Finding A Work-From-Home Opportunity: Ankitaa's Story
Ankitaa, a web consultant based out of Uttarakhand and also a SHEROES alumni is a work-from-home mom who had to take a break from her career in 2013. With fire in her heart and the dedication to work, she found her way to SHEROES.
Ankitaa tells us about her experience here:
Tell us about yourself and your roots?
I'm a work-from-home mom, practising image consulting and web consulting through my websites anksimage.com and ankitaagd.in respectively. I am originally from Assam, single child to an IAS officer and housewife. My husband and I own a couple of packaging solutions companies in Uttarakhand. We have a naughty little toddler, who has just started playschool.
What does your current role entail?
My job at DesignRoti.com, is related to web consulting work. It's a freelance position where I update the website design, perform maintenance tasks, develop content for the company blog and overall website as needed, implement search engine optimisation tactics, and handle the company social media assets on a daily basis. It's a particularly challenging job for me because the web platform and its programming language is new for me.
Share with us a little bit about your career and education journey and the highlights of it.
My schooling was done all across Assam. I graduated from Michigan Tech University (USA) in 2004, although I began web consulting while I was still in school. Upon graduation, I was hired as a Business Intelligence Consultant for Cognos by Fisher-Price (New York) and worked there till I came to India in 2008. It was during my time at Fisher-Price where I started brand management and corporate training, and then moved onto personal image consulting. Once back in India, I started Anks Image with clients from mainly New Delhi and New York. I took a sabbatical due to a high-risk pregnancy in 2013, and finally was able to find myself again by the end of 2014. 2015 was the year of my comeback. And now in 2016 things are looking more promising.
What is your source of inspiration and what would you say to women on their career journeys?
My daughter motivates me to be everything I can be. I want to financially secure her future, and also show her that women can be multifaceted (daughter, wife, mother, consultant with a multifaceted career), look great, and be successful and happy with herself, within herself. All it takes is hard work.
For all women on their career journeys, all I would like to say is - hold on to your patience! The road to success is filled with failures, obstacles, and tantrums. So patience is definitely a virtue.
Do you have a SHEROES Story?
The years 2011 and 2012 were the busiest for me in my life so far. At one time, I was only working with celebrities, which means I was pulling 16-hour work shifts and running purely on excitement, adrenaline and nervous energy. When my pregnancy was confirmed in 2013, it was overshadowed by the fact that it was a high-risk one. And I had to give up work, completely. I lost touch with everyone in my professional life. My baby was born in August 2013, and my so-called career took another blow - I had to leave Delhi and move up north.
Long story short, I was taking care of the baby and when she slept, I was depressed, even suicidal. My husband supported me all the way, but I lost myself. But life goes on and finally by the end of 2014, I started making conscious efforts to get myself back on track.
I hired myself to update my own neglected websites, sent out feelers to people whom I used to know, and actively started refreshing my skills. Everyone I knew replied and that was a huge boost. While work-from-home option was not that popular back in 2012, I realised it's a well-known working option now. And apparently now there were websites with work-from-home options, the first I came across being SHEROES.in. But I didn't want to join a website. I didn't want to waste hours creating a profile, going through job descriptions and the usual work.
However, 3-4 people recommended Sheroes to me. Now I hold these people in high regard. So mid-March, I spent almost an hour to sign up, and create my profile on Sheroes.in. I remember grumbling my way through the whole time, but I did it anyway to honour those people. I never expected anything. However, two days later, I was surprised to receive an email listing potential work-from-home job listings. I clicked through to the DesignRoti listing and applied. It was as simple as clicking a button. And then a couple of days later, the DesignRoti person called and we set up a Skype meeting. We Skyped for a couple of hours and she confirmed my job with an email. I spent the whole day going through the work she had described me, and then started thanking those people who had recommended Sheroes to me. And then I slept at night. Suddenly I woke up in the middle of the night, grabbed my phone to thank Sheroes directly on Twitter. Obviously I had to thank Sheroes itself, or else it wouldn't be fair. A few tweets later, you must have come to know of me. And now I'm a success story at Sheroes. Yay!
