The following is a guest post from Chandler, who is currently in the TripAdvisor Marketing Rotation Program.
A year and a half ago, almost to the day, I made the choice to come to TripAdvisor. At the time, I thought it was the right decision for me, but I didn’t really have any idea why. I was weighing a few options for what to do next. I had graduated from college six months prior, and was in the midst of traveling and working around Asia and the U.S., but was still unsure of exactly where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I was interested in technology and wanted to be at a company where I would be pushed to constantly learn.
Photo taken of the night market in Phuket Town during a recent trip to Thailand.
I was intrigued by the TripAdvisor Marketing Rotation Program, and went to an old boss and current mentor of mine to ask his opinion. He responded almost immediately that I should go to TripAdvisor and enjoy being at the center of the “consumer-generated revolution.” So I signed up and got ready to move to Boston with little information about the company other than knowing it was a travel technology company that came with the highest recommendation and seemed to be at the center of all the right debates about information freedom.
I look back on that choice and now know not only that it was the correct choice, but also why it was. During my first year at TripAdvisor, I had the opportunity to work in a whole variety of roles, including consumer-facing product development with the mobile team, backend systems work with our content integrity team that handles millions of user-generated reviews and then finally with our business-to-business product team, helping build a valuable business product for our industry partners like hotel chains. These roles were all very different – but kept me engaged and interested which is always criteria #1 for me. It’s an awesome feeling when you spend months researching and developing a cool piece of technology and after it launches, see how users adopt it quickly. At that point, you know you’ve built a valuable product that helped make traveling easier and more enjoyable for millions of people across the globe.
We’ve just started our fourth rotations in the program and I’m in Singapore working on mobile partnerships across Asia-Pacific. Although I just moved halfway around the world, the move was easy, almost too easy, because of how supportive the company was of everything we needed. That support let me focus on learning fast and getting up to speed with the culture, job, and many other factors. It’s amazing how much potential there is for travel and TripAdvisor in this part of the world, and I’m glad to be a part of figuring it all out. I’m excited for the great adventures, unique work experiences and most importantly, the travel opportunities that the next few months will bring.
-Chandler
