Lessons from a former Graduate: An interview with Lucy Dixon

Lucy Dixon is celebrating her 1-year anniversary at SwiftFox and The Red Fox Group.

 Beginning as a graduate in the data team, Lucy now works as an analyst and digital marketer for our team. Lucy is known for her can-do positive attitude, her preparedness, and her willingness to learn anything and everything.

 So, we sat down with Lucy to ask her a few questions about her experience at SwiftFox, and any advice she might have for new hires.

1.    Tell me about your past year at SwiftFox

 There’s been so much. This will sound like a line but it’s genuinely been the best experience.

“I hope this doesn’t sound patronising, but you seem like you’ve really come out of your shell in the past year.”

When I started, I wasn’t a super confident person. I came into this job like, “I’m not going to be able to do this.” I underestimated myself and this year I’ve developed quite a lot of confidence and done things I thought I’d never do. From presenting to 20 board members at major organisations to learning the more technical skills of data analytics ,these are things that coming from an Arts background, I thought were outside of my scope.  

How did you learn?

 I really attribute this to the support I had around me.The team culture is so supportive, and I felt comfortable asking every question under the sun. Because I was worried about not getting it, that stress motivated me to work really hard to improve. I also learned you can’t learn everything in the first day. But I made it my number one priority to learn as quickly as possible.

 When I transitioned into working in the comms space as well, that felt different because with my background it was probably easier, and I just find it really fun. As soon as I started to notice I was getting things, I thought,‘I can do this’.

 If this was happening in a more hierarchal business, it would have been a disaster, but I had such a good support system, particularly with Bryan side by side every day, he started earlier and made himself super available and is a great teacher. Isabelle has been my biggest cheerleader, in the comms space. But then saying names also makes me want to callout Jaxen, Tim Eddy and Tim Hunter, for their support – and can we tag the whole team?

 Now I look at not knowing something as an exciting thing. I have a more positive outlook on learning. It’s a fun and exciting thing. Not something to worry about because I’m a big worrier.

What are you most excited about learning next?

 Obviously to keep learning. I keep saying it, but now that I back myself more – I’d love to see how I can use that learning experience to learn more leadership skills and I’m excited to dip myself into another area.

Advice

1.    No matter your experience, or the job is that you’re being recruited for, never underestimate yourself and where you can add value.

2.    You’re a team. In a workplace, it’s a group of people for a reason. Work is the majority of your life – the sooner you realise that your colleagues are there to help you, to be your friend, to help you to improve – the better. You should be able to say when you’re proud of work you’ve done, or ask questions and say you’re struggling with something. That’s the best part.  

3.    Always think big. What my job started out as, it’s now very different a year down the track, nothing is ever permanent, there is always some way you can develop – and there’s always going to be a time where you make another mistake.

4.    When you finish uni, you glamourise your first job, put pressure on yourself that it will go perfectly. I wish someone said tome – ‘it’s your first full-time job, it’s not about being a perfect employee, you’re going to make some mistakes, but that’s a good thing, it means you’re growing.’