:01.950 ⇒ 00:42:11.100 Amber Lin: Yeah, and I… it’s funny, I was just talking to someone about our company, because we’re AI and data consultancy, and then
286 00:42:11.350 ⇒ 00:42:17.280 Amber Lin: And so they asked, oh, what vertical are you working in? And we’re like, we don’t… we don’t really have an industry.
287 00:42:17.280 ⇒ 00:42:17.870 Emily Ward: Yeah.
288 00:42:17.870 ⇒ 00:42:32.050 Amber Lin: And because we’re horizontally placed, I think that’s most… well, consultancy can be vertical, horizontal, so… but we’re horizontal is that we do data work, and then the data work informs AI work, so….
289 00:42:32.050 ⇒ 00:42:32.370 Emily Ward: Yeah.
290 00:42:32.370 ⇒ 00:42:39.310 Amber Lin: Kita Automations AI is the horizontal that we’re focused in, and then we have, …
291 00:42:39.810 ⇒ 00:42:52.679 Amber Lin: clients that’s doing, beauty injections, and we have clients that’s home improvement, and then we have clients that’s, a cookie brand, and so there’s… there’s a lot of things that
292 00:42:52.870 ⇒ 00:43:02.959 Amber Lin: that, we get to see, but ultimately, the data problems are very, very similar. It’s just the same thing and a different taste, I would say.
293 00:43:02.960 ⇒ 00:43:03.750 Emily Ward: Yeah.
294 00:43:03.970 ⇒ 00:43:19.960 Emily Ward: Yeah, no, that would, … that’s great. My current company, Healthcare Advisors, so we are pretty much solidly placed in, like, you know, consulting for health insurers and the occasional, like, managed care organization, but….
295 00:43:20.470 ⇒ 00:43:21.990 Emily Ward: It’s a lot of, like…
296 00:43:22.510 ⇒ 00:43:28.870 Emily Ward: HIPAA violation story, working with that data. Everything’s a lot more sensitive when it’s, ….
297 00:43:28.870 ⇒ 00:43:29.330 Amber Lin: Oh.
298 00:43:29.330 ⇒ 00:43:34.969 Emily Ward: like, people’s health claims that we’re looking at. But yeah, no.
299 00:43:35.440 ⇒ 00:43:44.989 Emily Ward: Sounds great. Everyone’s data sucks, so it’s good to be horizontally placed. It definitely lends you to a more…
300 00:43:45.200 ⇒ 00:43:50.070 Emily Ward: A larger portfolio of, you know, potential clients, so….
301 00:43:51.250 ⇒ 00:43:55.099 Amber Lin: Do you have any other questions you want me to answer?
302 00:43:55.680 ⇒ 00:44:04.459 Emily Ward: No, I’ve gotta get ready for my next meeting, but yeah, I guess let’s just quickly, you know.
303 00:44:04.630 ⇒ 00:44:05.910 Emily Ward: Next steps.
304 00:44:07.630 ⇒ 00:44:11.210 Amber Lin: Yeah, so I’ll take this meeting, I need to talk to Utam about it.
305 00:44:11.540 ⇒ 00:44:29.379 Amber Lin: If he wants to proceed, there will either be a last round technical, which is more related to project management skills, because I… he had a screening call with you, and then he told me he would like us to talk more about your goals, so this is for you to understand what the project…
306 00:44:29.380 ⇒ 00:44:37.629 Amber Lin: PM org looks like, and then if I can help answer some questions, but if we want to move forward, I think there will still be a technical round.
307 00:44:37.630 ⇒ 00:44:38.820 Emily Ward: ….
308 00:44:38.820 ⇒ 00:44:48.440 Amber Lin: And then after that, I think they’ll come to a decision. We do move pretty fast in the company, so I do think you could expect, say, 1 or 2 weeks.
309 00:44:50.080 ⇒ 00:44:55.299 Amber Lin: Oh, on that, how long of a notice period do you need to give your company, by the way?
310 00:44:55.880 ⇒ 00:44:58.389 Emily Ward: 2 weeks, at least, yeah.
311 00:44:59.190 ⇒ 00:45:02.260 Amber Lin: So… Thanks. Right.
312 00:45:04.090 ⇒ 00:45:17.390 Amber Lin: Yeah, and then for, for most of our folks, we usually start off with a two-week trial period to see, okay, do you like our company, and do we like how you work? So…
313 00:45:17.560 ⇒ 00:45:27.000 Amber Lin: That’s what our coordinators are doing right now, so they’re on a two-week trial period. We give some… we give a smaller project for you to manage and see how it goes.
314 00:45:27.370 ⇒ 00:45:44.750 Amber Lin: So that’s kind of the onboarding process, and after two weeks, we can decide, okay, do you want to expand hours, keep it in the same hours, or are we not a fit? So that’s, after we do the… after we have the decision, that’s the first two weeks that… what that will look like.
315 00:45:44.990 ⇒ 00:45:47.069 Emily Ward: Alright, sounds good.
316 00:45:47.070 ⇒ 00:45:50.530 Amber Lin: Yeah. Alright. Thank you for taking time to talk to us.
317 00:45:50.530 ⇒ 00:45:56.729 Emily Ward: Yeah, oh my gosh, thank you so much for rescheduling for me, …
318 00:45:57.310 ⇒ 00:46:10.020 Emily Ward: my phone just, like, the screen stopped working, and I couldn’t get in or out of it, and I needed two-factor authentication to get into my email addresses and LinkedIn, and I was like, well, I just really can’t tell anyone what’s going on.
319 00:46:10.020 ⇒ 00:46:16.380 Amber Lin: Like, usually I have so many meetings, I’m always, like, a minute or two late, it’s just really hard to….
320 00:46:16.380 ⇒ 00:46:26.349 Emily Ward: Yeah, I was like, I’m just gonna… I guess I am being forced to enjoy a tech-free weekend. I’m not happy about it right now.
321 00:46:27.800 ⇒ 00:46:30.059 Amber Lin: Alrighty, I gotta hop, too.
322 00:46:30.060 ⇒ 00:46:32.280 Emily Ward: Alright, well, thank you so much. Talk to you later.
323 00:46:32.280 ⇒ 00:46:33.909 Amber Lin: Of course, back to you later. Bye.