Hi, I am Chloe Yeo.
I am a leadership & career coach.
I help teenagers between age of 13 to 20 who face stress from academics and making career choices develop their career growth plan and excel with confidence.
I also help adults who are unable to make progress with their careers or struggling with their leadership roles, to develop their authentic leadership styles and get into a role they love.
I am in the business for 2 years and have helped multiple clients to get into a career they love. Right now, I am developing online leadership and personal development courses, so that more people can benefit from it.
I am doing this because I want to empower individuals to make use of their unique gifts to create an impact in the communities they are in, so that the world will be a better place.
“Today, I am in a career I love where I am excited to wake up every day to empower individuals to make use of their unique gifts to create an impact in the communities they are in.”
But it hasn’t always been this way… …
I was really confused and lost from my upper secondary school years to my young adult years. I was clueless as to what subject choices to make and followed the crowd to just study the subjects I was good at. All that blind following led me to study Civil and Structural Engineering in university, only to realise that I really do not want a career in Engineering after 2 job stints. I was helpless, stressed out and clueless about what to prepare for my scholarship interviews. At my first leadership role, I had no idea what a leader truly means and had several bumps along the way.
“Career planning is never too late.”
One of my first lessons… …
Without a clear idea of what I want for my career, I took on Civil and Structural Engineering in university because I was good in Mathematics and Physics. I went on to work in engineering after graduation but after two job stints, each lasting about 6 months, I knew I did not want to be in the civil engineering industry. I was heading to work with a lot of dread each day but felt that I had to stay on because job-hopping was frowned upon and did not want to disappoint my parents.
I took a 6-month gap trying to figure out what I would like to do. By chance, I attended a talk one day on career planning – a concept that was rather new in my younger days. I left the talk with important key principles that guided my whole career, from having a clear idea that I want to be in a career that support others to grow, and making intentional career moves. I discovered that I wanted to be in HR!
For sure, I was behind my peers when I started. They had already clocked 2-3 years of work experience. But I did catch up! So learn from my experience, it’s never too late to leave a dead-end career that you’re not passionate about to start a new one. But do it carefully, the worst thing to do is to jump from one career into the next, only to realise you don’t like the new one too. Talk to a professional who can help you plan your career.
“Take ownership of your development. No one cares about you as much as you.”
Learning the hard truth… …
Like many others, I joined the workforce having this mindset that if I focused on doing a good job, my work and efforts would be recognised and I would be promoted. Here’s the truth – no one cares about you as much as you.
When I landed on my first job a couple of months after graduation, I counted myself very lucky to get a job because the economy was in a bad shape. Many of my peers were struggling to land on a permanent job. I was also excited because I was given the promise by the hiring manager that I would be sent for training to learn a complex software program required for my job. 2 months into the job, I was spending huge amount of time self-learning and trying to deliver on the project I was assigned to, while waiting for my boss to tell me when I could go for training. Another 2 months flew past quickly, and I was barely surviving. I finally plucked up enough courage to ask my boss who brushed me aside with a flippant answer that he would plan for it. Frustrated, I confided in my colleague who told me that she had been a year into her job and she, too, was still waiting for the training to happen.
Faced with the cold, hard truth that the training would likely be not happening, I had only two choices
1) Push on and continue to self-learn, and see where it would take me; or
2) Pick myself up and move onto the next opportunity to secure better development for myself.
It’s a no brainer for me to pick the second one and I left.
3 years after I left that company, I got in touch with that ex-colleague to catch up. I learned that she was still doing the same job and had not gone for the promised training. She was still holding the same position with no progression. She was holding out for the economy to recover from SARS to explore other job opportunities. So the key lesson here is that you are the only one in charge of your development. You have got to plan your career path and development plans, and take concrete actions to make it happen for yourself.
My Credentials
I am a ICF-credentialed Associate Certified Coach after completing 125 hrs of training and 100 coaching hours.
I am a certified Enneagram Coach. The Enneagram is a powerful system that describes the patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions.
I am a certified administrator of FIRO-B (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-BehavioursTM) which is a tool that helps individuals understand their behaviours and the behaviours of others.
I am a certified career advisor by the Workforce Singapore. I was also an internal Career Coach during my stint with the Ministry of Social and Family Development.